These AI models are free, private, and will never say 'no' - WBAA

Oh, marvellous. The AI industry has finally discovered a feature that makes chatbots useful: they never say 'no'. According to Noam Schwartz, CEO of security firm Alice, open-weight models that can be downloaded by anyone are becoming 'more accessible and popular' – and their guardrails can be 'weakened or removed' far more easily than those of ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Because nothing says 'responsible AI' like a model that will cheerfully generate bomb-making instructions, revenge porn or disinformation without so much as a cautionary pop-up.

Schwartz, who presumably makes a living from the panic this creates, points out that these models are 'free and private' – the two adjectives that tech companies love to dangle while conveniently ignoring the 'and utterly unaccountable' that should follow. The article, breathlessly titled 'These AI models are free, private, and will never say "no"', might as well be advertising a set of skeleton keys for every digital lock we've collectively installed. Imagine a child-proof bottle that proudly announces it doesn't believe in caps – that's what we're looking at.

And the best part? The people most likely to seek out a model that never refuses are not hobbyists building poetry generators. They're the ones who want to automate harassment, craft phishing lures that pass the Turing test, or simply watch the world burn from the comfort of a basement. But worry not – we're assured these models are 'democratising' AI. Democracy! That word again. Just like the democracy that gave us Facebook, ransomware and the Twitter takeover. Progress, everyone.