By tracking GPU sales, we can detect large-scale AI development. Since frontier model GPU clusters require immense amounts of energy and custom buildings, the physical infrastructure required to train a large model is hard to hide.
This will change/is only the case for frontier development. I also think we’re probably in the hardware overhang. I don’t think there is anything inherently difficult to hide about AI, that’s likely just a fact about the present iteration of AI.
But I’d be very open to more arguments on this. I guess… I’m convinced there’s a decent chance that an international treaty would be enforceable and that China and France would sign onto it if the US was interested, but the risk of secret development continuing is high enough for me that it doesn’t seem good on net.
A relevant FAQ entry: AI development might go underground
I think I disagree here:
This will change/is only the case for frontier development. I also think we’re probably in the hardware overhang. I don’t think there is anything inherently difficult to hide about AI, that’s likely just a fact about the present iteration of AI.
But I’d be very open to more arguments on this. I guess… I’m convinced there’s a decent chance that an international treaty would be enforceable and that China and France would sign onto it if the US was interested, but the risk of secret development continuing is high enough for me that it doesn’t seem good on net.