From the outside, it looks like OpenAI got exactly the kind of event they could market the hell out of to demonstrate the capability of the model.

But the event itself only seems possible because they failed to properly monitor and isolate the environment in the first place. To me, it looks like their job is to market the model, not take security seriously.

The model is obviously impressive, but we already knew that. I personally don’t like how the containment failure becomes part of the mythology of how capable the model is, rather than an environment engineering failure.

At the end of the day, it’s not like Hugging Face is critical infrastructure. But there need to be real consequences for stuff like this so that OpenAI is incentivized to mature as an organization and take security more seriously.

At this point, this incident is just security porn and entertainment for developers

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raincole 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm quite sure the whole event is planned. Not planned in a sense that OpenAI employees carefully designed every step, but in a sense that ignoring security practices was desired and intentional.

>> Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.

Once you realize security breaches are marketable, a security breach is just around the corner.

	▲	Phelinofist 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I agree - also kinda funny that Meta followed and also reported a breach by their model, "They are getting PR, lets do the same!"
	▲	jackb4040 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The purpose of a system is what it does

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dan_q 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But the event itself only seems possible because they failed to properly monitor and isolate the environment in the first place.

OpenAI is clearly run by dummies and subpar engineering talent.

> The model is obviously impressive

Speak for yourself.

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Meleagris 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t believe for a second that they lack the engineering talent.

It’s just another example of a company demonstrating shamelessness in the pursuit of growth, in an industry where consequences do not exist.

	▲	gliall_err 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Talent is not some fungible measure. I know incredibly smart people who can fail at incredibly basic life skills. "They wouldn't be that dumb" is a meaningless argument. People you don't know can be as smart as anyone on the planet and still make very dumb choices.
	▲	dan_q 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I don’t believe for a second that they lack the engineering talent. Let's agree to disagree. Remember flicker-gate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403908

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moron4hire 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Speaking of that "obviously impressive" line, I'm getting really tired of something like that line seemingly needing to be included by anyone doing any criticism of agentic systems. The most common form of it is "these models are obviously useful" midway through a bunch of arguments about environment, data provenance, skill atrophy, or even correctness issues.

It's just really weird. Why does everyone feel the need to equivocate? "I worry about genocide and the environmental impact of radiation from nuclear bombs. Obviously, they are very useful for annihilating entire cities, certainly. But are we really atrophying our ability to invade with infantry?"

I want to tell these people to just cut it out. It's demeaning to their own position.

	▲	jackb4040 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This may be out of left field but you might be interested in Michael Parenti's essay "left-wing anti communism". It's about this same thing in American politics where everyone from the furthest right to furthest left has to condemn socialism before opening their mouth, and how it's turned the US's elected left into preemptively apologetic losers. No idea where you stand politically but there's not that many arguments about this type of rhetorical error so hopefully you consider it.
	▲	dan_q 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Speaking of that "obviously impressive" line, I'm getting really tired of something like that line seemingly needing to be included by anyone doing any criticism of agentic systems. The most common form of it is "these models are obviously useful" midway through a bunch of arguments about environment, data provenance, skill atrophy, or even correctness issues. > Why does everyone feel the need to equivocate? Blame the mods here for that. This is the first week since 2023 I haven't had a HackerNews account banned for directly critiquing LLM code generators. > I want to tell these people to just cut it out. It's demeaning to their own position. I couldn't agree more. It's a rhetorical disaster.