91–100 of 108 posts
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If you live in US, taxes you pay directly fund DoD. So if you sponsor their activities, why can't Anthropic do business with them? Which other company would you rather get their (your) money?
Paying taxes is not voluntary, unlike business deals.
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arent they complete trash as a database? "Show me people who have googled 'Homemade Bomb' in the last 30 days". For returning bulk data in a sane format it is terrible. If their job was to process incoming data into a structured form I could see them being useful, but holy cow it will be expensive to in realtime run all the garbage they pick up via surveillance through an AI.
Most LLMs I use would respond to this by writing a Python program to run the query.
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I agree that there is no (one) simple system that would work. Many simple systems are required, but should be as few in number as possible to limit complexity. And it may be (almost certainly is) that a certain level of (high) complexity is required for such a system to work. I believe that some complex system, evolved from simple systems that work, could itself work. That belief coexists with my belief that the curr…
I agree with this line of thinking, but I also think it's impossible to have a complex system that is universally acknowledged to "work". In Minsky's Society of Mind, he describes a mind made up of layers of agents. The agents have similar cognitive capacity. Lower-level agents are close to the detail but can't fit overall picture into their context. Higher-level ones that can see the overall picture but all the deta…
I've been meaning to read that book; I haven't yet, so I'm not in a position to evaluate its argument. But the argument as you describe it makes intuitive sense, and I would agree that the hypothetical mind would be at least analogous to national politics.
Suppose "works" means that the majority of citizens (lower-level agents?) may readily implement its collective will for society's governance and benefit within the bounds of constitutionality. (Take, for example, the will for universal, affordable, high -quality health care.)
I would contend that the federal government was intended (in part) to enable the implementation of such will, and that it no longer works as intended. (Reasons include filibuster and other intra-chamber parliamentary rules; gerrymandering; corporate interference à la Citizens United; etc.)
(Of course one could argue that the Constitution applies pressure against the tyranny of the majority in several ways, but let's leave that aside for now.)
LLMs are a key enabling technology to extract real insights from the enormous amount of surveillance data the USA captures. I think it's not an understatement to say we are entering a new era here! Previously, the data may have been collected, but there was so much that effectively, on average no one was "looking" at it. Now it can all be looked at.
and hallucinated about.
and what recourse do you have as a citizen? next to none.
As someone whose has been part of a company that has "signed" one of these large deals before, let me tell you that it doesn't mean the DoD is giving these companies $200M. If one of the companies is wildly successful, sure. But none of it is guaranteed money and the initial budget is likely 10-100x smaller than the cap.
Initial budget still bigger than a sbir/sttr phase 2 though. Different grant award structure for not-small companies, but my brain also breaks a little bit because anthropic isn't that far above the sbir employee # cap, but the $$ numbers are so big
If you look at all the recent LLM-focused SBIR/STTR topics, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that DoD orgs are drowning in paperwork and want to automatically synthesize reports. Actually getting an LLM cleared for use might be the hurdle they're looking to overcome.
> With CDAO and other DOD organizations and commands, we'll engage in: - Working directly with the DOD to identify where frontier AI can deliver the most impact, then developing working prototypes fine-tuned on DOD data - Collaborating with defense experts to anticipate and mitigate potential adversarial uses of AI, drawing on our advanced risk forecasting capabilities - Exchanging technical insights, performance dat…
Sounds about right for defense spending. If there was an actual deliverable the contract would have a couple more zeroes added to it. For context Microsoft was awarded a $22 billion contract for HoloLens headsets for the military, and not a single one made it to use.
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Initial budget still bigger than a sbir/sttr phase 2 though. Different grant award structure for not-small companies, but my brain also breaks a little bit because anthropic isn't that far above the sbir employee # cap, but the $$ numbers are so big
It's closer in structure to a sbir phase 3, however. If I read between the lines, the DoD isn't looking to do research, they're likely desperate to find a way to deploy and run SOTA models in disconnected environments. If you look at all the recent LLM-focused SBIR/STTR topics, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that DoD orgs are drowning in paperwork and want to automatically synthesize reports. Actually gettin…
Traditionally there wasn't (for sbir/sttr) any kind of path for direct-to-phase3 like there is/was for skipping phase 1. But I guess some fires under certain butts can cut even DoD red tape lol. Or also, bigger contracts just don't follow the same procedures anyway
LLMs are a key enabling technology to extract real insights from the enormous amount of surveillance data the USA captures. I think it's not an understatement to say we are entering a new era here! Previously, the data may have been collected, but there was so much that effectively, on average no one was "looking" at it. Now it can all be looked at.
Even the best LLM can't even process a 50 line CSV with like 2+ columns properly.
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I believe you, but also: seems it isn't even worth the bad press for 10-100x less.
Misanthropic wants to get the foot in the door, like the others. The majority of people hate chatbots and surveillance is the only viable path. It won't fix the lack of NATO 155mm shells though.
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Is it unethical for a drywall installer to accept a contract for a building on a military base?
It's not unreasonable to take such a position, yes. Look, if you believe that: a) humanity is headed toward sustained peace b) a transition from the current world order to a peaceful one is better done in an orderly and adult fashion ...then yes, at some point we all need to back away from participation in the legacy systems, right down to the drywall. My observation, especially of the younger generations, is that be…
Let me reframe what you said in terms of christianity:
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If you believe that:
a) Jesus is our savior b) The salvation of humanity depends on accepting (a)
...then yes, at some point everyone needs to back away from other religious systems, right down to atheism.
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I'm not trying to make light of what you believe, but framing others' participation in a system you don't believe in as unethical is exactly what leads to oppression of religious minorities and other outsider groups. It's a tactic of religion, not reason.