Technology

In my book I write, “Can a bridge decide to collapse?” The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy? There are permits you have to acquire. There are supposed to be tests. When you ask about the bridge collapsing itself, you’ve lost the thread.

Quite a good quote.

I also like her observations about lawmakers reacting to media coverage of AI breakthroughs and not listening to people from the fields where the supposed breakthroughs have happend (like with the maths problem recently).

It's my baseless conspiracy theory, but I am starting to believe all these AI "whistleblowers" are just being paid a secret severance bonus to get cut loose and drum up fear/interest in AI.

Let's say the AI doomers are right.

This is still like, 7th or 8th in line of "currently dangerous existential threats to human civilization."

There is ZERO sense in feeling threatened by autonomous rogue killbots when we're going to have unaccountable, non-rogue ones supplementing the unaccountable, sentient HUMAN killbots we already have in just a few years, and even if THOSE don't get you, the 50 degree temperatures will, since you can't run your AC because the AI data centers have made your electric bill $500, and you can't go to the pool because the clouds of ash from the uncontrolled wildfires have made the air unbreathable.

This one never seems to get stale.

The other fun AI project is processing mass surveillance data to route out and dispose of dissenters capable of organizing an effective resistance.

Since they ultimately intend to do to the world population what the US did to Native American tribes and the slaves imported from Africa, we'd best hurry up and get organized.

This new batch of ultra-wealthy regard commoners as non-person NPCs even more than antebellum plantation owners or Nazis in the German Reich.

Literally stop trying to pretend that executing LLM output in a loop with no supervision makes sense.

It's fearmongering intended to push regulation to ban foreign models (i.e., competition) and locally run ones, and to prevent new AI companies from gaining traction, thus guaranteeing a monopoly for the current subscription based ones.

Also to "place limits on how powerful the models can be", so they have an excuse when they reach the limits of what LLMs are capable of or model collapse starts making them worse, whatever comes first.

In both cases, futile attempts at ensuring their survival once the bubble bursts.

Also, astroturfing. Marketing. Making their models look more powerful. Dangling forbidden fruit in front of their customers and their competitors' in order to entice them, feed their AI psychosis, and strengthen their addiction.

The doom talk gives AI user base a hard-on and Anthropic knows it. It's like saying, your web browser is now equipped with the power of plutonium. You are controlling something powerful and dangerous as you work to nudify your neighbor or slop out of your term paper.

Cory Doctorow shared the exact same opinion in this interview he gave this week. I personally don't think his "reverse centaur" idea is nearly as catchy or worth adopting as enshittification was, but the intent behind it is spot on.

This feels like it has been obvious for years to anyone paying attention.

beyond paywall https://archive.is/DMknL

I think this the way the powers that be control many narratives. Many distractions running all over.

People aren't critical enough about what they're echoing from what they think is coming from their own side.

Since when is Howard Stern one of AIs fiercest critics?

Archive link: https://archive.ph/D2uB0

Probably true. It's like this administration and gas prices. 'Just ignore how high gas prices are now because it could be a lot worse.

World's crappiest Frankenfurter cosplay.