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Equation 2 · The Hardest Unsolved Problems in Open-Weight AI

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qq

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qq

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the probability.

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Put the two facts together and the shape of the unsolved problem is precise. It is not “open weights are dangerous” — that is a separate, contested claim examined below. It is that the field has no method, proposed or implemented, for making a release reversible , and every mitigation on offer — better licences, use-restriction clauses, staged access — governs the decision to release, not anything that happens afterward. A simple way to see why after-the-fact governance cannot rescue the situation is to notice how quickly the number of independent copies dominates any per-copy probability of control. If N copies exist and each copyholder independently retains theirs with probability q close…
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Put the two facts together and the shape of the unsolved problem is precise. It is not “open weights are dangerous” — that is a separate, contested claim examined below. It is that the field has no method, proposed or implemented, for making a release reversible , and every mitigation on offer — better licences, use-restriction clauses, staged access — governs the decision to release, not anything that happens afterward. A simple way to see why after-the-fact governance cannot rescue the situation is to notice how quickly the number of independent copies dominates any per-copy probability of control. If N copies exist and each copyholder independently retains theirs with probability q close to one, the probability that every single copy is eventually deleted or brought back under control is qNq^{N} , so the probability that at least one copy survives indefinitely is

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