Nathan Lambert says open models will be used in cyber attacks, but aren’t a 100x crime multiplier

What happened

Open models will be used for cyber attacks, just like closed models have been. At the same time, open models aren’t the super high leverage tool magically increasing cyber crime by 100x — those bottlenecks lay elsewhere.

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The story so far

Nathan Lambert defended his position on open models and cyber risks, acknowledging that open models will be used in cyberattacks while rejecting the idea that they will multiply cybercrime by 100x. He said closed models have already been used in attacks and argued that the bottlenecks limiting cybercrime lie elsewhere. Lambert said the AI community is focusing on the wrong question by centering the debate on which type of model causes harm. He argued that the more useful questions concern how cybersecurity maintains an equilibrium, who carries out harmful activity and how those actors use new tools.