There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing • Hacker News Board

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#211

Post by simonask » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

flanked-evergl wrote: post #185

graemep wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only an issue if you have sufficiently deep ethnic divisions within a country that people automatically vote on ethnic lines.

[flagged]

> You can already see that one of the biggest problems in Western Europe is that the liberal establishment itself refuse to hold non-westerners to account to western laws because they feel that it would be unfair to enforce one people's laws on another people.

Tell me you've never actually been to Western Europe without telling me... This is so profoundly disconnected from reality that I don't know where to even begin.

But thank you for confirming my hypothesis in another comment that you are indeed inspired by neo-fascist thought.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#212

Post by Yiin » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

YeahThisIsMe wrote: post #193

hmry wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US still has the second amendment and the most guns per person of any country in the world (more than 10x the average), yet I don't see anybody "fight back against the benefactors"

The people who are really into guns and the second amendment are somehow on the side of their oppressors.

few years ago they weren't

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#213

Post by ffsm8 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

YeahThisIsMe wrote: post #193

hmry wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US still has the second amendment and the most guns per person of any country in the world (more than 10x the average), yet I don't see anybody "fight back against the benefactors"

The people who are really into guns and the second amendment are somehow on the side of their oppressors.

Ffs, Trump is not an oppressor. You're not helping by pointlessly exaggerating things, you'll only derail the discussion.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#214

Post by boppo1 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

temporaryacc2 wrote: post #96

The excessive scepticism on Hacker News has poisoned any attempts at rational AI discourse. The American Government has weaponised state power in a clumsy, corrupt and punitive attack against Anthropic, in an escalating war over control of AI. Meanwhile, HN has anchored on "marketing hype" as the only possible explanation - all evidence is contorted to fit into this increasingly contrived explanation. Object level an…

This take feels a little like the clergy saying printing presses are dangerous because people will read bad things and spread bad ideas. Turns out they totalky did, but on net it's a small price to pay for widespread literacy.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#215

Post by dudefeliciano » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #200

dudefeliciano wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riiiiight, it doesn't just make the bully invest billions in military grade weapons to be used against civilians. Soon you'll have superdrones with superguns patrolling the US and you will still be clinging to your right to carry a musket.

2A people don't want the right to carry a musket, they want the right to those same superdrones. You are framing their desires in bad faith.

Taking that argument to absurd levels we should only sit and wait for the first school nuking then.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#216

Post by user43928 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:18 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #91

andrewparker wrote: post #34

OP point out that OpenAI used the "too dangerous to release" marketing ploy with GPT-2... Positioning this as "both sides" have played this card. But at this time Dario was at OpenAI and was a co-author on the GPT-2 research paper announcing the model. The "too dangerous to release" approach has been him the whole time, at both companies.

To be fair, generative AI is wrecking society in new and unexpected ways every week. From lies and misinformation to people choosing chatbots over therapy and relationships, there's a profound impact on society that will only get worse in the coming years. The look for junior programmers who are capable enough to get anything done when the AI is down has been depressing, and things are looking much worse for the year…

AI gives more than a billion people instant access to knowledge, it is starting to accelerate scientific research, it democratized software development, design, and illustration.

I strongly disagree with the opinion that it has been a net negative.

Lies and misinformation, or choosing chatbots over therapy and relationships might sound scary, but as of now I see practically negligible impact there. Even social media is still roughly as usable as before AI.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#217

Post by flanked-evergl » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

simonask wrote: post #206

flanked-evergl wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actual full democracy is predicated on a fairly large number of fundamental rights, as well as duties. This is an entirely modern idea and really has nothing to do with the concept. It's the typical leftist tendency to appropriate a word that people see as good and then redefine it to be something which the leftist themselves want, and then hope that people still associate it with good. It's the same thing with the…

> This is an entirely modern idea and really has nothing to do with the concept. It's Voltaire (1694-1778). Depending how you count, The Enlightenment is or isn't part of modernity. Did you think democracy was not a modern idea? It unequivocally is. The word comes from Ancient Greek, but what they did had almost nothing to do with the current definition of the word. This focus on ethnic groups that you have is simply…

> It's Voltaire (1694-1778). Depending how you count, The Enlightenment is or isn't part of modernity.

Find me one single definition of Modernity that excludes the 18th century.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#218

Post by sdthjbvuiiijbb » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

dxuh wrote: post #64

modeless wrote: post #22

> But this government [...] I'm hearing a lot of this kind of thing. "Oh if only it was a different government". I'm sorry, but when you cry out for government involvement, it's not always going to be coming from the government you personally wanted. This is the whole problem with government involvement! I don't think that message is getting through, but it's the real lesson that should be learned here.

I think it should be noted that the current government, which did this silly thing, belongs to a party that is pretty much advertising on wanting to be a smaller government that gets involved less. That is a large part of why people vote for them.

>belongs to a party that is pretty much advertising on wanting to be a smaller government that gets involved less. That is a large part of why people vote for them.

I don't think that's been the Republican messaging for years (ever since Trump) and it's certainly not a "large part of why people vote for them".

I think a very large fraction of Republican support in this day and age is based on social and cultural topics and feelings.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#219

Post by cbg0 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

graemep wrote: post #207

cbg0 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US can create sanctions with legal repercussions, the same way they've done with Iran or Cuba in the past.

Certainly to stop people with US businesses from doing business with Iran or Cuba. To stop an American owned British company from doing business in the UK? To stop a French company doing business in France? To stop either doing business with the rest of the world? To stop anyone doing business with China? Its really not comparable.

They absolutely can impose sanctions on foreign companies by restricting their access to US markets, investments and penalizing US banks doing business with them.

For some EU companies this is irrelevant, but for global companies this becomes a problem.

Re: There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

#220

Post by latexr » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:27 AM UTC

roryirvine wrote: post #209

latexr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The public at large will need to Ah, yes. You see, it’s not them who are wrong for knowingly releasing something they knew to be harmful, it’s everyone else who needs to change. That seems reasonable. Humanity is famous for being able to rapidly adapt to fast changes as one voice. Oh, wait… They are no different to the tobacco and oil companies. They know the harm they’re causing but care about personal profit abou…

I'm not an AI booster, but in this case I'd say that pausing the rollout for mitigations (such as public education) to be put in place was the responsible course of action. With the benefit of hindsight, you can certainly argue that the pause wasn't long enough or that the mitigations weren't sufficient. But that wasn't a view held by many at the time - indeed, it was mocked as a marketing ploy (and still is; see gp'…

> pausing the rollout for mitigations

What mitigations? Nothing they’ve done is relevant to the four points in the comment above.

> such as public education

Their “public education” is about as meaningful as alcohol warnings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj4aRhHJOWU

> With the benefit of hindsight

No hindsight needed. These problems were obvious from the start. Not just to me but to many others. Clearly also to them.

> indeed, it was mocked as a marketing ploy (and still is; see gp's post as evidence)

Two things can be true at once. Of course it’s marketing to say “this is too dangerous to release” if they’re going to do it anyway. Either that or they’re so supremely irresponsible and greedy that they don’t care about the consequences as long as they can profit. And again, all of those can be true at once.

Also, worth noting that when they talk about it being “too dangerous”, they’re usually talking about fantasy scenarios of the AI gaining sentience and enslaving humanity. But there are many other dangers (as listed in the comment above) to consider that come from humans directly misusing the technology.