{"slug": "why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle", "title": "Why Don't We Put Handguns in the Convenience Aisle?", "summary": "A commentator argues that AI models should have built-in controls to refuse harmful requests, comparing the need for friction to restrictions on handguns and fentanyl. The author advocates for open-source AI to prevent a divide where only the rich have access to powerful models, while acknowledging potential abuse of such controls by governments and corporations.", "body_md": "A quick thought on this whole \"control of AI models\" debate.\n\nHandguns and Fentanyl are available all over the world, but we still don't put them in the convenience aisle at grocery stores.\n\nThe reason we don't is because we want friction between people having negative, impulsive thoughts and them actually taking those actions.\n\nIf ChatGPT, Claude, and the most popular open source models answer every question about harming oneself, or hurting someone else, or hacking into X or Y, or making a virus that only kills yapping chihuahuas, we do not want that AI to help with that.\n\nWe want it to say something like, \"No, sorry, I can't help with that. But hey let's talk about it, what's going on?\"\n\nThat's a control. Same for planning terror activity. Or to kill your spouse.\n\nYes, models will be available that help you with those things. But they shouldn't be the norm, for billions of people on Earth.\n\nThis is common sense, but it's somehow being spun into an evil control narrative.\n\nAre there rich people who'd like to control all the smart AI and make everyone use the dumb ones? Sure. Are there governments who want to keep the people down by not giving them all the information? Sure. 100%.\n\nThat doesn't mean we scrap our existing laws, or stop making new ones, just because some people want to abuse them.\n\nSo you know where I'm coming from: my whole purpose in all of this is making sure everyone on Earth has the best AI, with open models that are as good as or better than anything closed-source. No AI poverty line, where the rich get the smart models and everyone else gets the dumb ones. It's the same reason I'm building [SAFE](https://oursafe.ai).\n\nThe solution to bad science is better science, not alchemy or mysticism. The solution to bad democracy is better democracy, not authoritarianism or anarchy.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle", "canonical_source": "https://danielmiessler.com/blog/handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=website", "published_at": "2026-07-03 19:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-03 20:54:12.744235+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy", "large-language-models", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["ChatGPT", "Claude", "SAFE"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-don-t-we-put-handguns-in-the-convenience-aisle.jsonld"}}