Live data from Hacker News

I resigned from Anthropic today

twitter.com

231–240 of 986 posts

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#231

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 f…

I wonder whether he's vested any options, and whether he's exercised them.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#232
The rush towards potential destruction doesn't really surprise me

The U.S. has legal weapons that can lead to many harms but people still want the 2nd Amendment to exist

Nuclear technology was developed in the past and that could have potentially wiped out even more people, the entire planet in theory

This is continuing that same trend of risking bigger dangers; it seems rational to acknowledge they could lead to catastrophe but also hope that like guns and nukes, only so much damaged actually ended up happening

I think also there's something of a rrasonabke resignation to both the ideas that the tech is inevitable and extremely dangerous, and that "alignment" may not be possible to achieve even with heavy restrictions or whatever measures you might want to take

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#234
post #207
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, it is almost too easy to imagine how deadly a jailbroken Mythos-class open-weights model can be if in the wrong hands. The big labs scrape LITERALLY EVEYTHING and get fresh data from their users. Both of the big labs have massive contracts with defense agencies. If the open-weights models are just distillations of FMs...

you should kick the tires on an unfiltered (abliterated model) it's the closest thing to having a real conversation with the devil. There is good reason for the concern's outlined above and undoubtedly Anthropic / OpenAI have internal unfiltered models with no safety... they got freaked out based on how they work and are virtue signaling alarm... all while selling out to defense contractors.

Yeah I really struggle to balance wanting information to be free and not wanting the information on how to make deadly weapons too easy to obtain.

At least with books or the internet you had to go through some effort

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#235
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…

> 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. I mean, unless you see clear reasons for them to stop getting better _right now_, this is not very comforting.

This is also a ridiculous statement on its face. Claude outsmarts me nearly every day. I'm more like the seeing eye dog for it nowadays for the few tasks it doesn't have good perception on than a tech lead or pair programmer.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#236

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 f…

Now is a great time to watch Colossus: The Forbin Project.

Streamed it a few days ago. Remarkable film.

The only thing they got wrong was Stephen Hawking-era TTS.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#237

I'm pretty baffled by the degree of skepticism expressed here in response to some of Jacob's claims. After the events of the summer it feels like it takes a lack of imagination to not see a few plausible routes to disaster. It may be reasonable to believe these outcomes are not very likely or that we can stop before going too far (I tend to disagree). But I can't imagine doubting that the capabilities will soon be th…

Imo such tends to break down into two psychosis:

Not invented here; if I can’t figure it out no one can

Or plain old lack of grasp of the material so no ability to follow necessary train of thought to appropriate conclusions

Similar in lacking context but different in how that lack of context is expressed

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it be lethal? Please specify. What would that theoretical entity be able to do that hasn't been done many, many times before?

Design a novel virus which is far more lethal than COVID-19 (Ebola, smallpox, take your pick) and can evade existing vaccines.

How?

What would the AI do that mutating viruses, which try every possible viable combination on their own --- eventually, can't?

Everything is trying to kill humans constantly. There are around 200 epidemic events or so per year that could turn into pandemics, https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci...

You just live with the risk and do your best to use our technology to alleviate suffering. This tool can help with that at some point. But I'm yet to hear what an AI will leap to that nature in tooth-and-claw hasn't? And how?

More importantly how would it know it succeeded? What data from what lab from what animal from what result? This is biology, if you sneeze wrong at an instrument it gives you a different number, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620521

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#240

Terrorists were able to get hold of a plane and do some damage. There are countless examples of terrorism using whatever is available. More than AI becoming sentient, whats to stop terrorists from using AI? If its geo-restricted, they can buy stolen credit cards and identities, again hacking enabled by AI.

What’s the use of AI to a terrorist with, say, nuclear weapons? How does it help with their current blocker?

Do they hack FBI, pose as director of FBI and call off their own man-hunt?

Do they cut communication within security services? Militaries around the world have training exercises for this.

Genuinely curious: what big blocker does AI remove for a terrorist org?

Post reply on HN