Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Claude Corps

anthropic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: Claude Corps

#91

Post by alfiedotwtf »

ipdashc wrote: post #88
pandoro wrote: post #51

Taken verbatim from Anthropic’s Economic Policy Framework ( https://www.anthropic.com/policy-on-the-ai-exponential/epf ): > We are not seeking job displacement. We are working to prevent or minimize it. Some amount of displacement, though we cannot say how much, may be an intrinsic consequence of the technology, and our responsibility is to prepare for it and respond to it. That is what this framework is for. > Whate…

So what do you want them to do, then? Because I don't like it either, but they're right about their core tenet, which is that if they don't do it, someone else is going to. Even if we ignore the obvious other player in OpenAI, there's now dozens of labs in a handful of countries, the cat is thoroughly out of the bag. Is it annoying? Yeah. Is it preachy and hypocritical? Yeah. And I've yet to hear anyone suggest somet…

> if they don't do it, someone else is going to

If I don’t rob my neighbour, someone else is going to do it

Re: Claude Corps

#92

Post by ipdashc »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #91
ipdashc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you want them to do, then? Because I don't like it either, but they're right about their core tenet, which is that if they don't do it, someone else is going to. Even if we ignore the obvious other player in OpenAI, there's now dozens of labs in a handful of countries, the cat is thoroughly out of the bag. Is it annoying? Yeah. Is it preachy and hypocritical? Yeah. And I've yet to hear anyone suggest somet…

> if they don't do it, someone else is going to If I don’t rob my neighbour, someone else is going to do it

No, not really?

Re: Claude Corps

#93

Post by b112 »

pandoro wrote: post #55
gwbas1c wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, think critically about where you are on the internet. You're on a message board run by YCombinator, who's stated goal is to teach people to run startups. Startups are inherently disruptive. When one business disrupts another, people lose their jobs. Companies going out of business, either because of disruption, or because they ran themselves poorly, or other reasons, is part of the normal business cycle. Otherwi…

I see your point, but in this case we are not talking about disruption at the scale of a product category, vertical, or even an entire industry. AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time: knowledge work/white collar jobs, creative work (design, photo, video, ...), medical professions, etc. They are recognizing themselves in their economic policy framework that the lowest level…

AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time

Talk to news companies, which whether newspapers, magazines, radio or TV, are basically either literally gone, or a shadow of their former selves. The best way to compare this, as you say is to even larger constructs, to entire sectors of the economy.

Because you can harken this to desktop computers, or to the Internet. Sector after sector of people replaced, industries gone. Just the sheer amount of newsprint, recycled or not, which is now no longer manufactured affected an enormous amount of jobs. The entire forest industry, to sawmill, to shipping + printing and all the parts and maintenance and delivery and even the newstands which are basically now gone. Good for the environment or not, that's massive change.

I agree AI will do the very same. But it's not even really happening that much faster. We're 3 years in. It will take 10 to 20 years for it to play out.

But... back in 2008, would you have said the Internet was "bad" for humanity? No, you wouldn't. Back then, it was all about connecting people, it was about empowering people in totalitarian regimes, so they could connect and speak out. It was about old controls slipping, about people being able to speak directly to one another. Back then, 99.999% of people thought "awesome!".

And when I talk to the average Joe about AI today? I hear the same thing. Awesome!

The Internet has put countless people out of work. So has the computer. So has electricity. And machines. People have always complained. But if you're going to label AI companies as "They took my job!", then you'd better do the same for all those other industries. Otherwise?

It's a bit hypocritical.

Re: Claude Corps

#94

Post by pandoro »

basisword wrote: post #90
ipdashc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you want them to do, then? Because I don't like it either, but they're right about their core tenet, which is that if they don't do it, someone else is going to. Even if we ignore the obvious other player in OpenAI, there's now dozens of labs in a handful of countries, the cat is thoroughly out of the bag. Is it annoying? Yeah. Is it preachy and hypocritical? Yeah. And I've yet to hear anyone suggest somet…

Keeping building models and tools. Sending out missionaries to speed along the process of job displacement is an unnecessary side quest.

Bingo!

Re: Claude Corps

#95

Post by kajkojednojajko »

It's uncanny that they picked the term "Corps", which is exactly what Kurt Vonnegut used for the "Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps" in his 1952 novel, Player Piano. Also known as "Reeks and Wrecks" in the book, it's one of the two career paths, aside from joining the Army, for the workers displaced by machines and artificial intelligence. The irony seems to be lost on Anthropic.

I enjoyed Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle very much, so I've been slowly reading my way through his earlier works, and while his first novel is not as entertaining, it's surprisingly relevant today. There's Vonnegut's prescience about the impact of technology on society, of course, but even the description of a corporate retreat in the book, that he wrote with almost 75 years ago, hits too close to home.

Re: Claude Corps

#96

Post by pandoro »

b112 wrote: post #93
pandoro wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but in this case we are not talking about disruption at the scale of a product category, vertical, or even an entire industry. AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time: knowledge work/white collar jobs, creative work (design, photo, video, ...), medical professions, etc. They are recognizing themselves in their economic policy framework that the lowest level…

AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time Talk to news companies, which whether newspapers, magazines, radio or TV, are basically either literally gone, or a shadow of their former selves. The best way to compare this, as you say is to even larger constructs, to entire sectors of the economy. Because you can harken this to desktop computers, or to the Internet. Sector after sec…

I was not criticizing the technology in itself but the messaging and marketing around it. I agree with most of your points except perhaps the general sentiment outside of tech about AI. Most people I've talked to admire the technology but are genuinely scared or angry about the second-order effect of it on society. And I think, in part, it's because of the messaging, marketing and general psychosis about the technology that those companies are generating.

Re: Claude Corps

#98

Post by sph »

deadbabe wrote: post #7

Claude Corps, Forward Deployed Engineers, Strategic Token Reserves… what’s with all these military inspired naming conventions in AI? We’re just typing softly on keyboards…

Americans high on their own propaganda. It's cringeworthy.

Re: Claude Corps

#99

Post by torginus »

patcon wrote: post #59
827a wrote: post #30

This seems like one way to saddle nonprofits with functional, but potentially very expensive systems, set up by someone who helps them for a year then disappears and leaves them with no expertise to do long-term cost control or functionality improvements.

I don't suppose you have experience with how badly small non-profits are fucked by every tech consultancy they ever work with? They are paying for a service at the very top of their budget, and receiving services perceived from the bottom, as almost "pro bono" by the consultancy, via intern labour. They all have PTSD from the status quo. Getting nonprofits into AI that feels even marginally more self-serve, that is a…

I used to volunteer for an animal shelter doing IT stuff. They didn't really have much money, and what they had they needed for actual, real-world problems like buying dog food and paying vet's fees etc.

They ran on ancient hand-me down Windows PCs, with a donated HP server, fully on-prem. The MS licences they got from some government/MS program for free (not sure).

It was kinda crappy, but it did the job, there were some databases, Active Directory, some CRUD stuff to manage the internal workings of the shelter, and a locally hosted website.

But it cost nothing to run besides the electricity, and it did the job.

If we were to replicate the same system on top of SOTA AWS hardware, it would cost thousands of dollars per month, which would be a significant part of their operating budget.

Considering how much they actually needed every cent, I shudder at the thought.

Re: Claude Corps

#100

Post by torginus »

pandoro wrote: post #51

Taken verbatim from Anthropic’s Economic Policy Framework ( https://www.anthropic.com/policy-on-the-ai-exponential/epf ): > We are not seeking job displacement. We are working to prevent or minimize it. Some amount of displacement, though we cannot say how much, may be an intrinsic consequence of the technology, and our responsibility is to prepare for it and respond to it. That is what this framework is for. > Whate…

I don't understand this at a high level. Anthropic is going to go public, which means they are liable to act in the best interest of shareholders, so they cannot leave money on the table, much less do selfless handouts.

Yet at the same time, they are a public benefit corporation, and I'm not quite sure what that means? Is that a separate legal entity from the for-profit arm?

Post reply on HN