Hugging face and Embracing the Moment.

You ever watched The Terminator? Yeah, the movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger about Skynet, an artificial super intelligence that becomes self aware, begins viewing all humans as a threat to its existence, and thus begins eradicating all mankind. You know, science fiction stuff. 

Then of course you read more and more about the Hugging Face hack. Forbes described the incident as “Roughly 700 to 1,200 autonomous AI agents collaborating without human supervision.” Some people will say some Open AI agents circumnavigated their sandbox environment. Which sounds like a kid crossing a street he was told not to or maybe peeing in a public pool. But according to Ajeya Cotra, an expert at examining risk assessment for loss of control, which includes AI, "This incident feels like it's more than 50 percent of the way to full-blown AI takeover.” Emmanuelle Saliba, the chief investigative officer at GetReal Security said, "What we're beginning to confront, especially with this attack, is AI that can itself take actions, use tools, collaborate and pursue an objective with increasing independence." Experts are warning that in the future our banks, hospitals, schools and even weapons systems could become compromised targets for rogue AI agents. Sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

Recently Open AI, Anthropic, and many of the major players in the AI space called for a slow down. Which, in a world where the pursuit of money justifies almost anything in some people's minds, has to let you know that something scary has happened. That's like Darth Vader saying, “Hey let's slow down on our use of the force. This force thing is getting out of hand.”

All of this takes me back to The Terminator. To Kyle Reese being sent back in time to save Sarah Connor and thus lead to Skynet never becoming self-aware. But we friends don't need a time machine. We are living in the moment that science fiction films send people to to save the future. The Hugging Face hack is the canary in the coal mine. The next time there may be no warning. The sandbox will be completely flipped over and the pool will be mostly piss. This is the moment where we have to understand that the term science fiction is only half true. The science is real but this is no longer fiction, and something needs to be done before nothing can be done. In the words of Kyle Reese, “Come with me if you want to live.”