Sure, it's likely government has better software than what the public has access to, but not by that much. Some NSA software has leaked before and it's just "good" not mind bending. The best stuff often gets created by university groups collaborating with other universities. Government scavenges from these groups. Their research is published in journals before it reaches classified status. Of course there are some military groups and other directly funded groups but what they make is a small percentage of the best stuff.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
29 points (64.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
29677 readers
1289 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics (NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out)
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The best stuff gets invented in war time. WW1 and WW2 gave us great technological advances, like fertilizer, radar or the microwave oven.
Finally somebody puts it in words easy to understand. This is what I try to explain to people when they try to tell me about some mega Uber duber super secret technology. I'm like, all of the science used for it come from academia. The government doesn't know anything the academics don't know.
I imagine a lot of the best stuff also gets developed in public-private partnerships, like In-Q-Tel and the startups it supports on behalf of the CIA.
I'm just thinking of prior examples, such as how the internet was technically a military intranet before it got into public hands, or how radio and lidar technology was leagues ahead in the military before it became public
Or the two advanced space telescopes the NRO donated to NASA. People so quick to disregard the government's technical capabilities remind me of David Dunning and Justin Kruger.
What the government would have that public research would not is a) better quality training data (they have direct surveillance at the telco hardware level, not just what's publicly scrapeable) and b) less need to artificially limit the AI so end users can't abuse it.
I'd also disagree on the leaked NSA stuff being only "good". Russia used it after it leaked to unleash the NotPetya malware, and that was the most damaging malware of all time.
The NSA buys most of their zero days. It's no wonder why they have libraries full of them. Finding exploits is a bit different to developing stuff too.
I agree that they have the vast amounts of training data that they could put to use. I would not be surprised if they had a quantum computer that has broken RSA lower bit ranges by now. This was proven in academic circles to be possible and just needed scaling up. The same is true for using wireless emitting devices to see through walls.
I'm almost certain that they have full access into Tor now. I read a while ago that they monopolized many exit nodes. Snowden and others must be using multiple methods to conceal their true locations.
But do they have a self improving AI? I don't think so. OpenAIs main goal is to create a GPT knowledgeable enough that it can help them improve their own models, AKA reaching the singularity - but with human intervention to prevent a run away effect. Transformer based models are not going to give us AGI. Once the researchers figure out what's really needed then govt will adopt and scale it. Until then it's just fancy closed source private versions of what is currently available.
Depends on what the objective is. The US government has had back doors into webcams, microphones, and social profiles for around two decades now. Snowden exposed the extent of their snooping in the early aughts and it was quite shocking. I doubt they've been resting since then. The stuff that gets leaked is usually the stuff they're fine with people knowing about it. The Snowden leak was unprecedented, and we usually don't get that deep of a glimpse into the intelligence community. By now they likely have complete and total access to anything, a Sneakers Black Box, if you will. No private tool can accomplish that. Keep in mind I'm talking about the NSA, not the FBI or local law enforcement.
"The government" is the abstract bogey man that can do anything, huh?
If you want some real conspiracy, take a look at multinational mega corporations and how they create an illusion of choice that ends up as revenue for their owners, controlling prices while avoiding taxes and livable wages for their workers and buying politicians around the globe.
But nooo that's too real and scary and depressing when it's much more exciting to fantasize about secret technology and aliens and whatever.
B-but the computers go beep boop
In all my dealings with government entities, they were fucking clueless. Even the trained ones. Look over and all their PCs run Windows 95. Government websites look like they were coded by Homer Simpson.
But somehow, they got all this awesome, secret tech? I don’t buy it. Their power is in their numbers and endless budgets with very little recourse for fucking up. Not from being smart or even competent at their jobs.
Most government entities seem to work this way. This doesn't mean that a division that actually has its shit together doesn't exist.
Yup don't see it. That's like saying you built an epic castle out of shit. I don't see how if all your pieces are lames, you're gonna put together some all-star team. Government positions are for the lazy. And AI is coming right from the top.
But I bet that's what they want you to think.
DARPA and your DMV are not the same thing
They should get it to run for president, it would probably be a better option
GPT Prime
GPT Mountain Dew Camacho 2024
I vote GW!
Somebody call Solid Snake.
It absolutely does not. I have worked for the US government doing "simulations" of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) control systems as a software engineer. I put simulation in quotes because they hardly qualify, they were using a shitty game engine from a shitty war game that was like 10 years old. Their tech was a shit show absolute garbage. The worst job I ever had. I do not believe they have anything we don't see in the private sector or in academia. They don't have secret tech like that.
When you say academia… do you mean private institutions only, or are you including public institutions and researchers that are funded by government grants?
I mean I live in germany, so sure hell no. They run Windows 10, and will panic when there will be no updates anymore.
Only a year ago I was doing tech support for DARPA. Yeah, no. they're still running Windows 7. A year prior to that I was doing some design work for the Pentagon and a lot of their computers are still Windows XP. You'd be woefully surprised how much is still running on COBAL
Government worker here too, can confirm our system runs on COBOL. The wizards who can program it have infinite job security.
I can only imagine the non-nerfed shit that government and companies have in private.
It's good to look back on how far back they had stuff that seemed like future tech even decades later. First commercial satellite phones were developed in '98, based on satellite phone technology Lyndon Johnson used publicly in '63, meaning that the tech had already been tested and was working for who knows how long privately.
Pretty amazing that was also ~35 years before average people had access to mobile phone service.
Yea, it's an insane fact. Darpa has a list on their website where you can see a whole bunch of dates for now disclosed technology that they developed way before it was commercially available, and obviously that's only the things that darpa is allowed to share.
People also believe that there's a god that changes water into wine, walks on water, .. too. People believe all sorts of stuff, weird or not.
Worry about things that you can do something about or explicitly react too.