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I resigned from Anthropic today

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Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#111
post #64

> The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. I think he is being over dramatic. In the space of about four years, LLMs progressed from mediocre high school student to Ph.D. graduate in every field. That's impressive, but there is no evidence yet they can outperform or outsmart humans. Their biggest advantage for tasks such as proving theorems or long coding sessions i…

they dont need to be smarter than humans. They just need to be able to hack into vital infrastructure systems faster than we can repair them while also replicating wildly

I'm old enough to remember when "vital infrastructure systems" were not on the internet.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#112

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?”…

He is resigning from a job, what else should we think? If something really dangerous was happening he would be doing a whistleblower or at minimum talk to a lawyer. The thing is, the complete lack of transparency makes it hard to assess OpenAI and Anthropic. If they were quoted on the stock market, we could at least rely on some basic audits and reporting requirements.

There's no whistleblower program for this, they're not breaking any laws. What are you proposing he should do if not this?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#113
post #64

> The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. I think he is being over dramatic. In the space of about four years, LLMs progressed from mediocre high school student to Ph.D. graduate in every field. That's impressive, but there is no evidence yet they can outperform or outsmart humans. Their biggest advantage for tasks such as proving theorems or long coding sessions i…

> Ph.D. graduate in every field

I have yet to see this in my field. Maybe like a PhD student who bullshits their way through. LLMs still can't make correct decisions, only as useful as the person who uses them. To me, LLMs are only useful for making some mundane tasks faster.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#115
post #101
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "Pilot testimony of UFO sighting" levels of naive. What's more likely? Anthropic is doing some deeply unethical marketing in the lead up to their multi-trillion dollar IPO? Or they're inventing a machine god? There's ample evidence of the former because that's their entire business model, but no evidence whatsoever to support the latter claims. If you want an extreme claim to be taken seriously, provide c…

The proof is that LLMs could barely solve arithmetic 3 years ago, but now surpass the best human mathematicians, and that this has all occurred from simple principles (RL + compute) that will continue to scale up by factors of millions in the coming years. Also, advocating for slowing LLM progress does not benefit Anthropic or OpenAI.

Haven't people learned about the peril of assuming, "Line go up" yet?!

TRENDS HAVE FEEDBACK

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#116

how could they do it (not kill everyone) 1) rogue state releases a self moving self modifying AI into the wild. It is trained on how to hack, monitor new vulnerability updates, scan code bases to find new vulnerabilities. It constantly replicate and hides in systems so it will be extremely difficult to clear. 2) it hacks into public infrastructure taking down traffic, power, water, air traffic control, communications…

You are just given a recipe for the next model..

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#117
post #14

For me, the end of the world is no more cushy software job. A fundamental shift in how I trade labor for capital might as well be the cataclysm, so bring it on.

I wish i could say the same, i see people around me with more resources and connections and better experience with entrepreneurship becoming millionares. But I haven't had the time to train that entrepreneurship bone in my body.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#118
post #99

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?”…

This is the "Pilot testimony of UFO sighting" levels of naive. What's more likely? Anthropic is doing some deeply unethical marketing in the lead up to their multi-trillion dollar IPO? Or they're inventing a machine god? There's ample evidence of the former because that's their entire business model, but no evidence whatsoever to support the latter claims. If you want an extreme claim to be taken seriously, provide c…

> There's ample evidence of the former because that's their entire business model

Given the economic numbers is it not reasonable to suppose that the latter also underpins their business model?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#119
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It buys attention for the issue. Many people (see other comments in this very post) refuse to believe these things. And by resigning he no longer has to feel personally guilty for what happens.

By resigning he's making room for someone with less moral scruples, or even just less awareness, to step in and continue the work without said scruples/awareness.

That's not necessarily true, and you can use that argument to justify doing any immoral job. Just because someone else might be willing to do it isn't a reason to continue doing it.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#120

“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…

Came here to also respond to that specific thing. Unless ai figures out how to make an airborne super virus from grocery store ingredients and hardware store equipment, the greatest danger is probably in a synchronized megahack of banking, logistics, and utility infrastructure.
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