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xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

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Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#121

Post by BeetleB »

nearlyepic wrote: post #107
BeetleB wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but part of the purpose of an article is to give you reasons to give a shit about what's being reported. And this is where the article is trying to bias the readers. As I said elsewhere: If this article was "Elon Musk is a shitty guy, and look at all the shitty stuff he does", I'd have no objection to any of this. Present all the examples, make the case, and let the reader decide. But showing someone violating the…

So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)? This idea of unbiased reporting that you have is ridiculous. This isn't a court of law, and not everything needs to rise to that standard. If you want something free of bias, go read an NTSB report. Even then, that's not a guarantee!! Stories that involve peoples' motivations and politics are never free of bias. The fact that you thi…

> So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)?

If the specified goal of the article is to make the subject look bad, then of course it's fine. I've said that in many comments, and I say it again here.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#122

Post by BeetleB »

exabrial wrote: post #26

I hate to sounds like I'm defending them... but that's like every startup. Taxi Pendants? Never heard of her - Uber/Lyft Gambling laws? Pssht - Polymarkets

Oh - I was and still am absolutely against Uber's tactics in expanding to cities. I still do not use Uber unless I travel to countries where that's the only option.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#123

Post by nearlyepic »

BeetleB wrote: post #121
nearlyepic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)? This idea of unbiased reporting that you have is ridiculous. This isn't a court of law, and not everything needs to rise to that standard. If you want something free of bias, go read an NTSB report. Even then, that's not a guarantee!! Stories that involve peoples' motivations and politics are never free of bias. The fact that you thi…

> So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)? If the specified goal of the article is to make the subject look bad, then of course it's fine. I've said that in many comments, and I say it again here.

Whatever, man. Enjoy whatever definition of bias you've constructed that always leaves you with a way to feel superior.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#124

Post by culi »

mft_ wrote: post #29

While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making. If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally a…

If you read the article you see that

1. There isn't even a penalty. Journalists literally had to fly drones with thermal imaging to prove the gas turbines were indeed on. Then some non-profits had to use their own money to file a lawsuit

2. Corruption could get even the lawsuit kicked out:

> Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#125

Post by efitz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #115
efitz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have that kind of clout or money, but Elon does.

Back up a sec. Your definition of “equally” only applies to trillionaires?

“Applied the law equally” referred to politicians- did they allow something in some cases but not others, eg “selective enforcement”.

Your response was “I’d like to live in your world”, implying that you believe that it’s rarely the case that people can get government officials on the stand. That’s true for most people, but not true for people with deep pockets for lawyers.

I brought up Musk because Starlink was mentioned as the data center owner.

I do believe that you get more justice if you can afford to fight the government on its own terms in a courtroom. I don’t celebrate that.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#126

Post by mft_ »

mdasen wrote: post #79
mft_ wrote: post #29

While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making. If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally a…

There's also other options than brutally punitive financial penalties or holding execs personally responsible. For example, if a data center is illegally running gas turbines, the penalty could be that the data center must be shut down for 3 years and no equipment can be removed from the data center during that time. With financial penalties, there's always calculus on whether the penalty is high enough to deter the…

I agree with almost everything you wrote, but... confiscation and inability to operate at a location (as you suggest as a penalty) still ultimately boils down to a financial penalty for an organisation. It feels especially severe in this case (law breaking by a data center operator) because of the high cost and high depreciation rate of GPUs and supporting hardware.

If you take a different field of business, you can still imagine an organisation making the calculation that operation for a period of time --before their illegality was discovered and then acted upon by the authorities-- would still be worthwhile even if confiscation was the end result. (In some odd cases, this is close to the actual business model.)

If you want to deter hyper-rich companies, you could shift to fining them a meaningful percentage of their annual turnover or even their market capitalisation.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#127

Post by mft_ »

culi wrote: post #124
mft_ wrote: post #29

While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making. If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally a…

If you read the article you see that 1. There isn't even a penalty. Journalists literally had to fly drones with thermal imaging to prove the gas turbines were indeed on. Then some non-profits had to use their own money to file a lawsuit 2. Corruption could get even the lawsuit kicked out: > Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national s…

I was speaking more generally, but yes, in the increasingly dystopian world of the current US administration, it seems to be even easier for certain people and companies to ignore the law altogether.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#128

Post by mft_ »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #98
mft_ wrote: post #29

While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making. If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally a…

Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm. Something isn't really a big deal, it doesn't make sense to stick it to a company. This is better at balancing the public interest of legal compliance against the public interest in the product the company provides. It's basically the same trade-off with set in criminal punishments in general. If we made it it the death penalty…

> Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm.

Maybe harm * wealth. Rich people could be fined proportionally more than poor people. Rich companies (turnover, market cap?) could be fined proportionally more too.

Re: xAI, SpaceX, and the Race for AI Buildout

#129

Post by maerF0x0 »

JeremyNT wrote: post #90
maerF0x0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

solely about the FSD part of your comment. I got a chance to ride in a 2024 edition of the system this year and I was shocked at how good it was. Was it level 5? of course not. But from my very lay understanding of level 3 it seemd to have achieved all that I would have assumed a computer could reasonably do.

> Was it level 5? of course not. You realize there are fully autonomous waymo cabs operating at "level 4" in several regions... today. Anybody can download the app and ride in them now . Google didn't go around promising this "next year" every year for the last decade. They just went out and did the work to make the product work, and released it.

I do realize that. I'm not making a comparative judgement here. I'm mentioning that fsd as a feature is pretty amazing to me. Elon does over promise, but seems to at least partially deliver (as opposed to total vaporware).
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