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| AI agents accessing bank accounts without approval, report says |
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Posted by: LevelUP - 8 hours ago - Forum: Off Topic
- Replies (2)
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AI agents accessing bank accounts without approval, report says
Some people argue that the solution to this problem is simply to "slow down," much like the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The Prisoner's Dilemma: Why the AI Arms Race Is So Difficult to Stop
The Prisoner's Dilemma is a foundational concept in game theory that explains why two completely rational sides might fail to cooperate, even when cooperation would benefit both of them.
It captures the trap of the AI arms race: both sides may recognize that a reckless race is dangerous, but the fear of being left behind gives each an incentive to keep competing.
The Classic Scenario
Imagine the police arrest two suspects (Player A and Player B) for a crime. They are placed in separate rooms and cannot communicate. The prosecutor offers each of them the same deal:
- If both stay silent (Cooperate): Both receive a light sentence of 1 year in prison.
- If one confesses and the other stays silent: The person who confesses (Defects) goes free, while the silent person receives 20 years in prison.
- If both confess (Defect): Both receive a sentence of 5 years in prison.
The Rational Trap: Why Both Sides Lose
Consider the options from the perspective of Player A:
- If Player B stays silent: Player A's best move is to confess, because going free is better than serving 1 year.
- If Player B confesses: Player A's best move is still to confess, because 5 years is better than 20 years.
Because confessing produces a better individual outcome regardless of what the other person chooses, confessing is the dominant strategy.
Player B follows exactly the same logic.
As a result, both suspects confess and receive 5 years, even though both could have received just 1 year if they had cooperated and stayed silent.
This outcome, in which neither player can improve their situation by changing their strategy alone, is called a Nash Equilibrium.
How This Applies to the AI Arms Race
Scenario 1: Nation A Cooperates (Slows Down for Safety)
- Nation B Cooperates — Best Global Outcome: Both countries develop safer, highly beneficial AI at a more manageable pace.
- Nation B Defects — Strategic Disadvantage: Nation B accelerates development and potentially achieves a major technological breakthrough, leaving Nation A at a serious strategic disadvantage.
Scenario 2: Nation A Defects (Accelerates AI Development)
- Nation B Cooperates — Strategic Advantage: Nation A potentially achieves a technological breakthrough while Nation B risks falling behind economically, militarily, and geopolitically.
- Nation B Defects — Dangerous Arms Race: Both countries accelerate AI development, potentially sacrificing safety precautions and increasing the risk of catastrophic consequences.
The Fundamental Problem
Neither country needs to want a dangerous AI arms race for one to emerge.
Each country may believe that slowing down while its competitor continues advancing would create an unacceptable strategic disadvantage. As a result, both have incentives to accelerate, even if both would prefer a safer, coordinated approach.
The situation becomes even more complicated when we consider that more than 190 countries, countless private companies, independent researchers, and increasingly capable open-source AI models are available to individuals.
How do you convince all of these actors to slow down when each has an incentive to keep advancing?
That is the tragedy of the Prisoner's Dilemma: individually rational decisions can produce collectively irrational outcomes.
The challenge is not simply convincing everyone that AI safety matters. It is creating conditions where prioritizing safety does not mean accepting an intolerable competitive disadvantage.
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| Open University of Kenya – PhD in Economics, blended online, ~US$2,600 total |
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Posted by: truthfulness - 10-22-2026, 09:26 PM - Forum: Doctorate Degree Discussion
- No Replies
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Found a rare one. Online PhDs in Economics are scarce, and I have not seen one at this price from a public university.
The Open University of Kenya (OUK) is a specialised public university, chartered in August 2023 and listed by Kenya's Commission for University Education. It offers a PhD in Economics: - Cost: KES 337,500 total for the whole programme (Year 1: 162,000 / Year 2: 132,000 / Year 3: 43,500) — roughly US$2,600. Students from outside the East African Community pay 10% more, so ~US$2,860.
- Duration: 3 years (6 semesters), maximum 10 semesters.
- Delivery: Blended online, approx. 80% asynchronous / 20% synchronous.
- Entry: A Master's in Economics, or a relevant Master's from an accredited university.
- Structure: Taught coursework in the first 3 semesters (advanced micro, macro, econometrics, ML in economics, etc.), comprehensive paper in semester 4, then thesis.
- Link: https://ouk.ac.ke/doctor-of-philosophy-%28PHD%29-in-economics
Caveats worth knowing before anyone gets excited:
- Graduation requires a thesis of at least 50,000 words plus two articles published in peer-reviewed, impact-factor journals — that is the real cost of this degree, in time and possibly APCs.
- OUK is new (2023), so there is no track record of PhD graduates or foreign credential evaluations (WES etc.) yet.
- The page does not say whether exams and the thesis defence can be done fully from abroad.
Has anyone here contacted admissions about international enrolment, or applied?
Update on faculty: the programme page lists no instructors or supervisors. OUK's 2024 recruitment advert showed just 1 Senior Lecturer and 2 Lecturer posts in Economics for the whole school, and PhD supervisors appear to be drawn from an external pool recruited via an open call (minimum: PhD + 3 peer-reviewed papers in 5 years). Ask admissions for the approved supervisor list before enrolling.
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| TESU Duel Degree BACS & BS CIS Advice |
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Posted by: newdegree - 10-19-2026, 11:37 AM - Forum: TESU - Thomas Edison State University Discussion
- Replies (2)
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I'm considering pursuing a dual degree at TESU: a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems. I have a bachelor's degree from a traditional university, but I want to explore these fields because my goal is to attend Georgia Tech for its master's program in cybersecurity, policy track.
To do this, I've completed many Sophia, Study.com, and Coursera certificates to earn the required credits over the past year and a half.
From my understanding, if you double major, you can't overlap more than three courses. To earn a dual degree, I would need 12 upper-level credits. Three will be from Study.com (Computer Science 302: Systems Analysis & Design, Business 303: Management Information Systems, and Computer Science 303: Database Management). This leaves me with one more upper-level class to complete. While I could just take software engineering at TESU, I started to look for other options.
I reviewed my old transcripts and realized I took a Data Mining and Data Warehousing class as an elective for my Hellenic American University MBA. I am wondering if this would satisfy an upper-level credit. The course is a part of their Master of Science in Informatics. Does anyone know if you can use a master's-level credit for upper-level undergraduate credit at TESU?
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