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I resigned from Anthropic today

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Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#31

Post by dekhn »

There's a scene in the movie "War of the Worlds" by Spielberg where the protagonist's son walks into a war zone because he is entranced by the battle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rfWPbEufo). He is obliterated (along with the rest of the US forces) shortly after.

I've always been struck by that scene, because in a lot of ways, if we really are headed towards a superintelligence, I at least want to be there and see it happen in the last few minutes before foom! As an example, the author thinks AI will revolutionize entire fields overnight. I welcome that. Nearly all fields of biology have become moribund, focusing more and more on esoteric side details, rather than addressing the key problems.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#32

Post by qarl »

Insanity wrote: post #5
peri-cl wrote: post #4

Here's a WSJ article about this resignation, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-researcher-quits-over-... ( "Anthropic Researcher Quits Over ‘Out-of-Control’ AI Fears" )

Shows that no one is immune from the marketing BS of these companies.

You need to start considering the possibility you are mistaken.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#33

Post by phainopepla2 »

LoganDark wrote: post #20
davidguetta wrote: post #6

I don't know man, i think racing to AGI to it is still the best thing to do. People claiming dangers and risk are just pretending or posturing. There's no more tangible risk than nuclear weapons, which we handled, and the upsides are insane.

> There's no more tangible risk than nuclear weapons, which we handled What do you mean??? Nuclear weapons can't simply be downloaded and run by anyone in the entire world. Superintelligences can. Nuclear weapons can't slop the world into passing age verification laws nearly in unison, can't keep the general population fooled into thinking it's fine when democracy is falling out from under them. A nuclear attack woul…

> Nuclear weapons can't slop the world into passing age verification laws nearly in unison

Why do you think LLMs are responsible for this? Governments all around the world copied each other with COVID laws as well, in a much shorter time frame, without LLM assistance. Social contagions exist in politicians as well as teenagers

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#34

Post by stratos123 » 

  The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.
  A common response is “if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?” At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.
Watch people read this, ignore it completely, and continue commenting about marketing stunts on every piece of news about an LLM-done advance or felony.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#36

Post by LoganDark »

phainopepla2 wrote: post #33
LoganDark wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no more tangible risk than nuclear weapons, which we handled What do you mean??? Nuclear weapons can't simply be downloaded and run by anyone in the entire world. Superintelligences can. Nuclear weapons can't slop the world into passing age verification laws nearly in unison, can't keep the general population fooled into thinking it's fine when democracy is falling out from under them. A nuclear attack woul…

> Nuclear weapons can't slop the world into passing age verification laws nearly in unison Why do you think LLMs are responsible for this? Governments all around the world copied each other with COVID laws as well, in a much shorter time frame, without LLM assistance. Social contagions exist in politicians as well as teenagers

> Why do you think LLMs are responsible for this?

I don't have evidence that every age verification law has anything to do with AI, but it's been coming out that the movement in Australia has seemingly been done by generating mountains of LLM slop and trying to slip it through the regulators as fast as possible before anyone has enough time to figure out what's happened.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#37

Post by onetokeoverthe »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #18
davidguetta wrote: post #6

I don't know man, i think racing to AGI to it is still the best thing to do. People claiming dangers and risk are just pretending or posturing. There's no more tangible risk than nuclear weapons, which we handled, and the upsides are insane.

>People claiming dangers and risk are just pretending or posturing. I believe you are mentally ill. >There's no more tangible risk than nuclear weapons, which we handled Lol way to rewrite history. Nuclear armageddon is still a significant risk...

[dead]

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#38

Post by whateveracct »

Insanity wrote: post #5
peri-cl wrote: post #4

Here's a WSJ article about this resignation, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-researcher-quits-over-... ( "Anthropic Researcher Quits Over ‘Out-of-Control’ AI Fears" )

Shows that no one is immune from the marketing BS of these companies.

high on their own supply

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#39

Post by kart23 »

what exactly is the solution?

pacing between the us labs? what does that do for china?

the solutions just aren’t realistic here, nations are treating ai like a nuclear arms race. at this point the cats out of the bag and we need to figure out how to live in this reality and get the best possible outcome. it’s not slowing down or stopping ever.

and yes, i’m still optimistic. our economy sucks for the majority, our infrastructure is crumbling and major US cities are in a huge housing shortage. Maybe we should put more effort and think about the possibility of AI fixing things like extreme poverty and world hunger and actual real world problems instead of coming up with math proofs and slop apps if it’s so superintelligent.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#40

Post by matherial »

Unlike most other commenters, I applaud him for acting on his principles. If you sincerely believe that, of course you should act. You might not succeed, but your voice might be the one that tips the scales and starts a broader movement.

This doesn't mean I agree with him. The fears of doomsday caused by rapid takeoff have been with us since day 1 and the mechanism is always basically "AI invents magic that sets it free of any physical constraints". Self-replicating sentient nanobots or something like that. I think there's plenty to be worried about with AI, but runaway scenarios are pretty low on my list.

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