Front row seats to the apocalypse would be metal af.
move to SF. that's the place AI will nuke first
AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#42I recommend reading the letter. Many of the comments here seem to have missed that the comment of "the world is in peril" is not referring to AI, but to the larger collection of crises going on in the world. It sounds to me like someone who realized their work doesn't match their goals for their own life, and is taking action. Maybe the cynics have a point that it is an easier decision to make when you are loaded wit…
And how exactly will studying (not even writing!) poetry address these crises? It's holier-than-thou bullshit written by a guy who has only gotten feedback from soulless status-seekers who were smitten by his position at Anthropic.
I would argue that simple acts of authenticity - writing a poem, growing a vegetable, creating art, walking in nature, meaningfully interacting with one's community - represent exactly the sort of trajectory required to address those crises generated by an overzealous adherence to technological advancement at any societal cost.
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#43Since nobody seems to be reading the actual letter, here’s an OCR of it: https://pastebin.com/raw/rVtkPbNy
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#44Seems to be the MO around here - create and profit off of horrors beyond our wildest imaginations with no accountability and conveniently disappear before shit hits the fan. Not before writing an op-ed though.
It's really hard to take people like this seriously. They preach sermons about the perils of AI, maneuver themselves into an extremely lucrative position where they can actually do something about it, but they don't actually care. They came to get that bag. Now they got it, so instead of protecting the world from peril, they go off and study poetry. LOL. These are not serious people.
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how exactly will studying (not even writing!) poetry address these crises? It's holier-than-thou bullshit written by a guy who has only gotten feedback from soulless status-seekers who were smitten by his position at Anthropic.
Did you read the resignation letter?
Yeah, he posted a low-resolution bitmap scan of it on Twitter a few days ago. I had to open it in Safari and rely on its OCR to actually paste the relevant passage that describes his reason for leaving, which only comes after four paragraphs of preamble.
> What comes next, I do not know. I think fondly of the famous Zen quote "not knowing is most intimate". My intention is to create space to set aside the structures that have held me these past years, and see what might emerge in their absence. I feel called to writing that addresses and engages fully with the place we find ourselves, and that places poetic truth alongside scientific truth as equally valid ways of knowing, both of which I believe have something essential to contribute when developing new technology.* I hope to explore a poetry degree and devote myself to the practice of courageous speech. I am also excited to deepen my practice of facilitation, coaching, community building, and group work. We shall see what unfolds.
:eggplant_emoji:
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#46Seems to be the MO around here - create and profit off of horrors beyond our wildest imaginations with no accountability and conveniently disappear before shit hits the fan. Not before writing an op-ed though.
It's claimed Adam Smith wrote hundreds of years ago that (paraphrased) division of labor taken to extremes would result in humans dumber than the lowest animal.
This era proves it out, I believe.
Decline in manual, cross context skills and rise in "knowledge" jobs is a huge part of our problem. Labor pool lacks muscle memory across contexts. Cannot readily pivot to in defiance.
Socialized knowledge has a habit of being discredited and obsoleted with generational churn, while physical reality hangs in there. Not looking great for those who planned on 30-40 years of cloud engineering and becoming director of such n such before attaining title of vp of this and that.
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#47People stating he must have hit his equity cliff, does anyone grant equity at only a 2-year cliff?
People stating he can sell equity on a secondary market, do you have experience doing that? At the last start up I was at, it didn't seem like anyone was just allowed to do that
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#48A recent, less ambiguous warning from insiders who are seeing the same thing: Alarmed by what companies are building with artificial intelligence models, a handful of industry insiders are calling for those opposed to the current state of affairs to undertake a mass data poisoning effort to undermine the technology. "Hinton has clearly stated the danger but we can see he is correct and the situation is escalating in…
> The Luddites are back, wrecking technology in a quixotic effort to stop progress. The luddites got us the weekend and workers rights, eventually.
No, they did not; that was organized labor. The luddites were never comparably organized and preferred less-productive tactics, and their recalcitrance cost them much of their popular support.
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#49Seems to be the MO around here - create and profit off of horrors beyond our wildest imaginations with no accountability and conveniently disappear before shit hits the fan. Not before writing an op-ed though.
Is it really fair to saddle the conscientious objectors with this critique? What about the people that stay and continue to profit exponentially as the negative outcomes become more and more clear? Are the anti-AI and anti-tech doomers who would never in a million years take a tech job actually more impactful in mitigating harms? To be clear, I agree with the problem from a systemic perspective, I just don't agree wi…
Yes, it’s fair.
Yes, people that never participated are more impactful.
Re: AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry
#50> AI-assisted bioterrorism Does he know something we don't? Why specifically the "bio" kind?
Engineering your own virus is becoming more and more accessible. AI isn't really the crucial part here, but it would further lower the barrier of entry