tl;dr: we only want the USA to dominate because we think their military would never abuse AI (disproven a few months ago)
Our position on open-weights models
841–850 of 1001 posts
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#842> Open-weights models that don’t have dangerous capabilities are a public good
I don't think the qualifier "that don't have dangerous capabilities" is needed and that single phrase is a trojan horse / escape hatch that will allow them to say they are against any model they want. Smart but weasel behavior.
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#843this little blog post is absolutely shameful and tone-deaf. why is distillation bad if you have literally stolen - and let me underline this word: stolen - all the human knowledge to train your models? isn't that a contradiction? and also... i hope the last few years have made abundantly clear to absolutely everybody that the American government is as dangerous, if not more so, than other authoritarian governments all over the world. if the same logic is applied, i don't see why it should work for china but not for the US.
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#844Love how these bros always cop to “China bad” when they run out of good arguments.
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#845Re: Our position on open-weights models
#846As an American I’d gladly take payments from China to feed them my Claude transcripts for distillation. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of such an initiative.
lol, i would do it even for free if it helps to train better open models
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#847The letter misses out the key issue here.
Should the worlds public knowledge be enclosed by a few powerful private companies or should it be available to all?
The original vision for the web was a decentralized, open information sharing space designed to empower humanity. In my view the effort to privatise that via LLM distillation is the antithesis of that vision.
https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/marking-the-webs-35th-bir...
In terms of the risks mentioned in the letter - I agree with the risk of AI enabling a powerful surveillance state - however I don't see that as a solely Chinese problem.
The other risk mentioned - that knowledge can be dangerous - sure - but ultimately here, as there are so many low tech ways to cause mayhem, the ultimate protection is to have a society where people don't want to do it.
And perhaps more importantly I'd note that the primary tool to justify a powerful surveillance state is the fear of terrorism ( and others ).
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#848Every single risk he identifies as a concern regarding China is exactly my concerns with the US having absolute control. Literally the exact same concerns
Absolutely agree. It wasn't Chinese open weight models that supported an attack on Venezuela because a Yankee pedophile didn't get the Nobel prize he wanted.
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#849Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…
Let’s be honest, you don’t need a 3T model for bad actors, in fact you would be better off training a smaller focused model if you want an evil GPT.
Re: Our position on open-weights models
#850Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…
Also everything hes saying about China (and other actors) many outside the USA would say about the USA. The solution of a global arms race of state vs state with integrated statist corporations as the best outcome for end users sure is a choice though
His Concern 1 was especially painful to read. It reminds me of Red Fever rhetorics from McCarthy era. He casually mentions CCP and People’s Liberation Army (dogwhistles?) as the most fearful enemy. But he didn’t compare CCP policies to GOP or Trump administration (apple to apple comparison). He doesn’t frame it as Anthropic vs Moonshot competition either. He deliberately frames it as the US vs the Communists war.
He portrays the biggest ever threat of AI as the Chinese Military using the models in their drones. He already sells his models to military customers, US and potentially allies, and they are actively used in the field.
So no objective argumentation here. Just Nationalist political rhetorics and FUD. He’s allowed to do that and he will have an audience. But he won’t be taken seriously outside the US. He appears blindsided.