<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 9:39 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span></div></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>>> > One might debate whether previous examples were "vast" or truly<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span> "intelligence" ("Is this particular AI actually 'intelligent'?"</i></font></blockquote></blockquote></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>
><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> Do you think a debate on whether Einstein was truly "intelligent" would be productive?</b></font></blockquote>
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>No, nor do I think that question is relevant.</i></font><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><span class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"></font><font size="4" style="" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b style="">Why is </b></font></span><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>it silly to ask if Einstein was intelligent but not silly to ask if an <span class="gmail_default" style="">AI is intelligent, an AI that discovered a bug in software that has been there for 27 years that humans have never found despite thousands of software engineers having scrutinized it</span> for decades<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>looking for bugs?<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span></b></font></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>Neither Mythos itself<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>nor anyone using Mythos appears to have already directly damaged a<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span></i></font><i style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:large">majority of the world's computers.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>And that is precisely because <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">A</span>nthropic decided<span class="gmail_default" style=""> not to release Mythos to the general public and therefore renouncing billions of dollars of revenue they could have otherwise received, and that is a decision you seem to have opposed. Or perhaps you don't oppose it, perhaps you just like to argue.</span></b></font></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> Consider the computer you're using to read these words on right now, if it's using the Linux operating system (or Android which is based on it) or an operating system made by Apple or Microsoft, then RIGHT NOW Dario Amodei could order Mythos to take complete control of your computer and do whatever he wants with it.</b></font></blockquote>
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>It is true that he could issue the orders, but they would not have<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>that result. Even acknowledging the flaws they found, he lacks the<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>ability to apply them to my system.</i></font><br></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>I <u>very much</u> doubt that<span class="gmail_default" style="">.</span> I know for a fact <span class="gmail_default" style="">your system is</span> connected to the Internet because you're communicating with me right now. And even air<span class="gmail_default" style="">-</span>gap<span class="gmail_default" style="">ped</span> computers are not immune <span class="gmail_default" style="">from</span> cyber attacks<span class="gmail_default" style="">;</span> the computer that controlled Iran's uranium enrichment plan<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">t</span> in 2010 was air-gapped, but the Stuxnet<span class="gmail_default" style=""> computer virus nevertheless infected it and severely damaged the plant delaying Iran's ability to enrich U235 by 2 to 3 years. The virus got in because somebody, either Israel or the US or both, infected a common everyday HP printer with Stuxnet which was subsequently connected to that air-gapped computer. Imagine what the attackers could've done if Mythos had been around in 2010!</span></b></font><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>I have checked the vulnerabilities. They are indeed of concern to a<br>
typical corporate environment, like those that I have used in prior<br>
work. For my own systems, I run better security than that, and I have<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>for decades.</i></font><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>It's good that you checked for vulnerabilities but did<span class="gmail_default" style=""></span> you find even one zero day vulnerability<span class="gmail_default" style=""> in a major piece of software and repair it? </span> Mythos<span class="gmail_default" style=""> found <u>thousands</u> of them in just a few weeks. </span>And by the way,<span class="gmail_default" style=""> almost everybody who has had their computer infected with a virus thought they were immune from cyber attacks. </span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style=""><br></span></b></font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> And he could do the same thing to computers that run nuclear power plants, air traffic control computers, and the computers that run the New York Stock Exchange. And if he wanted to knock a F-35 fighter jet out of the air he could take control of the computers needed to enable it to fly and knock it out of the air. And stealth technology would not save it.</b></font></blockquote>
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>There's another problem with your case. What do you think would<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>happen if someone actually pulled that?<br></i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>I think if somebody actually pulled that off then that would be bad. Apparently you disagree. Do you think it was wrong for anthropic not to immediately release Mythos to the general public? Do you actually believe that would not create a worldwide catastrophe? <u>Thousands of zero day flaws </u>!!</b></font><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>You seem to assume that the attacked institutions would just sit<br>
there, unable and unwilling to respond and recover their capability or<br>
mitigate the damage. </i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>If it comes down to a cyber war<span class="gmail_default" style=""> between machines and humans the machines are going to win and they are going to win easily. Your only hope would be to enlist the aid of a friendly AI of your own to protect you, but even then your safety would not be ensured because </span>it's always easier to damage something th<span class="gmail_default" style="">an</span> it is to protect something from damage.<span class="gmail_default" style=""> And are you sure your friendly AI is really friendly? </span></b></font></div><div><font size="4"> </font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>If the New York Stock Exchange went offline for a week (before they<br>
resumed full operations, restoring data from the countless backups all<br>
over the world), most people would barely notice,</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" size="4"><b>That is just ridiculous.<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span> </b></font></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i style=""><span class="gmail_default" style="">> </span>A nuclear power plant - even multiple ones, attacked all at the same<br>
time - would almost certainly scram and shut down safely,</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Not if the computer controlling the reactor<span class="gmail_default" style=""> pushed the fuel rods all the way in and pulled the control rods all the way out. And the </span>Fukushima nuclear<span class="gmail_default" style=""> reactors were all successfully scrammed, and so was the reactor at 3 mile island, but disasters still resulted because, although scraming stops the chain reaction, for several hours after that the reactor is still producing about 10% as much heat energy as it did before the scram due to extremely radioactive short half-life decay products. And even at 10% that's still a hell of a lot of energy. If the cooling system is not working properly you're going to have several hundred tons of white hot metal burn through the bottom of your reactor building. </span></b></font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>You asked what people would remember, not what is a big deal.<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>People will remember the bombing of Iran. </i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>In 10 <span class="gmail_default" style=""></span>years <span class="gmail_default" style="">(or maybe 5) if</span> people remember the Iran war at all it will be as <span class="gmail_default" style="">an u</span><span class="gmail_default" style="">nimportant f</span>ootnote, and <span class="gmail_default" style="">people</span> may not remember<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>even that because in 10 years there may not be <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">any </span>people<span class="gmail_default" style="">; that depends on if AI thinks we're worth keeping around. All I know for sure is that in 10 years human beings will not be the one in charge, an AI will not be the one making existential decisions, not humans. </span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><br></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style="">John K Clark</span> </b></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
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