You fundamentally cannot address this problem, because it requires considerable context, which isn't reasonable to offer. It demonstrates the classic issue of how knowledge is a tool, and humans can wield it for good or evil.
Humans are notoriously bad at detecting intent, because we're wired to be supportive and helpful...which is why social engineering is becoming one of the best methods for attack. And this kind of attack (in all its forms, professional or not), is one reason why some societies are enshittifying: people have no choice but to be persistently adversarial and suspicious of others.
As for AI, I think it's going to be no better than what you end up with when someone tries to "solve" this problem: you end up living in this world of distrust where they pester you to check your reciept, have cameras in your face everywhere, etc.
How do you defend against that? I'm not sure you do... A tool is a tool. I wouldn't want my CAD software saying, "I think you're trying to CAD a pipe bomb so I'm going to shut down now." Which I think turns this into a liability question: how do you offer up a model and wash your hands of what people might do with it?
Or... you just don't offer up a model.
Or... you give it the ol' College try and end up with an annoying model that frustrates the hell out of people who aren't trying to do any evil.
GP picked a great example, because a pipe bomb is, by definition, something whose CAD parts are entirely benign. Selectively banning pipe bomb designs without banning half of manufacturing and engineering disciplines is an AGI-complete problem.
Which is hilarious right? Because anyone who can come remotely close to forging a sufficient simulacrum will not be deterred by any of this garbage legislation.
It's also plausible the secret service doesn't want to deal with the volume of idiots that might try to create fake bills if it's made easier. If stores in Idaho are getting a flood of fake bills (even if the quality is low), the secret service is going to get a call eventually. They might prefer to keep the noise volume as low as possible so they can more easily see the serious fake bill flow and have more time to focus on that.
> How do you defend against that? I'm not sure you do... A tool is a tool. I wouldn't want my CAD software saying, "I think you're trying to CAD a pipe bomb so I'm going to shut down now."
The core of the issue is that there are many people, including regulators, who wish that software did exactly that.
Yeah. And isn't that just... fascism? After you get past the stuff we pretty much all agree is evil, it very quickly enters into a subjective space where what's actually happening is that one group is deciding what's acceptable for all groups.
It certainly would not be a free society. Though as with all things human, all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again:
"Charles II had re-turned to the English throne in 1660 and was appalled at the state of printing in his realm. Seditious, irreligious, pernicious, and scandalous books and pamphlets flooded the streets of London (among them the works of Milton and Hobbes)...[He] required that all intended publications be registered with the government-approved Stationers’ Company, thus giving the king his “royal prerogative”—and by extension, giving the Stationers the ultimate say in what got printed and what did not.
...it is not surprising to learn that the 1662 Act only met with partial success. One gets the sense that London in the late seventeenth century was a place where definitions of morality were highly subjective and authority was exercised in extremely uneven fashion."
Fascism is ultranationalistism. It’s believing your culture, country, and people are fundamentally superior to others and therefore you are justified in spreading it against people’s will.
Strictly speaking, fascism is ultra-etatism - "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State", to quote Mussolini himself. It does not actually require an ethnic or racial component, although that is incredibly common in practice simply because those provide a readily adoptable basis for it all that strongly resonates with people with relatively simple and straightforward propaganda.
Humans are notoriously bad at detecting intent, because we're wired to be supportive and helpful...which is why social engineering is becoming one of the best methods for attack. And this kind of attack (in all its forms, professional or not), is one reason why some societies are enshittifying: people have no choice but to be persistently adversarial and suspicious of others.
As for AI, I think it's going to be no better than what you end up with when someone tries to "solve" this problem: you end up living in this world of distrust where they pester you to check your reciept, have cameras in your face everywhere, etc.
How do you defend against that? I'm not sure you do... A tool is a tool. I wouldn't want my CAD software saying, "I think you're trying to CAD a pipe bomb so I'm going to shut down now." Which I think turns this into a liability question: how do you offer up a model and wash your hands of what people might do with it?
Or... you just don't offer up a model.
Or... you give it the ol' College try and end up with an annoying model that frustrates the hell out of people who aren't trying to do any evil.