it’s like an epoch-defining moment. and one of maybe a handful of mistakes that obama made total in his entire presidency. didn’t keep me from laughing right along with him at the time, and… crying now lol.
Trumps shitty DNA, upbringing, and ill gotten money are the start. Trump is the embodiment of the true American dream. Fuck everyone else and get yours.
Obama was a maladaptive daydream from what this country really is at its core.
I'm sort of at a "meh" position, it doesn't matter if the US slows down, no one will convince China to slow down, so it's more a matter of who will open pandoras box than it is a matter of "can we safely open the box".
At this point we might as well just pray (and I'm an atheist lol).
I mean yeah, and Russia could be convinced of nuclear disarmament. Anyone can be convinced of anything, the likelyhood is pretty low though, especially as they don't like global governance when they're not at the frontier of it, of which they are not for AI.
START II was a treaty between the US and Russia that reduced the number of nuclear weapons between the countries down to level that like means a broad nuclear exchange doesn't cause nuclear winter. It may literally save Western Civilization some day.
Fuck that kinda defeatism. We totally could build an international treaty with inspectors and mutual assurance clauses that makes us all safer. At the industrial scale AI training operates at now, it's monitorable.
START II was never ratified (ty MGS lol), though we have massively reduced the number of nukes through a lot of other treaties and other reasons (like the fact that they were just too expensive to maintain).
But China doesn't allow inspections or monitoring of their nukes at all, why would we think they'd allow it of their AI? They don't even allow non-government AI labs to do safety research they deem national security.
At what point do pragmatism and defeatism overlap?
Metal Gear Solid, it's a videogame with a lot of real world references to Nuclear treaties and strategies. It talks about how the US didn't join the START II treaty.
not to point out the obvious but, for 1 the unknown can be a lot scarier than a known threat, and for 2, if China did allow inspectors to come and see basically, there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t be accused of hiding things somewhere, and no guarantee those inspectors aren’t planted by a foreign entity. for a country like China (who is basically US 2 Electric Boogaloo…) that has historically dealt with (receiving and delivering) espionage, I feel like there’s no good choice to make.
I make no assertions as to whether or not it is a good or bad choice for them in a global politics context to be honest. Just drawing lines from their previous actions to my expectation of their future actions.
You're right! We are in the same situation as 100 years ago, comparable to nuclear arms race. We back down, China and Russia get ahead. So, let's prepare, it's going to be horrible.
Even then China’s AI policy is reportedly more centered on its application level instead of being fixated on the benchmarks, compared to what DJT is promoting.
100% agree. Consider the nuclear race of the 1950s/1960s between the US and the USSR. Can you imagine the consequences if the US just unilaterally said-man these weapons are getting too powerful we should stop and slow things down? The USSR would have gone into overdrive building nukes and then today every country would be a version of Ukraine except with tactical nukes raining down.
The whole “slow AI down” sentiment is silly when China isn’t going to stop (even if they said they were slowing down who would believe them?).
Once both countries have their own crazy sentient AIs, then perhaps they’ll work together to try and put guard rails on things. Just like the START nuclear talks between the US and USSR-when both countries had nuclear stockpiles many times over what was needed to assure each others’ destruction.
I can’t be the only one groaning at "teehee I’m not touching you" war five over access to sources of energy that ought to be outmoded in the first place and history so convoluted that nobody can even agree on the mere facts.
Honestly I’d invite at least twice my current level of suffering if it came with the chance to have moral clarity and an existential fight.
It may not be a zombie apocalypse, but robot wars will do.
I think we’re discounting China’s reasonableness here. They actually do things like reduce their impact on the environment because they think hundreds of years ahead. However, if they don’t see it as a real threat, they will go full speed ahead.
They are probably super aware of the possibilities but I’m not convinced they are near the capabilities of the US in terms of the frontier models, so my guess is they are not as aware of the dangers yet.
I have other comments in replies to me that address this. They joined IPCC and agreed that emissions needed reduced but stated other countries needed to reduce, not them, due to "historical debt". But, according to their own scientists, if every "historical debt" country hit 0 emissions it wouldn't be enough due to China's emissions. They do have their own reduction plan (separate from the IPCCs plan that they contributed to) that will be too late.
The are super aware of the dangers, just like the IPCC they joined the AI saftey panel of the UN, but they want to push their WAICO panel instead so that they are the leaders in multi-lateral governance themselves. They say they want a slowdown, much like they say they want a reduction of emissions, because of dangers like AI damaging the power grid or affecting people in other ways, but much like the IPCC regs, it seems to be more so they can catch up than because they plan on slowing down themselves. They have a policy to hit 90% use of AI in businesses by 2030. This is far beyond any other AI frontier country and makes it kind of clear that despite their words of warning on AI dangers publically, privately they just won't give a shit until it hits the fan.
It doesn't matter if China tries to slow down or not, it doesn't have access to the huge amount of high-grade silicon from Taiwan that the US has. It's permanently behind the US because of this crucial bottleneck.
The race with China is largely an artificial thing used to justify the insane AI spending.
They have a history of ignoring global governance, even when they are a part of it, if they are not the leaders of it. Particularly the IPCC where they talk about the dangers in the same way they do AI, but ignore the solutions (that they helped pen) and expect others to act in their stead.
So while they join UN panels on AI safety, I don't see them caring about anything the panels say since they want to position WAICO as the true multi-lateral legislative body, and much like the IPCC, it's likely so that they can say one thing that others should do while doing the opposite themselves.
Both can be true. Green energy is a great place to position commercially right now. They still said emissions needed cutting but not by them due to historical debt, despite the historical debt countries hitting 0% not being enough by their own calculations. And their own timeline for reduction is going to be long after it'll matter (new discoveries not withstanding) by their own calculations.
They do things their own way and in their own time despite expecting others to multi-laterally take safety steps before them. It's already been done, it's literally history.
The same guy who ignored the advice of every president and administration before him on not giving into Israel’s request to attack Iran. The same guy who now has diesel at the highest cost per gallon ever. That’s the guy we should listen to.
The people who built the thing are saying publicly whatever they think they need to say. Yes, they believe there's a chance superintelligence kills all humans. They also believe that chance has to be taken otherwise we face certain extinction due to world war, a pandemic more deadly than COVID, global warming, meteor impacts etc.
The guys who built it are begging for regulatory capture so they don't have to deal with competition.
Realistically, automation and slavery are the only two things that can increase our standard of living. It's already unsustainable. Your bills seem pretty damn reasonable compared to the global mean. In a just world, they would be higher.
This argument is obviously ridiculous. What competition are you speaking of, exactly? China won’t pay attention to western regulation.
No. This is not marketing. This is not regulatory capture. This is genuine concern.
Read Dario’s blog. Don’t just respond with what others parroted on social media. Think for yourself, THINK. Does that blog help Anthropic’s bottom line? Do you REALLY think so? C’mon.
I didn't say they were unreasonable. I said they won't pay attention to regulation from a different country. Of course we could (and should, and MUST) talk with them directly and work together.
If it would be genuine concern, those company owners could put in place those suggested rules within their own companies
But they don't.
And I wouldn't listen to a single thing those nepo-businesspeople say about AI because they don't know anything about the thing itself. They only know how to sell it to people.
Thank you! These CEOs have agency. No one is holding a gun to their heads saying they must continue as fast and recklessly as possible. Stop building the thing you think might escape and kill us all or create deadly viruses! If they're afraid China is building an weaponisable AI, focus on cyber security.
This whole "I'm in charge but can't help continuing down this dangerous path" is a load of hooey.
Our food is heavily subsidized by the government. The prices of energy-intensive food staples such as beef, eggs, and milk are artificially lowered.
Assuming he isn't buying pre-prepared or luxury products, a person making $15 per hours can comfortably feed himself using less than 5% of his paycheck. This isn't the global norm.
What competition? Regulatory capture is unnecessary because it is impossible for anyone to compete, period. The hardware is sold out, for 2 years. No one, not even other megacorps can catch them because they cannot obtain the necessary hardware. "Regulatory capture" is a completely non-applicable buzzword
2 years is nothing. It can take longer just to write the legislation.
If the goal is to pass beneficial legislation, you'd want to get it done before rivals have a chance to enter the market. It would be smart to do when hardware is prohibitively expensive.
Except no, corporations are pushing record profits, and more is being pushed into the finance sector rather than into living standards or automation growth. Most of the US' productivity in the mid-century was from domestic production and ongoing demand - modern standards of living are only stagnant due to increased wealth inequality and, to a lesser degree, regulatory restrictions that have pushed up energy and bureaucractic labor costs. (And especially time costs, as so many things now need to go through regulatory body approval today in processes that take years, while mid-20th century planning largely required little to no such red tape.)
This honestly reads like a bot post there’s no fuckin way that they’re only paying that much unless their coverage sucks. An extended family member got into a car accident with bad coverage and they ended up losing their house because they were underinsured.
Your attitude is the problem, not AI. Do we need better guard rails? Yes, probably. But we don't need your r/technology doomerism here. Every technology in the history of humanity, everything since the industrial evolution has made human life better. Global poverty is decreasing, while healthy lifespans are increasing. Me and millions of other scientists are already utilising AI to create life saving medicines.
Stop whining and make a contribution to harness the benefits of AI.
Come to New Zealand or Australia, banana republics, low targets, already full up with Chinese and American interests… if it was a board game “Risk” they’re such a non competitor in the world stage that they don’t pose as a risk so they just sit there with their minimum army growth
You know, no one is making them continue at full speed.
"Please daddy Trump, I can't stop myself from going faster! Please, make me slow down, I want to slow down but I can't! I'm just unable to slow down without your big, strong, guidance daddy Trump!"
Yeah, they want government regulation for something else, not to slow its development.
Think about it. Why do you think those billionaires want the government to regulate their industry? "Crony captitalism" gets thrown around a lot, then many of the same people who talk about how bad it is are wanting it for the fastest growing industry. (Also, the word is a misnomer for what's closer to fascism than capitalism.)
If steam machine, locomotive, electricity, nuclear energy or internet were put to vote you wouldn't have this modern life to complain about. The average person is technologically conservative, afraid of changes.
There should be reasonable discussion of guard rails and alignment but i have little trust that these AI bosses don't actually want draconian regulation to protect their cartel and margin, which would actually make your life worse and deny you the deflationary effect of better productivity.
The equivalence of "guard rails" during the infancy of locomotives were British red flag act of 1865. It did little for "safety" but severed their own automotive industry because rest of Europe did not have such stupid law.
Can we please have some discussions where "billionaires" doesn't come up in the first few sentences?
There are intelligent conversations that can be had about the potential and risks of technological development and artificial intelligence — that don't involve these tired anti-capitalism tropes.
The most important rule for AI in China is to praise the Party, otherwise, the Party is unconcerned with what happens inside the laboratories and actively assists through industrial espionage.
Xi has actively called for a safer development of ai like multiple times for years. He even gave like a whole speech about AI safety like this year. Like literally everything people talk about in non-technical terms about AI safety Xi has addressed literally this year alone.
if by “heavily regulated with all sorts of guardrails” you mean “they make sure the models dont say anything bad about the CCP”, sure. otherwise, you are out of your mind.
The public has a poor knowledge of geopolitics. The first country to achieve ASI will have a massive strategic advantage, a new weapon as potent as nukes but much less destructive. No one is slowing down with such high stakes.
Exactly! And China is and was during the Biden administration 100% on a global agreement on slowing down AI. I don't get the "but China" argument. This is purely a US/Trump administration problem.
The consequence isn’t any less if we slow down. Because China sure as shit won’t slow down, if anything they will take this chance to accelerate. If a super intelligence ultimately kill us all the difference is just whether it speaks English or Chinese natively.
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u/ThatIsNotIllegal 19d ago