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A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

lanl.gov

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Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#11

Post by mdhb »

hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

This is literally THE scam Elon, Thiel, Sacks and others are running as they gut the government.

Sell assets like government real estate to themselves at super cheap rates and then set up as many dependencies as they can where the government has to buy services from them because they have nowhere else to turn.

To give an example this missile dome bullshit they are talking about building which is a terrible idea for a bunch of reasons.. but there is talks at the moment of having this run by a private company who will sell it as a subscription service. So in this scenario the US military can’t actually fire the missiles without the explicit permission of a private company.

This AI thing is the same scam.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#12

Post by hbartab »

quantified wrote: post #10
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

WILL end in capture. Profit demands it.

Indeed.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#13

Post by hdivider »

hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

I fail to understand the sentiment here.

This is the intention of tech transfer. To have private-sector entities commercialize the R&D.

What is the alternative? National labs and universities can't commercialize in the same way, including due to legal restrictions at the state and sometimes federal level.

As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent -- and not concentrated in say OpenAI or with underhanded kickbacks to government -- commercialization will benefit productive applications of AI. All the software we're using right now to communicate sits on top of previous, successful, federally-funded tech transfer efforts which were then commercialized. This is how the system works, how we got to this level.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#14

Post by newfocogi »

Another recent AI article out of LANL: https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1269-earl-lawre...

And discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43765207

This does feel like a step change in the rate at which modern AI technologies and programs are being pushed out in their PR.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#15

Post by delusional »

hdivider wrote: post #13
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

I fail to understand the sentiment here. This is the intention of tech transfer. To have private-sector entities commercialize the R&D. What is the alternative? National labs and universities can't commercialize in the same way, including due to legal restrictions at the state and sometimes federal level. As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent -- and not concentrated in say OpenA…

> As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent

I think that's the crux of the guy you're responding to's point. He does not believe it will be done fairly and transparently, because these AI corporations will have broad control over the technology.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#16

Post by hdivider »

delusional wrote: post #15
hdivider wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to understand the sentiment here. This is the intention of tech transfer. To have private-sector entities commercialize the R&D. What is the alternative? National labs and universities can't commercialize in the same way, including due to legal restrictions at the state and sometimes federal level. As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent -- and not concentrated in say OpenA…

> As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent I think that's the crux of the guy you're responding to's point. He does not believe it will be done fairly and transparently, because these AI corporations will have broad control over the technology.

If so, yes indeed, fair point by him/her. It's up to ordinary folks like us to push against unfair tech transfer because yes, federal labs and research institutions would otherwise provide the incumbents an extreme advantage.

Having been in this world though, I didn't see a reluctance in federal labs to work with capable entrepreneurs with companies at any level of scale. From startup to OpenAI to defense primes, they're open to all. So part of the challenge here is simply engaging capable entrepreneurs to go license tech from federal labs, and go create competitors for the greedy VC-funded or defense prime incumbents.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#17

Post by BurningFrog »

hdivider wrote: post #13
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

I fail to understand the sentiment here. This is the intention of tech transfer. To have private-sector entities commercialize the R&D. What is the alternative? National labs and universities can't commercialize in the same way, including due to legal restrictions at the state and sometimes federal level. As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent -- and not concentrated in say OpenA…

R&D results should be buried under a crystal obelisk at the bottom of the ocean, to warn to future generations.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#18

Post by cogman10 »

hdivider wrote: post #16
delusional wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent I think that's the crux of the guy you're responding to's point. He does not believe it will be done fairly and transparently, because these AI corporations will have broad control over the technology.

If so, yes indeed, fair point by him/her. It's up to ordinary folks like us to push against unfair tech transfer because yes, federal labs and research institutions would otherwise provide the incumbents an extreme advantage. Having been in this world though, I didn't see a reluctance in federal labs to work with capable entrepreneurs with companies at any level of scale. From startup to OpenAI to defense primes, the…

> I didn't see a reluctance in federal labs to work with capable entrepreneurs

My reluctance is when we talk about fraud, waste, and corruptions in government, this is where it happens.

The DoD's budget isn't $1T because they are spending $900B on the troops. It's $1T because $900B of that ends up in the hands of the likes of Lockhead martin and Raytheon to build equipment we don't need.

I frankly do not trust "entrepreneurs" to not be greedy pigs willing to 100x the cost of anything and everything. There are nearly no checks in place to stop that from happening.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#19

Post by stonogo »

The actual reason is "because they're being told to." Before that, there was a massive public-cloud push DOE-wide. Nobody outside of ASCR is interested in computing, and there's a lot of money to be made if you can snag an eternal rent check for hosting federal infrastructure.
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