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Policy on the AI Exponential

darioamodei.com

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Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#71

Post by fer »

TobyTheCamel wrote: post #30

I feel completely baffled by the other responses on this thread. People viewing this purely as a marketing stunt, regulatory capture or attack on their freedoms, with seemingly no appreciation of the real threat that AI could pose to society and even humanity given its current rate of progress. I'm not going to claim that the CEO of pre-IPO company has no incentive to bolster the claims of his tech, but to completely…

Or simply we use AI and see on the ground what it can and can't do. I can generally trust an agent for solved problems, but the more something deviates from established industry standards (i.e. what was relentlessly scraped) I have an increasingly harder time not having constant oversight of what it's doing, no matter the specs I put on the md.

Personally I feel most of the improvement in the last year comes from tooling/integration (MCPs, realtime documentation access, treesitter support, orchestration) than from the models themselves, in the last year. And still frontier models would routinely come up with bs until you tell them to actually use those tools.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#72

Post by JustFinishedBSG »

It's very hard those days to think of companies/people more arrogant than Anthropic/Dario, which is quite the achievement as the bar is very high.

If that arrogance was well placed at least you could somewhat excuse it, but the fact that it is so overtly hypocritical and based on false premises just makes it so much worse.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#73

Post by inigyou »

nemomarx wrote: post #19
pixl97 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well obviously he'll have the AI 'dispose' of the poor and live a life as a king with a select few farmed humans and have the world as a play thing. Really the entire future of AI at this point seems like "Don't worry about it, we'll figure out when we get there". Works a lot better if you're extremely rich and can afford your own private security.

I never understood why people setting up bunkers expect the security to still be loyal after whatever happens.

I'll sell them unquestioningly loyal security LLMs if they want.

Prompt: The robber is stealing the crown jewels.

Output: You must stop the robber from stealing the crown jewels.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#74

Post by voxleone »

Regarding regulation: I'm deeply invested in computer vision systems and i fear that policymakers [who are not deeply familiar with the technical distinctions between AI systems] may write broad rules that cover "AI" generally. In that case, computer vision companies and industrial users could end up subject to requirements that were largely motivated by concerns about generative AI and LLMs.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#75

Post by ofjcihen »

tptacek wrote: post #56
iamniels wrote: post #20

I like that he comes up with new laws and regulations for AI companies. Can I suggest some more? - You shall not embed copyrighted material in your models. - You shall not bombard every little website in existence with 1 million scraping queries per day. - You shall not use your political influence to pump and dump your AI (or rocket?) company. - You shall not imperill the whole IT sector by buying all CPU and memory…

It is normal, expected, and healthy for stakeholders in a regulatory environment to offer proposals about regulations. What's unhealthy is the proposition that the deliberation process is so fragile that a stakeholder needs to cover every angle, lest they corrupt the outcome.

What you say is true but completely ignores the obvious ways in which what he is proposing benefits his company.

Its like saying it’s normal for a taxi driver to drive people places while he’s got you handcuffed in the trunk.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#76

Post by TobyTheCamel »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #35
TobyTheCamel wrote: post #30

I feel completely baffled by the other responses on this thread. People viewing this purely as a marketing stunt, regulatory capture or attack on their freedoms, with seemingly no appreciation of the real threat that AI could pose to society and even humanity given its current rate of progress. I'm not going to claim that the CEO of pre-IPO company has no incentive to bolster the claims of his tech, but to completely…

I agree that AI poses a threat to society. I act on this by not developing world-leading AI models and offering them to anyone willing to pay top dollar, while funneling that money back into accelerating AI capabilities development. Maybe Dario would consider taking a similar ethical position? Maybe he would support restrictions and taxes on data center construction, in order to slow down the pace?

If Anthropic were not developing these models, one of many other companies would be. I think it's good that the CEO of the current world-leader is at least considering these discussions and platforming possible solutions.

The fact that he doesn't support more restrictive approaches that don't align with his incentives doesn't invalidate the points he is making.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#77

Post by stackbutterflow »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #50
nemomarx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people setting up bunkers expect the security to still be loyal after whatever happens.

Can't find the article mentioning it but apparently it's an open problem they're thinking about. But yeah if society collapses these billionaire nerds are the first to go. Quietly, in their bunkers, while the team leader of their seal mercenary team takes over. Even before the rest of us realizes what's happening.

Found it

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...

> Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?

The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.

I tried to reason with them. I made pro-social arguments for partnership and solidarity as the best approaches to our collective, long-term challenges. The way to get your guards to exhibit loyalty in the future was to treat them like friends right now, I explained. Don’t just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships. They rolled their eyes at what must have sounded to them like hippy philosophy.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#79

Post by mountainb »

This reads like an AI with an overflowing context window wrote it; or in the alternative it’s a list of statutes written by an arrogant and delusional king. It is this type of arrogance that will lead to an unfavorable reaction by Congress.

Re: Policy on the AI Exponential

#80

Post by aspenmartin »

newcommentsorry wrote: post #68
snaking0776 wrote: post #23

I know this is likely just for IPO hype but when I read things like this I sometimes wonder if I must be missing something. I use agents everyday and find them really useful and they save me a lot of headache. At the same time I find that if I let it self-direct at a high level at all it generally makes bad choices that cause me headaches later so I can’t really give them autonomy. Enough people seem to believe this…

This is a very tech-focused message board, populated by mostly tech-insiders, so perhaps a little outside perspective will help people understand. Tech people are following a religious belief system whose utopian promise is the all-powerful computer that will end all suffering. I once read an article in reason magazine from over 30 years ago about how an advanced computer in the future will bring everyone who has eve…

> Tech people are following a religious belief system whose utopian promise is the all-powerful computer that will end all suffering.

Uh, I don't really think that's anywhere close to an accurate characterization of most people here. Everyone, including Dario and any researcher at any frontier lab, knows the situation is quite scary and unprecedented. There are problems that will be solved and diseases that will be cured, but will we be living in an Orwellian universe? Will a rogue drone swarm find you cowing in your basement and murder you? I mean the technology for this is already mostly here, it's a matter of the willpower and budget to roll out something really evil.

The comment's question is about capabilities and why the discussion about capabilities often times is far removed from todays capabilities.

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