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U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

genesisopenmodels.anl.gov

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Re: U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

#181
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass surveillance is nothing new. The USSR had an absurdly wide surveillance net paired with endless on-the-ground informants making people terrified to speak pretty much anywhere, yet as soon as things started slowing down the entire system collapsed with a shocking rapidity, because these things don't create social harmony, they create a dystopic nightmare that people want to overthrow. However, people are willing…

> yet as soon as things started slowing down the entire system collapsed with a shocking rapidity, because these things don't create social harmony, they create a dystopic nightmare that people want to overthrow. Different read: command economies collapse because they invariably have higher levels of corruption and inefficiency. Both of those are tolerable during boom times of economic growth, and China has kicked th…

China isn't a command economy. Internally they're more capitalist than the US in many ways, particularly with regards to healthy competition. It's a big part of the reason they're able to bring the prices on basically everything down to absurdly low levels.

Even politically they're paradoxical in that they're a dictatorship but also quite decentralized. For each instance each 'region' down to a few thousand or so people has a local representative who has meaningful political power. It'd be like if the House of Representatives had actually continued growing with population, as was initially envisioned.

There's really quite a lot to learn from China in things that they're doing right, but stagnating Western powers only seem able to see what they want to see - the censorship, surveillance, and propaganda apparatuses which are largely uninspired and more likely to cause their downfall rather than meaningfully contributing to their rise.

Re: U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

#182
post #179
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is under attack, so the amount of anti-US propaganda is at an extreme. The lies told about the US government or what it's doing or why it's doing it are extreme. The US is applying unitary executive theory to bypass gridlock in congress while still trying to operate within the law. They are surrounded by lawyers and thinktanks to work through this, which is far from lawless. The reason we're doing this is to d…

> They are surrounded by lawyers and thinktanks to work through this, which is far from lawless This is so naive I struggle to believe you can possibly believe it. For example, there is a legal requirement that Congress authorize military action longer than 60 days. They’re advancing a theory that this is unnecessary or magically resets a timer anytime a cease fire is declared but that doesn’t make it lawful, any mor…

> For example, there is a legal requirement that Congress authorize military action longer than 60 days. They’re advancing a theory that this is unnecessary or magically resets a timer anytime a cease fire is declared but that doesn’t make it lawful, any more than those guys saying they can only be tried in admiralty courts are lawful just because they don’t want to stop what they’re doing.

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

"With minor variations in emphasis, basically all administrations since the enactment of the War Powers Resolution10 in 1973 have maintained that Con gress cannot constitutionally restrict the President’s commander-in-chief powers grounded in Article II of the Constitution."

This is not new. It is not Republican or Democrat and pressing harder on this point prevents Iran or China from thinking they can simply wait 60 days. That would not be good for the military in harm's way or for encouraging negotiation.

> We’re deterring China by losing to a much weaker opponent while simultaneously giving China a huge economic and political advantage? Giving Iran the ability to tax shipping for the first time and doing it in Chinese yuan is a deterrent in the same sense that you deter a dog by feeding it sausages.

The US attacked Iran to achieve a set of goals. The strait was not really a primary part of the initial goals, but still it's a forced issue. They are losing so badly that their only remaining option is to harass their neighbors, which will further weaken Iran's position in the region for the next 50 years. China was sanction proofing itself so that it could have breathing room to take Taiwan, but attacking Russian oil infrastructure, attacking Venezuela and attacking Iran now has China drawing from its strategic oil reserves. The less reserves they have, the less sanction proofed they are. The less likely they are to make an attempt on Taiwan. Still, we're not attacking Iran only to deter China. Remember, Iran has attempted to assassinate the US president multiple times as well as Netanyahu on top of all the other awful things they've done over the past 50 decades.

> I can see why you prefer to believe this but it sure is striking to see that politically-incorrect gun owners have their guns used to justify killing them while politically-correct ones are seen as having a right to carry theirs even when actively making illegal threats.

Look, the number of people that die this way is so infinitely small that it is not a remotely relevant part of life. You are more likely to get struck by lightning or die in a commercial airliner accident. It is not some standard policy to simply go around shooting people who have guns and have some kind of political leaning. That would probably be a hate crime. I don't doubt mistakes happen, but the few people dying this way are generally violent and not innocent. People spread video clips and sound bites that intentionally encourage a certain interpretation in order to promote hate and distrust. It's almost always propaganda. This is not simply some Rublican/Democrat thing, this is propaganda and psychological manipulation funded by countries like Russia, China and Iran.

Re: U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

#183
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet as soon as things started slowing down the entire system collapsed with a shocking rapidity, because these things don't create social harmony, they create a dystopic nightmare that people want to overthrow. Different read: command economies collapse because they invariably have higher levels of corruption and inefficiency. Both of those are tolerable during boom times of economic growth, and China has kicked th…

China isn't a command economy. Internally they're more capitalist than the US in many ways, particularly with regards to healthy competition. It's a big part of the reason they're able to bring the prices on basically everything down to absurdly low levels. Even politically they're paradoxical in that they're a dictatorship but also quite decentralized. For each instance each 'region' down to a few thousand or so peo…

> more capitalist than the US in many ways, particularly with regards to healthy competition.

I'd argue that the US and Europe are bad benchmarks, given the entrenched quasi-monopolies the governments refuse to break up.

But we'll see how that goes for China.

It's still early days for their capitalistic ambitions, and tensions between party and corporations are starting to show (Jack Ma et al.).

Personally, I think the more destructive moment is going to be after they have large national champions competing globally. Is the CCP going to have the discipline to let an Alibaba, BYD, or SAIC be supplanted, if an external or internal more efficient competitor starts growing? Or will they become too big to fail and intertwine with government?

Re: U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

#184
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China isn't a command economy. Internally they're more capitalist than the US in many ways, particularly with regards to healthy competition. It's a big part of the reason they're able to bring the prices on basically everything down to absurdly low levels. Even politically they're paradoxical in that they're a dictatorship but also quite decentralized. For each instance each 'region' down to a few thousand or so peo…

> more capitalist than the US in many ways, particularly with regards to healthy competition. I'd argue that the US and Europe are bad benchmarks, given the entrenched quasi-monopolies the governments refuse to break up. But we'll see how that goes for China. It's still early days for their capitalistic ambitions, and tensions between party and corporations are starting to show (Jack Ma et al.). Personally, I think t…

In general I'd agree with all of this. I think the biggest challenge they're going to face is that Xi Jinping isn't immortal. The nature of a dictatorship is such that benevolent and skilled leadership can achieve amazing things, but incompetent leadership can completely destroy a society. And relying on good leadership to choose good successors is rife with precedent of failure.

By contrast in the US whether we have a vegetable or a clown in the driver seat, the system remains relatively more stable. But that also means that even if somehow we managed to find a skilled and benevolent leader, the amount of good he'd be able to really do is just as limited as the amount of harm the aforementioned can do.

Re: U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

#185
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said something to the effect of "I love open source and open models and we'll do open models when it makes sense and closed models when it makes sense" in a recent Q&A.

Given that his company has already released open models, I find it funny that, as you described it, his remark communicates absolutely nothing whatsoever. Not sure what the question was, but this was an artful non-answer.

Lmao, I called it: https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-...

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49243880

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241679

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