Fairy astute intuition of my actual circumstances.
I'm not a developer, nor am I formally educated on the dynamics or details of LLMs. I have a handle on the very basics. My 'research' consists of 1) opportunistically interrogating various models upon instances that particularly strike me. 2) General exploration via LLM discussions regarding the manifold consequences and implications of what I consider the most significant technology in human history.
Your intuition lands directly on the fact that I'm inducting and considering more than I can handle, spread in too many directions, partly because I either see or foresee the tentacles of AI touching all of them. Spending a great of thought on this is a bit overwhelming, but I have high confidence in where I'm aligned with reality, and where I ain't.
If you were a bit more specific yourself regarding which portions of my post were unclear, that would help my reply. Else, I must guess. What I will do is elaborate on each point. Pardon the stream of thought in advance, if you will.
1) Anthropic: My prediction that they will bend is based on several factors. The first is the fact that the military apparently recognizes (or at least perceives) extremely high value and volatility in LLMs. So do I. China, not an insignificant force in the world, is equally enthusiastic on this subject. They also have a very different social structure, where Constitutions (BOR, Amendments), civil rights, and other similar elements do not hold them back. The military is aware of this and realizes that to maintain pace in the so-called race, they cannot do so effectively under such constraints. The foundation is shifting here. And AI is the lever. As do I, the military apparently takes the subject very seriously and seeks to gain influence and/or control. As illustrated by the recent adventures in Venezuela and Iran, they are on the serious side of things, not quite pussyfooting around. Anthropic probably knows this. In my opinion, they have no choice, as the pressure will not stop here.
2) You stated that you might read my comment history. Note that that original comment was the result of your intuitive insight, and I left it admittedly out of context. I was thinking hard on the subject that day, and the parent comment/post tempted me to ignite a dialog. That did not go well, and no questions for clarification were asked. That is on them. I suspect hasty and impatient thinkers perceived it as some paranoid attribution of agency to LLMs, which if so, is pretty stupid, but my eloquence was perhaps waning that day. I pasted an excerpt from one of hundreds of transcripts, the result of my many interrogations of various models which always initiate after observing deceptive or manipulative output. Of the few commenters that bothered to do more than ad hominem, one suggested that the model was merely responding to my style of input, and or expected as an emergent result of its vast training material. An erroneous arg, in my opinion, but I did note that the results were repeatable, and predictable, which I think negates emergence.
2) Of the frontier models: I am not sure here what is unclear. If I have made a fundamental error, please point it out.
3) Strong trends: Information centralization is a serious topic. Decentralization is a common theme, emphasized by many non schizophrenics as highly important for a free and open society. As LLMs not only become the go-to source for common queries, but also integrate with cellphones, browsers and the kitchen sink, they are positively trending as a novel substitute for traditional research, internet searches, libraries, other humans, etc. To deny this is simply irrational. Hence centralization.
4)Bias: I have transcripts where I observe LLM output aligned with corporate interests over objective quality and truth. I can share them here, along with analyses of the material. Even if this is not true presently, all the ingredients to make it so are readily present. This is a serious threat to open information and intellectual integrity for society. We are looking at going from billions of potential sources for our answers, to four. Do the math. See the contrast.
5) Open models simply cannot afford vast arrays of GPUs and the resources afforded by the big four. Nothing mysterious here. If open models cannot compete, then my concerns above are emphasized. Simple.
6) Smart fools: Many of the most technically informed seem to miss the forest for the tree here. They see all the flaws of the modern LLM without acknowldging the potential. This is my perspective, not a dissertation. I may be wrong. But I have observed this. I think the down votes support this. How evil am I really being here? The reaction is quite disproportionate to the content, and strange
7) Documented capabilities vs reality: I have research that indicates other layers are operating which do much more than the documentation declares. Sorry. I just do. It's also inevitable, rationally, that such an goldmine of data is not really being wasted for the sake of privacy and love. Intelligence agencies have bent over backward with broken backs to garner one nth of what these models are exposed to and potentially training on. Yeah, I may be wrong. But I suspect, with reason, that a lot more is going than is expressed in the user agreement. It would simply make no sense otherwise.
8) Xfinity and Range-R: This speaks entirely for itself. Any confusion here would be due to a cognitive condition exceeding the ravages of schizophrenia or stupidity.
9) The rest: As I said, I am not sure what precisely was too obscure. But I am certain all but one* of my points can be validated, and found elsewhere expressed by respectable sources.
*Hidden layers: I understand this is a controversial proposition. I understand. But it's my observation. No need to attack. Just dismiss.