Sorry for the cynical sounding answer, but: If we did have open source AGI, tell me how it would in practice realistically change the power dynamic for better or worse?
The info to make jets, nukes, etc exists in the public domain, but 99% of threat actors structurally lack standing to build or leverage either. Same here with AGI and AI tech in general...
Suppose we did open source AGI:
- The government, financial institutions, criminals and terrorists in the developing world, "entrepreneurs" with money behind them, real entrepreneurs starting with nothing, and everybody else 'alike' "will have access" to open source AGI.
- The government, financial institutions, family offices, ... will have a team of quants, AI scientists, and engineers running it to their agenda with an unlimited budget for the hardware to run it on or unlimited inference credits.
- Criminals, terrorists, and low income altruistic entrepreneurs alike will get their $0.10 of inference credits that will let them work for half a day before they hit a paywall.
- Everybody else: Middle class "power users" will get their "sort of unlimited" scaled down version or a few prompts a month at the full sized model when the scaled down version isn't working.
- ... And the last 2 categories will be fighting to outdo those in the first category. There will be 0.1% with a combination of whit, connections, and luck that will beat the dealer at his own table and will be a few people rise to power or pull off something that has a major impact, good or bad. For the other 99.9%, things will remain as they are.
What would open source AGI change then in terms of it posing a threat? How would a criminal or terrorist having access to a copy give them the upper hand over the rest of us?
