This feels like the time when 2 people in my friend group broke up, and both they kept writing me essays to explain why they were the ones in the right, sharing incredibly intimate details about who is in the right hoping I would act as some sort of fair mediator and judge.
Where things stand with the Department of War
491–500 of 862 posts
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
Attitude towards war depends on context. In 2007 "war" meant "Iraq" which was extremely unpopular, pointless, and had an imperialist flavor. Today "war" means Gaza, Iran, and Venezuela, but it also means Ukraine and Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. I suspect Amodei and many Anthropic employees are thinking of the latter.
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That's a really weird claim about Ukraine, which the US leadership would love to sweep under the rug, leave alone to be taken apart, except for the bad optics - so they just drag their feet forever.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they have to couch it in language clarifying that they would love to support war, This is what baffles me when I see people flocking to them for subscriptions based on these events.
If LLM's are indeed a game changer professionally, you kind of need to pick one. Personally, I loathe seeing power shift towards mega corporations like that, away from being able to run your own computer with free software, but it feels like the economics are headed that way in terms of productivity.
You cannot rely on a closed source "AI" in someone else's cloud for your work. After all, it can be disabled for you at any time. "AI" can easily steal all your technological secrets. At the request of the owner, "AI" can easily mislead you and insert backdoors into your products. "AI" can even easily incorrectly answer some questions specifically for you if the owner of "AI" wants to remove your competition. And you may not even understand it.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#494It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…
> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…
To be fair, it wasn't like lockheed and raytheon and all the rest of the modern human killing machine companies have ever been hurting for engineering talent. Likewise for oil and gas.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> It means you can bring your priors into the classroom but I can’t. I've heard about this from Fox News but I've never experienced it myself, even having grown up in a very blue state. I'm sure this happens somewhere, but I'm unconvinced it is the norm. > Ethics is and always has been applied theology This is trivial to prove false. You even do it! "What do we do?" You've implicitly added "if god exists". You're so…
Yes exactly.
Golden rule does not need the existence of any god.
There are godless religions too that have strong ethical traditions. They are not religions in the Abrahamic sense.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I have to strongly disagree. I've met people who have never been in touch with organized religion. They generally have excellent ethical frameworks. I've also read the bible, it does not have a consistent moral or ethical framework. How can it be that areligious people have ethics if they need god for ethics? Ethics is all about being human, it does not require a god, and it does not require anyone to understand even…
Bible is quite permissive of killing if it's in the name of god. Genocide is quite a recurring theme.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#497It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…
> My, the world has changed.
Has it though? I'd say it's morphed, not changed. This is still, underneath it all, Hanseatic League and East India Company domination style colonialism, but adapted to and shaped by the digital age.
The US has pretty much all throughout its history had its military-industrial complex and warfare as an economic motor too, and in view of this, it's inevitable that software gets integrated.
Israel, the most recent settler-colonial state (of course some people try to claim it's not using various mental gymnastics, but I'm not fooled), was the experiment and has become a model for how to intermingle the industrial-military complex with society to the degree they two become indistinguishable, and with backing of the West it's been a very profitable and, I hate to say it, successful model.
Here's[1] a review of a book about the subject, talking about the state incubating start-ups and spawning a tech sector for the sole purpose of warmongering.
[1]: https://theconversation.com/the-harvard-of-anti-terrorism-ho...
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…
Same with Ender's Game. They are playing war games but they're actually real. He sacrifices his units and commits genocide (xenocide) at the same time. Something he probably wouldn't have done had he known. > Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess... My undergrad wasn't in CS but my grad was. I was incredibly surprised to find that ethics isn't a requirement in most CS programs. That's a sharp con…
And the world seen through media is heavily abstracted. And I think that makes people psychologically treat war like a game rather than something actually happening. We trick ourselves into believing it isn't real.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right. And the military in movies used to be depicted as inflexible, stubborn, paranoid, incompetent, and usually either "the bad guys" or authorities that impeded the progress of the main characters. (With exceptions; I'm not forgetting about Top Gun). Then there was a sudden switch, with the military shown with cool gadgets, airplanes, tech, heroics, and generally being glorified. The transition must have ha…
No conspiracy necessary. The CIA bought the rights to the 1954 film Animal Farm, modified the ending to fit propagandist ends, and it went undiscovered for four decades. The original Top Gun was intended to recover the image of the US Navy after the Vietnam War. Etc etc etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment...
Please lets also not forget computer games. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, oh what a glorious thing to be an american soldier...
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#500It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…
> My, the world has changed. Has it though? I'd say it's morphed, not changed. This is still, underneath it all, Hanseatic League and East India Company domination style colonialism, but adapted to and shaped by the digital age. The US has pretty much all throughout its history had its military-industrial complex and warfare as an economic motor too, and in view of this, it's inevitable that software gets integrated.…
Be careful with this "they are all the same" logic. As an empire, I would rather have the WWII to 2016 USA than the current one and the current one to Russia.