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I've seen a lot of people worrying about "what will China do with LLMs?" But my question is: how do you know they don't have them already? What if they've been

I've seen a lot of people worrying about "what will China do with LLMs?" But my question is: how do you know they don't have them already? What if they've been deployed on the internet for the past three years? I guess the same logic can apply to CIA, NSA, DARPA, etc. But you can take solace in the fact that most government organizations are pretty inept. It used to be common understanding that the military/intelligence apparatus had a 20-year head start on private industry, but I don't believe that's been true for a while now. The internet made knowledge sharing too open for it to be feasible to keep cutting edge research cloaked in secrecy. For the same reason, I don't believe the US military has some kind of anti-gravity UAP propulsion. It just strains incredulity too much.

nickybuzz 4y ago
I'd also argue the disparity in compensation between private companies and government agencies pushes top engineering talent to the former.
- chatmasta 4y ago
  Definitely. I think there is one exception though, which is advanced weapon manufacturers like Lockheed Martin. They're a private company, so they can compete on salary, but they're also a government contractor, building technology that could only be used by military. You won't see Google building stealth fighter jets, for example. So if an advanced physicist wants to work on cutting edge tech, they're more likely to end up at a place like that for their whole career. But even aerospace isn't immune from the private sector, as SpaceX has shown.
1attice 4y ago
> But you can take solace in the fact that most government organizations are pretty inept. This is literally the thing that they've been trying to convince you of. Remember Snowden? If not, why not? So, at least their propaganda wing is working great. P.S. also, US federal agencies tend to be uniquely stupid, largely due to starve-the-beast politics. It is not a universal truth. Americans always base their opinions of state institutions in general on their experience with institutions of the American state. Other countries can & do have actually-effective apparatus, often terrifyingly so. See, for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/technology/police-surveillance-tech-dubai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/technology/police-surveil...

nickybuzz 4y ago

I'd also argue the disparity in compensation between private companies and government agencies pushes top engineering talent to the former.

chatmasta 4y ago
Definitely. I think there is one exception though, which is advanced weapon manufacturers like Lockheed Martin. They're a private company, so they can compete on salary, but they're also a government contractor, building technology that could only be used by military. You won't see Google building stealth fighter jets, for example. So if an advanced physicist wants to work on cutting edge tech, they're more likely to end up at a place like that for their whole career. But even aerospace isn't immune from the private sector, as SpaceX has shown.

1attice 4y ago

> But you can take solace in the fact that most government organizations are pretty inept. This is literally the thing that they've been trying to convince you of. Remember Snowden? If not, why not? So, at least their propaganda wing is working great. P.S. also, US federal agencies tend to be uniquely stupid, largely due to starve-the-beast politics. It is not a universal truth. Americans always base their opinions of state institutions in general on their experience with institutions of the American state. Other countries can & do have actually-effective apparatus, often terrifyingly so. See, for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/technology/police-surveillance-tech-dubai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/technology/police-surveil...