If they were sincere about that concern then they wouldn't build it at all, if it's ever made available to the public then it will eventually be available during an election. It's not like the 2024 US presidential election is the end of history.
The risk is not “interfering with the US elections”, but “being on the front page of everything as the only AI company interfering with US elections”. This would destroy their peacocking around AGI/alignment while raising billions from pension funds.
OpenAI is in a very precarious position. Maybe they could survive that hit in four years, but it would be fatal today. No unforced errors.
i think the hope is by the next presidential election no one will trust video anymore anyway so the new normal wont be as chaotic as if the dropped in the middle of an already contentious election.
as for not building it at all its a obvious next step in generative ai models that if they don't make it someone else will anyway.
I'd give it about 20 years before humanoid robots can be indistinguishable from originals without an x-ray or similar — covering them in vat-grown cultures of real human skin etc. is already possible but the robots themselves aren't good enough to fool anyone.
unfortunately that would mean two firstly things only swing states would get to hear what politicians are actually saying and secondly to reach everyone the primary process would have to start even earlier so the candidates would have a chance to give enough speeches before early voting
Even if Kamala wins (praise be to god that she does), those people aren't just going to go away until social media does. Social media is the cause of a lot of the conspiracy theory mania.
So yeah, better to never release the model...even though Elon would in a second if he had it.
