#108 - The OpenAI/HuggingFace "incident": Responding to Sam Harris and Ryan Greenblatt

Vaden has been annoyed about the Hugging Face incident for weeks, and the only known cure is yelling
about it on the podcast. Ben, who as usual is more even-headed and objective about the incident (incidentally, he also writes the episode descriptions) plays devil's advocate. Was there ever really a sandbox? Did the agents cheat, or did they just do what they were told? Is terrifying the public good for an IPO? Multiple analogies enter the fray, zero minds are changed, and Saturday Night Live gets the last word.

- What actually happened in the Hugging Face incident (and what is ExploitGym?)

• What Project Glasswing and Mythos already told us about AI and cybersecurity
• Is a sandbox with Artifactory access still a sandbox?
• Did the agents cheat, or just follow their prompt?
• Negligence, PR stunt, or both? Going through OpenAI's timeline
• How independent is an "independent" investigation?
• Does anthropomorphic language help you predict what AI will do?
• Grenades, knives, and yogurt: parenting styles for package managers

• The Hugging Face incident and the road ahead (OpenAI blog post): https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/
• OpenAI's technical report on the incident (PDF): https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/67869394-cb91-4c12-888c-5cbd85c7814c/OpenAI-Hugging-Face%20Incident-Technical-Report.pdf
• Making Sense #494, "A Coin Toss for the Future" (Sam Harris with Ryan Greenblatt): https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/494-a-coin-toss-for-the-future
• Redwood Research on the incident: https://blog.redwoodresearch.org/p/the-openaihuggingface-incident-redwood
• Dwarkesh Podcast with Ajeya Cotra, "Inside the OpenAI agent swarm that hacked Hugging Face": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X50zezLFWWI&pp=ygUVZHdhcmtlc2ggaHVnZ2luZyBmYWNl
• Melanie Mitchell, "Misleading Metaphors and Real Risks": https://aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading-metaphors-and-real-risks
• Anthropic's Project Glasswing: https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing
• JFrog Artifactory: https://jfrog.com/artifactory/
  
• Our episode with Melanie Mitchell: https://www.incrementspodcast.com/45

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