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Our position on open-weights models

anthropic.com

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Re: Our position on open-weights models

#991

Post by nedruod »

vhantz wrote: post #196

Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…

This take is poorly informed and poorly thought out. It's just a cynical vibe, not a cogent argument.

If they wanted to squash the competitors, they'd advocate for a ban on Open-Weight models. How else are they going to prevent their release?

Anthropic's position is not that, so the cynical nefarious purpose argument isn't even rhetorically true. What they say openly, that open-weight models are harder to secure is absolutely true, and anyone unwilling to acknowledge that and let it inform their own reasoning is a risk.

If open-weight models keep being released near the frontier (or even worse, at the frontier), something bad will happen, and we'll have few tools to keep it from getting worse before it gets better. How bad is hard to lay a prediction on, it's perhaps lucky if it's something superficially bad that is a wake up call.

You cannot un-release an open-weight model, nor even post-release add a new restriction. Whatever mistakes you made are done and the only option is to fail-forward with every ounce of pain that entails.

Diverting from this important point by vibing cynicism is irresponsible. Cynicism is only a powerful tool when it opens you up to deeper reasoning, not when it diverts you from it.

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#992

Post by gruturo »

nedruod wrote: post #991
vhantz wrote: post #196

Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…

This take is poorly informed and poorly thought out. It's just a cynical vibe, not a cogent argument. If they wanted to squash the competitors, they'd advocate for a ban on Open-Weight models. How else are they going to prevent their release? Anthropic's position is not that, so the cynical nefarious purpose argument isn't even rhetorically true. What they say openly, that open-weight models are harder to secure is a…

> Anthropic's position is not that, so the cynical nefarious purpose argument isn't even rhetorically true

Anthropic's position is precisely that, they're just not honest and transparent about it so they are trying to sabotage or delay open weight models in any way they can, direct or otherwise.

> If open-weight models keep being released near the frontier (or even worse, at the frontier), something bad will happen, and we'll have few tools to keep it from getting worse before it gets better. How bad is hard to lay a prediction on, it's perhaps lucky if it's something superficially bad that is a wake up call.

Calling bullshit. Current open weight models are already pretty close to the frontier - if not there - and the world still spins. Even small(er, relatively) models occasionally surprise everyone by being amazing at certain tasks. Furthermore, closed weight models can do plenty of damage which even their creators occasionally can't control - cue the Huggingface incident of last week and how they had to use GLM to defend themselves. Closed weight models will create a 2-class (or more) world in which some actors will have access others won't (see Mythos, or GPT5.6-Sol when a user has the right flags) and potentially carry out attacks against which the have-nots are... not supposed to be able to defend themselves? Fuck that.

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#994

Post by evolve-maz »

az226 wrote: post #381

Dario doesn’t realize that by not offering self-hosting of closed-weight models and fine-tuning, alongside overly strict refusals for legitimate needs, he ceded this corner of the market which grew into a flourishing Chinese open-weight model ecosystem. If he had wanted a weak open-weight ecosystem, he should have had Anthropic cater better to those needs. And now he's trying to ban them. The strong momentum behind o…

Anthropic releasing things like Cowork explains why they wouldn't want you to host the model and retain your data.

They need that data so they can push into wider job automation, displacing the SaaS companies who used Anthropic in the first place.

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#995

Post by doiskoh »

elliotec wrote: post #391
rramach wrote: post #358

Wow, this comment thread clearly shows that at least Anthropic has not been a great communicator. If one reads this with a charitable lens, Dario is simply saying that 1) Nation state actors are a threat which needs to be combatted by chip bans and distillation prevention and 2) open-weight models can pose biological risk. One may or may not agree with item 1 but item 2 above should have broad support given the unkno…

Closed-weight models can also pose biological risk, arguably more so than open-weight models, given the fact that they're being used by state actors (the United States military) to kill people right now. Who should we fear more? All of collective humanity with the keys to build destructive (and defensive) stuff with AI, or small groups of elites, billionaires, and state actors who have the monopoly on violence and wa…

I actually trust the "small groups of elites, billionaires, and state actors who have the monopoly on violence" over "all of collective humanity". The people with power want to hold on to power - and they've been doing it very well. Generally speaking, it's in their best interest for the world to not go to total shit, and they work hard to have it that way whilst holding on to what they have. It's the disenfranchised that are far more likely to want to have mutually assured destruction.

I think the general public should not be conflated with 'collective humanity' - it's more like... many pockets of people, some well organized, some not so much. They're not all necessarily working together; we all have our own agendas.

Also, it's very much the asymmetry of offensive vs defensive capabilities that's extremely concerning. A disgruntled, mentally unstable backyard biologist spewing out potentially world-shaking viruses is not something I'm comfortable with. At least when the elites do it, they'll have the antidote ready to sell us (fingers crossed).

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#996

Post by tom2026hn »

transcriptase wrote: post #128

“By virtue of being the good people everything we do is good, and if it happens to be in our best personal and financial interest then that is good too because it enables us to do more good. And if it’s to the detriment to others then it’s because you don’t understand the good behind it. Which is fine, because we’re good and you can trust that what we do is good because what we do is good by virtue of us being the go…

AI will cause mass unemployment, and perhaps even human extinction. Even though our safety record isn't much better, we still have to accelerate. Because if we lead the way, we might just have a slightly better future than extinction. (At the very least, I'll be filthy rich.)

"All of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make."

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#997

Post by dangoljames »

vhantz wrote: post #196

Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…

Its a losing battle because anthropic can never be profitable (ditto openAI)

They need all the protection they can get and it wont be enough, no matter their market cap.

Re: Our position on open-weights models

#998

Post by xnx »

m_ke wrote: post #230
vhantz wrote: post #196

Schrödinger's China at once is an evil entity looking to use AI for their own nefarious purposes yet also willing to cooperate with their main competitor to prevent other actors (who??) from achieving similar goals (all while under a chip embargo too!!) The reality is much less confusing: Anthropic CEO does not wish for models with similar (or greater) capabilities compared to his own closed and overpriced ones to be…

Yeah some real main character energy from Dario as usual. I'll never get why he thinks China would just sit there and let the US dominate them in AI when all it would take is a few of their boats blockading Taiwan to put a stop to it all.

Saying "all it would take" and then describing an act of war is an interesting opinion.
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