While it's an extremely hard problem, it's not completely unsolvable because there are a finite number of GPUs on the planet capable of doing frontier model development, and they use a lot of power. The vast majority of them could be tracked. China and the US could agree to joint monitoring and they could each verify what ~95% of the other's compute power was up to.

A lab of researchers without compute isn't going to accomplish much, there is a huge physical footprint unlike bioweapons research. But, the political aspect is unsolved.

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nradov 15 minutes ago | parent [-]

What a naive, ignorant comment. China is catching up fast on GPU fabrication. They're still a generation or two behind but they can just throw more hardware and electricity at the problem. This is not something that we could ever monitor effectively in a fascist state like China.

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bpodgursky 7 minutes ago | parent [-]

I said IF the US and China agree to joint monitoring, THEN we could verify how much compute existed and what it was being used for.

YES, China will catch up in chip production, but if each side allowed the other to track GPU production and deliveries, on the ground, it would be very hard for either player to have secret LLM training facilities capable of training frontier models.

	▲	nradov 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Nope. Even if China agrees they'll hide their real activities. You're so naive.