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NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

nytimes.com

141–150 of 308 posts

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every math phd i am acquainted with has been approached by nsa recruiters. how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles? it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop, which at the end of the day is a government job... the only people they make rich are contractors I'm not saying there aren't smart people working there but it's ridiculous to assume they have an…

> how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles? this is not really relevant to the point, but to satisfy your curiosity: more than one, and one. > it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop the nsa's brightest aren't doing "cop" things. certainly none of the people i know of working there are "cop-minded" in any sense. they are doing cool research and applicati…

> this is not really relevant to the point, but to satisfy your curiosity: more than one, and one.

What? That's not only relevant to the point, it's incredibly relevant. If the NSA is only able to recruit 2% of the math PhDs they approach, then that's important information.

"More than one" is not particularly useful; you seem to be dodging the question because it undermines your argument.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#142
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is much overlap between people capable of building cutting edge LLM's and the people who want to build a cutting edge LLM for the government.

The NSA managed to deliberately insert a backdoor into elliptic-curve cryptography right under the noses of everyone capable of making elliptic-curve cryptography. I wouldn't count them out.

> The NSA managed to deliberately insert a backdoor into elliptic-curve cryptography right under the noses of everyone capable of making elliptic-curve cryptography.

That sort of proves the opposite point, assuming you're referring to Dual EC DRBG, because the flaw was noticed very early on, by people who weren't even involved in its development.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said absolutely nothing about LLMs, which is a fantastic tool I'm using every day. I'm talking about marketing.

So let’s say you’re in Anthropic’s shoes. You see that LLM’s are getting better and better, and it’s very possible that they will have some impact on jobs in the next few years, and a very meaningful impact on cybersecurity. Is it more ethical to stay silent about these concerns, as you might have a bit of self interest? Or even if it looks a bit self interested, is it better to warn people ahead of time? I think the…

Was it more ethical for the boy who cried wolf to have cried wolf so many times that nobody believed him when a wolf finally did show up?

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#144

mythos allowed mediocre people to get results by holding their hand through the process, or just ignoring their irrelevant input and knowing what to do. if you throw millions of tokens at IDA Pro MCP with the right prompt lets just say security by obscurity fails miserably because there is no obscurity when the LLM chews through the decompilation.

>mythos allowed mediocre people to get results by holding their hand through the process

Isn't this what technology progress looks like? Industrial tools allowed mediocre people to improve their productivity by orders of magnitude which is how we managed(in the past) to build so many amazing things with less human toil and suffering than previous generations.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#145

mythos allowed mediocre people to get results by holding their hand through the process, or just ignoring their irrelevant input and knowing what to do. if you throw millions of tokens at IDA Pro MCP with the right prompt lets just say security by obscurity fails miserably because there is no obscurity when the LLM chews through the decompilation.

>mythos allowed mediocre people to get results by holding their hand through the process Isn't this what technology progress looks like? Industrial tools allowed mediocre people to improve their productivity by orders of magnitude which is how we managed(in the past) to build so many amazing things with less human toil and suffering than previous generations.

Progress isn't always welcome by the incumbent who have built their moats on hoarding knowledge over being adaptable

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let’s say you’re in Anthropic’s shoes. You see that LLM’s are getting better and better, and it’s very possible that they will have some impact on jobs in the next few years, and a very meaningful impact on cybersecurity. Is it more ethical to stay silent about these concerns, as you might have a bit of self interest? Or even if it looks a bit self interested, is it better to warn people ahead of time? I think the…

The issue is both OpenAI and Anthropic have lied so many times that it’s no longer rational to take anything they say at face value. Also: they don’t have to know they’re lying to say things that aren’t true. There is definitely some cult-like behaviour at the moment on the west coast

Be specific, what do you consider their lies to be? Also, this is pretty straightforward. You have a decade of extremely stable and predictable performance trajectory. It’s easy to see the writing on the wall. You can feel whatever which way about their motivations and ethics but if you read say Dario’s raw words they are pretty reasonable. We have to have a good regulatory framework and do what we can to prepare ourselves while also not ceding a critical strategic advantage. The west coast is always cult like, that’s not new. And it ignores the very real substance to the discussion.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#147
post #139
post #132

> That contract has not been finalized, and some Pentagon officials want the N.S.A. to find a way to work with other models. Good, fsck NSA, that's the last organization I'd ever want to have access to Mythos. I hope this administration's incompetence will prevent them from regaining access for as long as possible

It’ll be the first organization to get access to Epic/Saga/Legend/Bible/Torah/Sutra/Vedan/whatever the Mythos+1 is called - and it might be the only one with this privilege

They will never be able to read all the words in my head that spell out exactly what I want to have happen at that org.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#148
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who will make them the next set of weights? If a government can just seize the product of someone else's labour, either they will end up as slave owners or without willing workers.

Serious question: do you think the NSA aren't training their own LLMs? (With or without Anthropic and OpenAI's help) It's a perfect technology for their uses, they get a big chunk of a $100 billion black budget, and they've had access to the research for at least as long as we have.

[deleted]

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#149
post #24

they are doing DOGE-cuts to all of intelligence now anyway dozens upon dozens fired for no reason so US "intelligence" is going to go even further backwards * https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-acting-ch... November is going to be insanity

I don't want a single person to be working at NSA and I find ANY terms to effectuate that outcome to be acceptable. Very much so including DOGE, which I despise.

Re: NSA lost access to Mythos amid Anthropic dispute

#150
post #139
post #132

> That contract has not been finalized, and some Pentagon officials want the N.S.A. to find a way to work with other models. Good, fsck NSA, that's the last organization I'd ever want to have access to Mythos. I hope this administration's incompetence will prevent them from regaining access for as long as possible

It’ll be the first organization to get access to Epic/Saga/Legend/Bible/Torah/Sutra/Vedan/whatever the Mythos+1 is called - and it might be the only one with this privilege

More likely they'll convince congress they will need their own. Only it will 20-200 times more expensive and the US taxpayer will be paying for it but won't get access.
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