Arthur C. Clarke mentioned that “Any sufficiently superior expertise is indistinguishable from magic.” Right here’s an instance. these ubiquitous little LEDs on gadgets like audio system, card readers, microphones and so on. that merely point out that the machine has energy? The creator’s present that these LEDs can bleed details about energy consumption that can be utilized to infer when and for a way lengthy a pc is computing cryptographic keys and that can be utilized to infer the keys. For instance, utilizing a “hijacked” safety digicam the creator’s had been capable of movie the ability LED on a wise card reader from 16 meters away and from that capable of deduce the keys. Paper right here. Video under.
Now some folks will say, properly all it’s a must to do is make sure that the LEDs are correctly insulated from the primary energy and alter the cryptographic algorithms to not take some shortcuts and your programs can be secure. Uh huh.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has a extra reasonable perspective. Though this isn’t about AI per se, he notes this can be a good instance of the type of factor {that a} superintelligence may do that may not have been predicted prematurely and would appear to require magical powers.
