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Ban open source AI models capable of creating WMDs
policy
ai
regulations
nuclear
ai-governance
ai-risk
ai-regulation
ai-safety
existential-risk
open-source
Cast your vote:
Results (25 votes):
Total
(25 votes)
For 16 (64%)
Abstain 1 (4%)
Against 8 (32%)
·
For (11)
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Gary MarcusProfessor of Psychology and Neural Sciencevotes For and says:
And I think that even more so because we’ve seen things like some of the most recent models maybe can help people make biological weapons.
Unverified source (May 31, 2025)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Geoffrey HintonGodfather of Deep Learningvotes For and says:
When you open source a big model and give people the weights [...] You get people using that open source model and training it, refining it to do something bad like cyberattacks or making biological weapons because it's much easier to refine the mode...
more Unverifiable source (2025)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Scott AlexanderAuthor and psychiatristvotes For and says:
Someday AIs really will be able to make nukes or pull off $500 million hacks. At that point, companies will have to certify that their model has been trained not to do this, and that it will stay trained. But if it were open-source, then anyone could...
more Unverifiable source (2024)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Yoshua BengioAI Pioneer, Turing Award winnervotes For and says:
I think it's really important, because when we put open source out there for something that could be dangerous, which is a tiny minority of all the code that's open source, essentially we're opening the door to all the bad actors. And as these system...
more Unverified source (Jul 25, 2023) 1 of 2DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Max TegmarkPhysicist, AI Researchervotes For and says:
There are some digital products (say CSAM and AI letting terrorists make bioweapons) that I oppose regardless of whether they are open-source or not, but I'm overall supportive of open source, and you can easily verify that my MIT research group defa...
more Unverifiable source (2026)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Demis HassabisNobel laureate, AI Researcher and CEO of DeepMindvotes For and says:
endowing rogue nations or terrorists with tools to synthesize a deadly virus. [...] keep the “weights” of the most powerful models out of the public’s hands.
Disputed source (2025)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Leopold AschenbrennerAI investor and policy analystvotes For and says:
On the current course, the leading Chinese AGI labs won’t be in Beijing or Shanghai—they’ll be in San Francisco and London. In a few years, it will be clear that the AGI secrets are the United States’ most important national defense secrets—deserving...
more Disputed source (2024)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
AnthropicAI safety research companyvotes For and says:
ASL-2 refers to systems that show early signs of dangerous capabilities – [...] give instructions on how to build bioweapons – [...] e.g. a search engine couldn’t.
Disputed source (Sep 19, 2023)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Richard BlumenthalU.S. Senator from Connecticutvotes For and says:
On the issue of open source, you each raised the security and safety risk of AI models that are open source or are leaked to the public, the danger. There are some advantages to having open source, as well. It's a complicated issue. I appreciate that...
more Disputed source (Jul 25, 2023)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Eliezer YudkowskyAI researcher and writervotes For and says:
But open sourcing, that's just sheer catastrophe. [...] wrong approach, the wrong ideal. [...] where if you could align it it would take time [...] not kill everyone.
Disputed source (Mar 30, 2023)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Anna G. EshooU.S. Representative from Californiavotes For and says:
Content controls, a free content filter, monitoring of applications, and a code of conduct are several other steps industry and academia, with the coaxing of the Administration and policymakers, could take to encourage responsible science and guard a...
more Unverifiable source (2022)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly.
Abstain (1)
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Jules PalayerSIPRI researcher on AI and securityabstains and says:
Finally, to avoid that open-source models are accessed and retrofitted for malicious purposes a potential solution is to create self-destruct codes that activate if the model is tampered with.
Disputed source (Mar 26, 2024)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly.
Against (5)
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Marc AndreessenGeneral Partner at a16z (VC), co-founder of Netscapevotes Against and says:
there has to be full open source here. [...] if you're worried about AI-generated pathogens, [...] Let's do a Manhattan Project for biological defense.
AI Verified source (2023)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Arthur MenschMistral AI co-founder and CEOvotes Against and says:
But today, going, banning open source, preventing it from happening is really a way, well, to enforce regulatory capture, even though the actors that would benefit from it don’t want it to happen. […] If you actually ban small actors from doing thing...
more AI Verified source (2023)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Tal FeldmanLawfare contributorvotes Against and says:
Since computational infrastructure is largely open-access, decentralized, and global, regulatory chokepoints are limited. Export controls may delay access to high-performance computing, but they are unlikely to prevent the use of open-source models f...
more Unverified source (2025) 1 of 2DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)US Commerce Department telecom agencyvotes Against and says:
current evidence is not sufficient [...] (but) take steps to ensure that the government is prepared to act if heightened risks emerge.
Unverified source (2024)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly. -
Kevin BankstonSenior Advisor on AI Governancevotes Against and says:
CDT appreciates that the NTIA correctly concluded that there is not yet enough evidence of novel risks from open foundation models to warrant new restrictions on their distribution.
Disputed source (Jul 30, 2024)DelegateChoose a list of delegatesto vote as the majority of them.Unless you vote directly.
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