andai3 hours ago
If they succeed here, won't they have to gate access to this feature, too? For the same reasons as, "if I so much as mention mitochondria, it downgrades me to Opus."
Step 1. Make it so Claude can do anything — the whole point of AGI
Step 2. Wait, if the user can do Anything, that would be Very Bad!
Step 3. Err on the safe side with blanket bans of entire fields
The latter actually seems to me a sensible reaction to e.g. the compartmentalization used in the large scale cyber attack using Claude last year. Where they were able to do Bad Thing by dividing it into many, many Small, Seemingly Harmless Things.
Gated access sounds bad (and I agree it sounds bad!) but it might actually be the only sensible response to such a set of conditions. I'm not sure though.
--
I saw some studies recently which showed LLMs provide much more detailed information to expert users. So we can distinguish between competence and incompetence based on use of language, and that is a reasonable metric for harm reduction.
But I don't think we can reliably detect "user has harmful intentions", at least not at a sufficient level of sophistication of the attacker.
NewsaHackO3 hours ago
I think one time I asked opus about copyfail when it just came out and it did treat me like some sort of criminal, but are there really people that run into this on a regular basis other than cybersecurity experts (which cannot be a big enough group to generate all of this criticism)?
UltraSanean hour ago
Fable wouldn't even explain what an amino acid is.
MiracleRabbit3 hours ago
I just wait until a Opensource model inhaled all the chemistry books and papers. Lol.
They are following closely and the best offer 80-90% of the performance and come with a very small fraction of the costs.
echelon_musk2 hours ago
Why wouldn't the US gov. outlaw the open source models?
MiracleRabbit2 hours ago
Streisand effect
Deepseek.v4.Pro.RePacked.LLMBoyz.part1.zstd
UltraSanean hour ago
Much harder to ban if they can run locally
gopalv5 hours ago
The non-professional side of Organic Chemistry is one place where I think AI would really shine.
Feels complex like solving a Rubik's cube to write down synthesis steps but it is all a sequence of memorized tricks. Do Cannizaro if you want this, Bergmann to do that.
But the synthesis plan is only 10% of the actual work.
The gap between writing down the synthesis step and actually doing it is also extremely large.
Even if you get the right molecule, it might be the wrong way around or just clump up into a useless mess.
The Ritonavir episode of Veritasium is a great example of how all chemistry on paper is a mere shadow of what actually happens in real life.
ElFitz3 hours ago
> Feels complex like solving a Rubik's cube to write down synthesis steps but it is all a sequence of memorized tricks. Do Cannizaro if you want this, Bergmann to do that.
I remember two years ago, when I actually got into using graph data structures, wondering if maybe the "space" of available reactions for any given starter and target molecules could be mapped as a graph, with intermediates as nodes and reactions as weighted directed edges, so synthesis becomes pathfinding through chemical space.
Turns out, it’s a thing! [^0]
Edit: Makes you wonder how much interesting stuff is sitting in plain sight, waiting for someone with the right cross-domain awareness / knowledge / whatever to notice it.
gilleain2 hours ago
There is a lot of graph theory in Chemistry - modelling chemicals as (vertex/edge coloured) graphs, reaction networks, etc.
Of course some molecules (eg aromatic systems, like ferrocene) are not naturally representable as graphs. I wonder if it is the same with synthesis - are there reactions hard to model as a graph (or petri net or whatever). One simple example I know is that you have to be careful with including a node for 'water' as it gets connected to everything else! Or at least in biochemistry it does.
jgilias5 hours ago
> Even if you get the right molecule, it might be the wrong way around or just clump up into a useless mess.
Sounds a lot like vibe coding lol
fakedang4 hours ago
Modern biochemistry (so far) IS vibe coding lol. You mostly have vibes on how the chemistry should work, based on (very strong) natural evidence coupled with theoretical development and lab studies. Then you mix and match, goading bacteria and praying that they produce what you want in good measure. Then you take their secretions and run chromatography studies on them to check if that's what you actually want, or whether it's just some random bullshit. If it's the latter, you have to toss that out and start all over again.
moffkalast4 hours ago
At least vibe coding can only explode in your face metaphorically.
b1122 hours ago
Until vibe code is used for weapons system, or explosive manufacturers, or.. or...
The world today is coding.
reinitctxoffset4 hours ago
Organic chemistry seems like a discipline better done by chemists than forward deployed staff with their payoff function sharply truncated at an IPO which at this point may or may not happen on schedule.
sandermvanvlietan hour ago
Waiting for Claude to end up on Derek Lowe’s list of things he won’t work with
xvilka3 hours ago
Combine it with automated lab like this[1][2][3][4][5] (and many others) and it will iterate much quicker. Some already do but at a smaller scale, AFAIK.
[1] https://www.ginkgo.bio/autonomous-lab
matheusmoreira5 hours ago
What good is it if you can't use it? Or worse, if you can but it silently sabotages you?
yorwba5 hours ago
> We measured three Claude models (Opus 4.7, Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6)
You can use those and they probably won't intentionally sabotage you.
matheusmoreira5 hours ago
Yeah. Probably.
sudhirkhanger32 minutes ago
Are there organizations or individuals using AI to solve world problems if they are so powerful as these companies are saying?
anentropic2 hours ago
I guess the future is one where every idiot has access to a genius servant, and all that implies
smj-edison4 hours ago
I feel like chemistry is one thing that current models will struggle with for the next while, because it's inherently 3D. In the micro world, shape = function. Maybe enough textual patterns will let it under chemistry, but like how do you describe a hydrogen shift without showing how it moves positions and rebalances bonds?
FailMore2 hours ago
I think this is a very interesting concept/question. I feel like programming is more about shapes than anything else… but they seem to have mastered that fairly easily… but I totally get your point!
johncolean hour ago
Agree here, chem may be more complex than language, and not as definable as language. I think this is the realm that physical ai will overlap with.
thefounder5 hours ago
Let’s ban this before it gets too powerful !
simulator5g5 hours ago
I don't think it should be outright banned, automated intelligence is like a gun, hammer, knife, nuclear warhead, etc.
pkal4 hours ago
I see that intelligence itself is a tool, but that doesn't mean I want an automated gun, automated hammer, automated nuclear warhead, etc.
fakedang4 hours ago
You may not want them, but the NRA certainly wants that you want them.
ben_w4 hours ago
In the future perhaps it will mean "Neural Rifle Automaton"
tearwear4 hours ago
not really, though. you don't see automated intelligence in the hands of junkies et al. ... and you don't see it coming, either ...
simulator5g4 hours ago
Junkies et al can log into chatgpt right now and use it to create a phishing email to steal drug money from your Grandma. Many people saw this coming.
xaxfixho4 hours ago
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ed_mercer2 hours ago
I wonder if every future announcement will be met with this criticism. Like, what's the point if they'll ban it in a few days.
UltraSanean hour ago
I don't really want the average LLM being able to tell anyone exactly how to syntheize lethal nerve agents.
bouncycastle25 minutes ago
you can already get that information by reading books in the library.
The biggest barrier is not information, it's the ability to secure enough of the materials and equipment.
For example, information for how to make a nuclear weapon is already there in the library. However, mining enough yellow cake and then purifying it is an industrial scale operation, out of reach unless you are a nation state, and have good mountain tunnels, etc. To a lesser extent, this is also true for producing chemical weapons. The theory is there, but actual production extremely out of reach. No LLM can help you there. (You can verify by reading up on Aum Shinrikyo to get an idea of the staggering scale required)
defrost21 minutes ago
> mining enough yellow cake and then purifying it is an industrial scale operation, out of reach unless you are a nation state
or a transnational (or even national scale) energy and or minerals company.
Might be hard to slip past the shareholders, but dark projects have flown under the annual reports of several large players.
exitnode2 hours ago
I vote for "Claude Pinkman" as a name
jgilias5 hours ago
inb4 someone calls Bessent to explain how this can be used in fentanyl production.
andrewstuartan hour ago
“I can’t tell you that, you might hurt yourself.”
hansmayer2 hours ago
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