Simon Willison’s Weblog

You already know Donald Trump. He is unfit to lead. Watch him. Listen to those who know him best. He tried to subvert an election and remains a threat to democracy. He helped overturn Roe, with terrible consequences. Mr. Trump's corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It's his whole ethos. He lies without limit. If he's re-elected, the G.O.P. won't restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote.

— NY Times Editorial Board

# 5th November 2024, 1:33 am / new-york-times, politics

Lord Clement-Jones: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cybersecurity risks posed by prompt injection attacks to the processing by generative artificial intelligence of material provided from outside government, and whether any such attacks have been detected thus far.

Lord Vallance of Balham: Security is central to HMG's Generative AI Framework, which was published in January this year and sets out principles for using generative AI safely and responsibly. The risks posed by prompt injection attacks, including from material provided outside of government, have been assessed as part of this framework and are continually reviewed. The published Generative AI Framework for HMG specifically includes Prompt Injection attacks, alongside other AI specific cyber risks.

— Question for Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, UIN HL1541, tabled on 14 Oct 2024

# 1st November 2024, 3:14 pm / politics, prompt-injection, security, generative-ai, ai, uk, llms

Voters in the Clapham and Brixton Hill constituency can rest easy - despite appearances, their Reform candidate Mark Matlock really does exist. [...] Matlock - based in the South Cotswolds, some 100 miles from the constituency in which he is standing - confirmed: "I am a real person." Although his campaign image is Al-generated, he said this was for lack of a real photo of him wearing a tie in Reform's trademark turquoise.

— Private Eye

# 8th July 2024, 3:20 pm / politics, ai, generative-ai

LLMs may offer immense value to society. But that does not warrant the violation of copyright law or its underpinning principles. We do not believe it is fair for tech firms to use rightsholder data for commercial purposes without permission or compensation, and to gain vast financial rewards in the process. There is compelling evidence that the UK benefits economically, politically and societally from upholding a globally respected copyright regime.

— UK House of Lords report on Generative AI

# 2nd February 2024, 3:54 am / politics, ethics, generative-ai, ai, llms

We believe that AI tools are at their best when they incorporate and represent the full diversity and breadth of human intelligence and experience. [...] Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression– including blog posts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents–it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials. Limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment, but would not provide AI systems that meet the needs of today’s citizens.

— OpenAI to the Lords Select Committee on LLMs

# 8th January 2024, 5:33 pm / copyright, generative-ai, openai, ai, llms, politics, training-data

The EU AI Act now proposes to regulate “foundational models”, i.e. the engine behind some AI applications. We cannot regulate an engine devoid of usage. We don’t regulate the C language because one can use it to develop malware. Instead, we ban malware and strengthen network systems (we regulate usage). Foundational language models provide a higher level of abstraction than the C language for programming computer systems; nothing in their behaviour justifies a change in the regulatory framework.

— Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI

# 16th November 2023, 11:29 am / politics, ai, llms, mistral

Practical campaign security is a wood chipper for your hopes and dreams. It sits at the intersection of 19 kinds of status quo, each more odious than the last. You have to accept the fact that computers are broken, software is terrible, campaign finance is evil, the political parties are inept, the DCCC exists, politics is full of parasites, tech companies are run by arrogant man-children, and so on.

— Maciej Cegłowski

# 30th May 2019, 12:03 pm / maciejceglowski, politics, security

Miss Wilson, when she was a resident superintendent in this Palace, had a cat that apparently caught up to 60 mice a night. The corpses were then swept up in the morning. Finally, does the noble Lord recognise the fire hazard that mice pose, because they eat through insulating cables? It would be a tragedy for this beautiful Palace to burn down for lack of a cat.

— Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

# 31st March 2010, 4:06 pm / houseoflords, politics, hansard, cats

We are facing an economic crisis that is within our capacity to solve, and an ecological crisis that we lack the political means to prevent. It's only by failing at the former that we might have a chance at surviving the latter.

— Maciej Cegłowski

# 19th March 2009, 4:11 pm / maciejceglowski, climatechange, economics, politics