Why there's no choice but to regulate big compute | Lennart Heim (2023)

Originally released June 2023. As AI advances ever more quickly, concerns about potential misuse of highly capable models are growing. From hostile foreign governments and terrorists to reckless entrepreneurs, the threat of AI falling into the wrong hands is top of mind for the national security community.
With growing concerns about the use of AI in military applications, the US has banned the export of certain types of chips to China. But unlike the uranium required to make nuclear weapons, or the material inputs to a bioweapons programme, computer chips and machine learning models are absolutely everywhere. So is it actually possible to keep dangerous capabilities out of the wrong hands?
In today’s interview, Lennart Heim - who researches compute governance at the Centre for the Governance of AI - explains why limiting access to supercomputers may represent our best shot.
In this episode:
• Rob’s intro [00:00:00]
• The interview begins [00:04:35]
• What is compute exactly? [00:09:46]
• Structural risks [00:13:25]
• Why focus on compute? [00:21:43]
• Weaknesses of targeting compute [00:30:41]
• Chip specialisation [00:37:11]
• Export restrictions [00:40:13]
• Compute governance is happening [00:59:00]
• Reactions to AI regulation [01:05:03]
• Creating legal authority to intervene quickly [01:10:09]
• Building mechanisms into chips themselves [01:18:57]
• Rob not buying that any of this will work [01:39:28]
• Are we doomed to become irrelevant? [01:59:10]
• Rob’s computer security bad dreams [02:10:22]
• Concrete advice [02:26:58]
• Article reading: Information security in high-impact areas [02:49:36]
• Rob’s outro [03:10:38]
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