3 ms·

Nation state governments are responsible for the vast majority of deaths attributable to violence historically. Willingly entrusting them with a potentially wor

by ein0p 2y ago

Nation state governments are responsible for the vast majority of deaths attributable to violence historically. Willingly entrusting them with a potentially world ending technology that they’re 100% certain to abuse is a moronic idea.

ZhadruOmjar 2y ago
This whole thing seems like a way to build a regulatory framework so only the existing, largest AI players can continue and there is too much regulation for anyone else to enter the industry.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Pretty much. I hope we at least get some trillion parameter GPT4 grade FOSS models before they inevitably succeed in regulating linear algebra.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    This is the thing that bothers me - we’re just talking about doing math, doing more thinking, doing more speech. That’s what these models are. But everyone who isn’t an independent (non monopolist) technologist is vying for control of something they don’t understand to achieve their political or financial goals.
thrance 2y ago
Would it have been better if nuclear weapons had been developed by a private company whose board consisted entirely of lunatics?
- ein0p 2y ago
  The “responsible” US government proceeded immediately to nuking a bunch of civilians in two cities, narrowly sparing Kyoto. So the answer to that question doesn’t seem clear cut to me. Do realize that you’re putting lunatics in charge in either case, but governments have unlimited budgets and monopoly on violence.
  - nullwarp 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - __loam 2y ago
    The Soviets (now Russia) and the United States have had the power to unleash nuclear devastation many orders of magnitude worse than what we did to Japan for decades yet we've managed not to do it, despite many, many bad faith acts on both sides. The idea that a group of greedy nerds accountable to nobody but their rich investors is more responsible than that is ludicrous.
    - ein0p 2y ago
      To the best of my knowledge the more hinged government of the USSR never actually contemplated nuking anyone. The whole Cuban missile crisis thing was over the unhinged US government placing its nukes in Turkey, right next to USSRs heartland
      - Intralexical 2y ago
        > To the best of my knowledge the more hinged government of the USSR never actually contemplated nuking anyone. The Suez Crisis was basically ended by Khruschchev threatening to nuke Britain, France, and Israel. Not a single of those countries could meaningfully retaliate at that point, of course. He bragged about it in his memoirs. [1] The USSR almost fired a nuclear torpedo in the Cuban crisis. Clearly they had rules of engagement for when to start throwing nukes around, without even requiring direct orders or even a confirmation of war. [2] Historian Petr Lunak in 2007 found a 17-page Warsaw Pact plan in Prague's archives for basically unrestricted nuclear war against all of Western Europe. Drafted 1964, in use until 1986, possibly nearly executed during 1983 NATO exercises. [3][4] French diplomat Therese Delpech reports the same from seeing Warsaw Pact documents in Germany, notwithstanding Brezhnev's conspicuous 1982 "No First Use" declaration. [5] Vaporize Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, then conquer all the way into France. [6] Ah. Kruschchev's famous 1956 "We will bury you" may have been a mistranslation. [7] But it is hard to see how his similar 1957 words could have been anything other than a thinly veiled nuclear death threat: "General Norstad will not be able to rush to Turkey’s aid and will not be able to be present in time for Turkey’s funeral". [8] I'm sure there are others. The Cold War was crazy, and the Rocket Forces were (and are) held in some veneration. You don't spend an appreciable percentage of your GNP building and maintaining over 40,000 nuclear warheads plus delivery systems without "contemplating" using them. > The whole Cuban missile crisis thing was over the unhinged US government placing its nukes in Turkey, right next to USSRs heartland NAID:84786142 [9] in the US National Archives is a declassified CIA map showing the USSR didn't just have thousands of nuclear weapons and delivery systems "right next to" the heartlands of multiple countries like Germany, France, Finland, and Italy (which, again, they fully had prepared plans to nuke). They also had thousands of nukes directly on the territory of multiple occupied hostile countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, and Poland. Apparently the Czechs/Slovakians still don't even know how many warheads the USSR saw fit to store in their homeland. [10] --- And frankly, it's also rather imperialistic that you're just completely ignoring the sovereignty of Turkey and Cuba in that crisis: [11][12] > …several consecutive Turkish governments, both before and after the coup of 1960, were eager to receive these weapons… > …Turkey’s citizens regarded the Jupiter missiles as a symbol of the alliance’s determination to use atomic weapons in the case of a Soviet attack on Turkey. > …Turkish authorities stated on more than one occasion that Jupiter missiles based on Turkish soil represented ‘firm proof of the U.S.’s commitment to Turkey’s security’… > …aware of their limited defensive value, the missiles continued to be viewed as a symbol of Turkey’s importance within the Western security system, and also as a source of prestige. > …placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, despite the misgivings of the Soviet Ambassador in Havana, Alexandr Ivanovich Alexeyev, who argued that Castro would not accept the deployment of the missiles. > …Castro did not want the missiles, but Khrushchev pressured Castro to accept them. > …Castro objected to the missiles' deployment as making him look like a Soviet puppet, but he was persuaded… And: > Throughout the crisis, Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the Jupiter missiles were removed. > …when the missiles were withdrawn, Castro was more angry with Khrushchev than with Kennedy because Khrushchev had not consulted Castro… You know, cooperating with consent, instead of threatening, invading, and coercing both friend and foe alike when they try to tell you "no", then calling your opponent "unhinged" after jointly bringing the world to the brink of annihilation. --- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis#Aftermath 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov 3: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563692/Soviet-plan-for-WW3-nuclear-attack-unearthed.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563692/Soviet-plan-... 4: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/coll_warplan/intro_lunak.html http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/coll_wa... 5: https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/102feiv.pdf https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/102f... 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you 8: https://psi204.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Seydi%2C%20Turkish%20American%20Relations%20and%20the%20Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis%201957%2063%20%282010%29.pdf https://psi204.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Seydi%2C%20Turki... 9: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/84786142 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/84786142 10: https://english.radio.cz/soviet-nuclear-arsenal-czechoslovakia-8595720 https://english.radio.cz/soviet-nuclear-arsenal-czechoslovak... 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis 12: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263201003666035 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0026320100366603...
0xfaded 2y ago
That's pretty much the idea, that governments have a monopoly on the use of force. The last 80 years have been unusually peaceful by historical standards. My guess is that the crumbling of governments will lead to more human deaths.
- __loam 2y ago
  People who say the UN failed have no idea what they're talking about.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    They do. They want more of it so they wanna pretend the less of it failed. Swinging the the concept of 'bootlickers' around etc.
__loam 2y ago
Nobody has nuked anyone since Nagasaki so you're not exactly batting a hundred here bud. I'll take flawed democracy over authoritarian corporate self governance any day of the week. Many of the leaders in the valley have repeatedly shown that they are some of the worst people in the country.
- ein0p 2y ago
  The mere fact that USG nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have put a permanent black mark on its credibility and “hingedness”. Why this is in any way controversial idk. Literally a hundred thousand civilians were killed for no military gain whatsoever. Japan was already done fighting at that point
  - __loam 2y ago
    I mean I agree with you (US submarine campaign had already completely cut Japan off), but I think it's pretty obvious that the reason it's "controversial" is the fact that Japan was run by a fascist imperial government that was responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians in China and Southeast Asia. I think it's pretty hard to judge the restraint shown when the Axis powers were the ones who started attacks on population centers with events like the Rape of Nanking and the Bombing of London. Most of the the point of the UN was to ensure it never happened again, which it hasn't.
  - gilmore606 2y ago
    > Japan was already done fighting at that point Damn, they really should have told someone.
gmerc 2y ago
Let’s give it to Elon instead. /s
- ein0p 2y ago
  Unironically that might be the best available option
  - gmerc 2y ago
    Unironically funny answer.
    - ein0p 2y ago
      I trust the guy far more than I trust the government at this point. For all his faults at least he’s not genociding children in Gaza and never bombed weddings
- perkolator 2y ago
  "Better yet, we should give it to me and my friends. I promise we are just morally superior and better people in my unbiased opinion."
edanm 2y ago
Humans are responsible for 100% of deaths attributable to violence. So how about we do our best to keep any humans from getting a world-ending technology?

by ein0p 2y ago

ZhadruOmjar 2y ago

This whole thing seems like a way to build a regulatory framework so only the existing, largest AI players can continue and there is too much regulation for anyone else to enter the industry.

ein0p 2y ago
Pretty much. I hope we at least get some trillion parameter GPT4 grade FOSS models before they inevitably succeed in regulating linear algebra.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  This is the thing that bothers me - we’re just talking about doing math, doing more thinking, doing more speech. That’s what these models are. But everyone who isn’t an independent (non monopolist) technologist is vying for control of something they don’t understand to achieve their political or financial goals.

thrance 2y ago

Would it have been better if nuclear weapons had been developed by a private company whose board consisted entirely of lunatics?

ein0p 2y ago
The “responsible” US government proceeded immediately to nuking a bunch of civilians in two cities, narrowly sparing Kyoto. So the answer to that question doesn’t seem clear cut to me. Do realize that you’re putting lunatics in charge in either case, but governments have unlimited budgets and monopoly on violence.
- nullwarp 2y ago
  [flagged]
- __loam 2y ago
  The Soviets (now Russia) and the United States have had the power to unleash nuclear devastation many orders of magnitude worse than what we did to Japan for decades yet we've managed not to do it, despite many, many bad faith acts on both sides. The idea that a group of greedy nerds accountable to nobody but their rich investors is more responsible than that is ludicrous.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    To the best of my knowledge the more hinged government of the USSR never actually contemplated nuking anyone. The whole Cuban missile crisis thing was over the unhinged US government placing its nukes in Turkey, right next to USSRs heartland
    - Intralexical 2y ago
      > To the best of my knowledge the more hinged government of the USSR never actually contemplated nuking anyone. The Suez Crisis was basically ended by Khruschchev threatening to nuke Britain, France, and Israel. Not a single of those countries could meaningfully retaliate at that point, of course. He bragged about it in his memoirs. [1] The USSR almost fired a nuclear torpedo in the Cuban crisis. Clearly they had rules of engagement for when to start throwing nukes around, without even requiring direct orders or even a confirmation of war. [2] Historian Petr Lunak in 2007 found a 17-page Warsaw Pact plan in Prague's archives for basically unrestricted nuclear war against all of Western Europe. Drafted 1964, in use until 1986, possibly nearly executed during 1983 NATO exercises. [3][4] French diplomat Therese Delpech reports the same from seeing Warsaw Pact documents in Germany, notwithstanding Brezhnev's conspicuous 1982 "No First Use" declaration. [5] Vaporize Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, then conquer all the way into France. [6] Ah. Kruschchev's famous 1956 "We will bury you" may have been a mistranslation. [7] But it is hard to see how his similar 1957 words could have been anything other than a thinly veiled nuclear death threat: "General Norstad will not be able to rush to Turkey’s aid and will not be able to be present in time for Turkey’s funeral". [8] I'm sure there are others. The Cold War was crazy, and the Rocket Forces were (and are) held in some veneration. You don't spend an appreciable percentage of your GNP building and maintaining over 40,000 nuclear warheads plus delivery systems without "contemplating" using them. > The whole Cuban missile crisis thing was over the unhinged US government placing its nukes in Turkey, right next to USSRs heartland NAID:84786142 [9] in the US National Archives is a declassified CIA map showing the USSR didn't just have thousands of nuclear weapons and delivery systems "right next to" the heartlands of multiple countries like Germany, France, Finland, and Italy (which, again, they fully had prepared plans to nuke). They also had thousands of nukes directly on the territory of multiple occupied hostile countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, and Poland. Apparently the Czechs/Slovakians still don't even know how many warheads the USSR saw fit to store in their homeland. [10] --- And frankly, it's also rather imperialistic that you're just completely ignoring the sovereignty of Turkey and Cuba in that crisis: [11][12] > …several consecutive Turkish governments, both before and after the coup of 1960, were eager to receive these weapons… > …Turkey’s citizens regarded the Jupiter missiles as a symbol of the alliance’s determination to use atomic weapons in the case of a Soviet attack on Turkey. > …Turkish authorities stated on more than one occasion that Jupiter missiles based on Turkish soil represented ‘firm proof of the U.S.’s commitment to Turkey’s security’… > …aware of their limited defensive value, the missiles continued to be viewed as a symbol of Turkey’s importance within the Western security system, and also as a source of prestige. > …placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, despite the misgivings of the Soviet Ambassador in Havana, Alexandr Ivanovich Alexeyev, who argued that Castro would not accept the deployment of the missiles. > …Castro did not want the missiles, but Khrushchev pressured Castro to accept them. > …Castro objected to the missiles' deployment as making him look like a Soviet puppet, but he was persuaded… And: > Throughout the crisis, Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the Jupiter missiles were removed. > …when the missiles were withdrawn, Castro was more angry with Khrushchev than with Kennedy because Khrushchev had not consulted Castro… You know, cooperating with consent, instead of threatening, invading, and coercing both friend and foe alike when they try to tell you "no", then calling your opponent "unhinged" after jointly bringing the world to the brink of annihilation. --- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis#Aftermath 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov 3: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563692/Soviet-plan-for-WW3-nuclear-attack-unearthed.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563692/Soviet-plan-... 4: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/coll_warplan/intro_lunak.html http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/coll_wa... 5: https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/102feiv.pdf https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/102f... 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you 8: https://psi204.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Seydi%2C%20Turkish%20American%20Relations%20and%20the%20Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis%201957%2063%20%282010%29.pdf https://psi204.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Seydi%2C%20Turki... 9: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/84786142 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/84786142 10: https://english.radio.cz/soviet-nuclear-arsenal-czechoslovakia-8595720 https://english.radio.cz/soviet-nuclear-arsenal-czechoslovak... 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis 12: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263201003666035 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0026320100366603...

0xfaded 2y ago

That's pretty much the idea, that governments have a monopoly on the use of force. The last 80 years have been unusually peaceful by historical standards. My guess is that the crumbling of governments will lead to more human deaths.

__loam 2y ago
People who say the UN failed have no idea what they're talking about.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  They do. They want more of it so they wanna pretend the less of it failed. Swinging the the concept of 'bootlickers' around etc.

__loam 2y ago

Nobody has nuked anyone since Nagasaki so you're not exactly batting a hundred here bud. I'll take flawed democracy over authoritarian corporate self governance any day of the week. Many of the leaders in the valley have repeatedly shown that they are some of the worst people in the country.

ein0p 2y ago
The mere fact that USG nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have put a permanent black mark on its credibility and “hingedness”. Why this is in any way controversial idk. Literally a hundred thousand civilians were killed for no military gain whatsoever. Japan was already done fighting at that point
- __loam 2y ago
  I mean I agree with you (US submarine campaign had already completely cut Japan off), but I think it's pretty obvious that the reason it's "controversial" is the fact that Japan was run by a fascist imperial government that was responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians in China and Southeast Asia. I think it's pretty hard to judge the restraint shown when the Axis powers were the ones who started attacks on population centers with events like the Rape of Nanking and the Bombing of London. Most of the the point of the UN was to ensure it never happened again, which it hasn't.
- gilmore606 2y ago
  > Japan was already done fighting at that point Damn, they really should have told someone.

gmerc 2y ago

Let’s give it to Elon instead. /s

ein0p 2y ago
Unironically that might be the best available option
- gmerc 2y ago
  Unironically funny answer.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    I trust the guy far more than I trust the government at this point. For all his faults at least he’s not genociding children in Gaza and never bombed weddings
perkolator 2y ago
"Better yet, we should give it to me and my friends. I promise we are just morally superior and better people in my unbiased opinion."

edanm 2y ago

Humans are responsible for 100% of deaths attributable to violence. So how about we do our best to keep any humans from getting a world-ending technology?