151–160 of 218 posts
Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…
Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…
It's probably the same mindset that enables them to just cancel fund raising in response to the leak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like if you showed current frontier models to someone 10 years ago, they'd probably call it AGI. Does AGI have a clear definition or is it just a pair of goalposts on wheels?
The goalposts are moving, and their speed accelerates all the time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the AGI (which is a misnomer, ASI is preferred) talk is about the moment of singularity, which is where the growth at the third derivative is increasing, so the gap (in the absolute) between first place and others, even if it's one month, will be ever increasing as time progresses. I also have a hard time believing this narrative because limiting factors prevail such as compute and energy. These constraints will…
It also assumes that "intelligence" is a limiting factor. It's hard to imagine there are any domains today, or almost any, which are bottlenecked on intelligence.
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U.S. policymakers believe that even if the gap is small—like six months to a year—whoever reaches AGI first (whatever that means) could gain such an overwhelming advantage over their perceived adversary that it would effectively kneecap them. (You can look at the kinds of things they mention—cyber, WMDs—to get a sense of what they mean.) Jensen Huang disagrees and has said AI is a marathon.
They'd have to use the gap though to actually kneecap them in that time, or else it is just shoveling money into the fire. The missile gap for example after all was settled and done, didn't matter at all because not a single missile was ever fired off. All that money, resources, talent, secrecy, lives lost maintaining that secrecy, lives dedicated to furthering that technology and secrecy, it just has not paid off at…
It is not clear to me that the nuclear missile race "has not paid off at all for anything at all". If we lived in a perfectly rational world, then I'd absolutely agree. However, having seen how the political sausage is made in large organizations, it would not surprise me in the least if it turns out we had to go through that entire incredibly risky journey to avoid a strategic nuclear war. Sometimes leaders of large organizations make decisions only after the considerations are put into very stark terms. I wish it were different, it certainly looks to me we could have done exactly what you suggest, but I'm not made of the right political stuff to deftly maneuver even in small organizations much less be at that level in those roles, so maybe I'm just missing relevant information and perspective.
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Not sure why people keep lumping OAI and Anthropic together. Really, Anthropic are the evil ones. You can make the case OAI are evil too if you want, but Anthropic are very clearly significantly worse and they aren't even in the same ballpark. Notice how OAI signed the recent open-source/open-weights letter with all of the other big tech companies, but Anthropic are the only ones who didn't? Notice how their employee…
You think OAI are doing all that out of the goodness of their hearts? OAI was a market leader until anthropic decided to start placing all their bets on coding agents, they became the leader and now OAI is scrambling and doing everything they can to de-throne. Don't forget that it was OAI that started this whole RAM shortage, instead of being sustainable about it, they just up and decided to buy 40% of all memory pro…
OpenAI listens to their audience, they engage with the community, they're constantly resetting account limits for customers and admit when they mess up, they're reachable, they respond to Github issues and Slack, they open-source their harness and they have open-sourced models and shared research, they put effort into making their products affordable. Sam has always expressed the same sentiment about wanting AI to be accessible to the people - nothing has changed there from before Anthropic was a thing until now after they've become strong competition.
Contrast it to Anthropic, the things they do and the things they say, and it is the complete opposite of all of those. When Anthropic feels threatened, they try shut people down, they try and hide things and deceive people, use political power for their own gain, lobby, fearmonger, gaslight, manipulate. They've become a cult that thinks the end justifies the means, and they think everyone else is too stupid to wield power. Not only do they lie to the public, but they lie to themselves and have managed to convince themselves they're the good guys.
So yes, self-interest plays a part, of course. It is a business after all. But what matters even more than whether it's out of the goodness of their hearts or not is the end result. If the incentives are aligned for OpenAI in a way that is better for everyone while being rewarding for them then that is a good thing. If they're not aligned and they're not benefiting from it, and they do it anyway because they have a good culture of leaders who see the bigger picture, then that's also great. Regardless though, night and day difference when it comes to behavior.
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yep. the word they use is probably 克制 or self-restraint. no need to raise so much cash if you can't use it. in his article he talks about the negative aspects of getting everything you want. (all the money, brightest minds, biggest share in AI) etc. he says that these are the things that will cause a company to fail.
I shouldn't win too hard, because then I'll lose?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yep. the word they use is probably 克制 or self-restraint. no need to raise so much cash if you can't use it. in his article he talks about the negative aspects of getting everything you want. (all the money, brightest minds, biggest share in AI) etc. he says that these are the things that will cause a company to fail.
I shouldn't win too hard, because then I'll lose?
Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…
They want to achieve AGI first because, once it is achieved, no one knows what the world will look like.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They'd have to use the gap though to actually kneecap them in that time, or else it is just shoveling money into the fire. The missile gap for example after all was settled and done, didn't matter at all because not a single missile was ever fired off. All that money, resources, talent, secrecy, lives lost maintaining that secrecy, lives dedicated to furthering that technology and secrecy, it just has not paid off at…
> The missile gap for example after all was settled and done, didn't matter at all because not a single missile was ever fired off. All that money, resources, talent, secrecy, lives lost maintaining that secrecy, lives dedicated to furthering that technology and secrecy, it just has not paid off at all for anything at all when you think about it. It is not clear to me that the nuclear missile race "has not paid off a…
Not that I entirely buy missiles == insurance, just that the unused == wasted framing is too simplistic.