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Apart from my general queasiness about the whole AGI scaling business and the power concentration that comes with it, these are the exact four people/entities t
by mppm 2y ago
Apart from my general queasiness about the whole AGI scaling business and the power concentration that comes with it, these are the exact four people/entities that I would not want to be at the tip of said power concentration.
- fsndz 2y agoWhat do you prefer ? Letting DeepSeek and China lead the AI war ? DeepSeek R1 is a big wake up call https://open.substack.com/pub/transitions/p/deepseek-is-coming-for-openais-neck?r=56ql7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false https://open.substack.com/pub/transitions/p/deepseek-is-comi...
- otabdeveloper4 2y ago> What do you prefer ? Letting DeepSeek and China lead the AI war ? Me personally? Yes.
- mppm 2y agoFrom what I've read about DeepSeek and its founder, I would very much prefer them, even with China factored in. At least if these particular Four Horsemen are the only alternative. On a tangential note, those who wish to frame this as the start of the great AI war with China (in which they regrettably may be right), should seriously consider the possibility of coming out on the losing end. China has tremendous industrial momentum, and is not nearly as incapable of leading-edge innovation as some Americans seem to think.
- corimaith 2y ago>China has tremendous industrial momentum, and is not nearly as incapable of leading-edge innovation as some Americans seem to think. So those who framing this are correct and that we should matching their momentum here asap?
- mppm 2y agoNo, I was rather pointing out that getting into an altercation that you are likely (even if not guaranteed) to lose may not be the smartest of ideas. On occasion, humans have been known to fruitfully engage in cooperation and de-escalation. Please pardon my naive optimism.
- lII1lIlI11ll 2y ago"Great AI war with China", "altercation" are excessively harsh characterizations. There is nothing "escalatory" in competing for leadership in new industries with other states, nor should it be "regrettable". No one, to my knowledge, is planning to nuke DeepSeek data centers or something.
- mppm 2y agoI wish I could agree with you. But have you read Aschenbrenner's "Situational Awareness" [1]? I am very much afraid that the big decision makers in AI do in fact think in those terms, and do not in any way frame this as fair competition for the benefit of all. 1. https://situational-awareness.ai/ https://situational-awareness.ai/
- lII1lIlI11ll 2y agoA person heavily invested in this wave of AI succeeding saying AI will be big and we will have AGI next year? Sure. I don't think there is much point of reading the whole thing after the following: "Everyone is now talking about AI, but few have the faintest glimmer of what is about to hit them. Nvidia analysts still think 2024 might be close to the peak. Mainstream pundits are stuck on the willful blindness of “it’s just predicting the next word”."
- bayindirh 2y agoUs vs. Them. My favorite perspective [0]. Regarding to your question, yes. I'd prefer a healthy counterbalance to what we have currently. Ideally, I'd prefer cooperation. A worldwide cooperation. [0]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_AiI9_XIAA67_t.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_AiI9_XIAA67_t.jpg
- andy_ppp 2y agoArguably the cooperation between the US and China has lead to the most economic growth and prosperity in human history, it's a shame the US and China are returning to a former time.
- rpastuszak 2y agoTreating the world as a bunch of football teams is a great distraction though.
- vbezhenar 2y agoChina is much more peaceful nation compared to US. So, yes, I'd prefer China leading AI research any day. They are interested in mutual trade and prosperity, they respect local laws and culture, all unlike US.
- jbaiter 2y ago"They respect local laws and culture" - I think people from Xinyang probably have a very different perspective on that........
- anthk 2y agoIf you had AlQaeda in a hypothetical region near Florida with almost two-yearly terror attacks, you would shit bricks and create jails/prisons with more security than the Pentagon itself.
- Octoth0rpe 2y agoI think there's a more nuanced version of this: China respects local laws and culture _outside of what they view as China_ more than the US does. It's also worth noting that China's policy in Xinjiang is somewhat narrowly targeted at religion, and less other aspects like cuisine or clothing. That said, religion is nigh impossible to separate from the broader idea of culture in much of the world.
- lupire 2y agoAfrica and South America and USA strongly disagree.
- Analemma_ 2y agoGive me a break. China has overseas police stations as bases of operation for harassing ex-pats and dissidents. That's not "respecting local laws and culture".
- whimsicalism 2y ago
- smeeger 2y agothe outcome would be exactly the same. AGI leads the human race off of a cliff, not in the direction of one human interest group vs another. the only difference would be that it was china that was responsible for the extinction if the human race rather than another country. i would prefer to die with dignity… the outcome we should all be advocating for is a global halt of AI research — not because it would be easy but because there is no other option.
- whimsicalism 2y agowe need to cooperate and put aside our petty politicking right now. the potential downsides of ‘racing’ without building a safety scaffold are catastrophic.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y agoJust Ellison alone brings unwelcome feeling of having Oracle craziness forced down our collective throats, but I share your concern about the unholy alliance generated in front of us.
- DebtDeflation 2y agoMy immediate reaction to the announcement was one of these is not like the others. OpenAI, a couple of big investment funds, Microsoft, Nvidia, and...............Oracle?
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y agoSadly, it is not that unexpected given some of his recent interviews[1]. Any other day, I would agree it is a surprise. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnipresent-ai-cameras-will-ensure-good-behavior-says-larry-ellison/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnip...
- freehorse 2y agoThere is a certain reason that last weeks everybody and their grandma is simping for Trump. Nobody would want to be on his bad side right now. Moreover, we hear here and there that Trump "keeps his promises". A lot of the promises we do not know about and we may never will. These people did not spend money supporting his campaign for nothing. In other places and eras this would have been called corruption, now it is called "keeping his promises".
- lupire 2y agoTrump is one of the most famous people in the world for not keeping promises of paying debts. But there is money to be made temporarily when he is running a caper, as long as you can get your hand in the pot before he steals it.
- miki123211 2y ago> There is a certain reason that last weeks everybody and their grandma is simping for Trump. Nobody would want to be on his bad side It's worth keeping in mind how extremely unfriendly to tech the last admin was. At this point, it's basically proven in court that emails of the form "please deboost person x or else" were send, and there's probably plenty more we don't know about. Combine that with the troubles in Europe which Biden's administration was extremely unwilling to help with, the obstacles thrown in the way of major energy buildouts, which are needed for AI... one would have to be stupid to be a tech CEO and not simp for Trump. Tech has been extremely Democratic for many years. The Democrats have utterly alienated tech, and now they reap the consequences.
- roenxi 2y agoThat sentiment calls for reflection - whoever ends up on top of the heap after the AI craze settles down is going to be someone that everyone objects to. Elon Musk was himself an internet darling up until he became wealthy and entrenched. That said, this does look like dreadful policy at the first headline. There is a lot of money going in to AI, adding more money from the US taxpayer is gratuitous. Although in the spirit of mixing praise and condemnation, if this is the worst policy out of Trump Admin II then it'll be the best US administration seen in my lifetime. Generally the low points are much lower.
- mppm 2y ago> That sentiment calls for reflection - whoever ends up on top of the heap after the AI craze settles down is going to be someone that everyone objects to. I agree in principle. And realistically, there is no way Altman would not be part of this consortium, much as I dislike it. But rounding out the team with Ellison, Son and Abu Dhabi oil money in particular -- that makes for a profound statement, IMHO.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago> That sentiment calls for reflection - whoever ends up on top of the heap after the AI craze settles down is going to be someone that everyone objects to. Did we see the same fallout from the space-race from a couple generations ago? I don't think so — certainly not in the way you're framing it. So I guess I don't accept your proposition as a guarantee of what will happen.
- roenxi 2y agoA couple of generations ago we didn't have the internet and the only things people heard about were being managed. The big question was whether the media editors wanted to build someone up or tear them down. The spoils of the space race would have gone to someone a lot like Musk. Or Ellison. Or Masayoshi Son. Or Sam Altman. Or the much worse old-moneyed types. The US space program was, famously, literally employing ex-Nazis. I doubt the beneficiaries of the money had particularly clean hands either
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- amelius 2y agoI would love for Oracle to use AI to put their entire legal department out of work, though.
- andy_ppp 2y agoSo you want them to be infinitely more litigious? A serious question though, what does happen when AIs are filing lawsuits autonomously on behalf of the powerful, the courts clearly won't be able to cope unless you have AI powered courts too? None of how these monumental changes will work has been thought through at all, let's hope AI is smart enough to tell us what to do...
- roenxi 2y agoOracle could reasonably be hit with some sort of stick every time they filed a frivolous lawsuit until the AI got tuned appropriately. Then it'd be a situation where Oracle were continuously suing people who don't follow the law, following a reasonably neutral and well calibrated standard that is probably going to end up as similar to an intelligent and well practised barrister. That would be acceptable. If people aren't meant to be following the law that is a problem for the legislators.
- ReptileMan 2y ago>A serious question though, what does happen when AIs are filing lawsuits autonomously on behalf of the powerful, AI controlled cheap Chinese drones will start flying into their residencies carrying some trivial to make high explosives. With the class wars getting hotter in next few years we may be saying that Luigi Mangione had the right ideas towards the PMC, but he was underachiever.
- miki123211 2y ago> A serious question though, what does happen when AIs are filing lawsuits autonomously on behalf of the powerful It won't just be at the behalf of the powerful. If lawyers are able to file 10x as many lawsuits per hour, the cost of filing a lawsuit is going to go down dramatically, and that's assuming a maximally-unfriendly regulatory environment where you still officially need a human lawyer in the loop. This will enable people to e.g. use letters signed by an attorney at law, or even small claims court, as their customer support hotline, because that actually produces results in today. Nobody is prepared for that. Not the companies, not the powerful, not the courts, nobody.
- nejsjsjsbsb 2y agoNeed a bit of Zuck too
- blantonl 2y agoYeah, really the only thing missing from this initiative was the personal information of the vast majority of the United States population handed over on a silver platter.
- mattlutze 2y agoEllison should be nowhere near this: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnipresent-ai-cameras-will-ensure-good-behavior-says-larry-ellison/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnip... The man has the moral system of a private prison and the money to build one.
- siva7 2y ago> "Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on," Let's be honest. He isn't wrong. I'd rather live in a society with zero crime than what we have now.
- ActionHank 2y agoBy the time this project is done it will have been dead for 2 years. Too many greedy mouths. Too many corporations. Too little oversight. Too broad an objective. Technology is moving too quickly for them to even guess at what to aim for.
- worthless-trash 2y agoWe should NEVER have a lawnmower at the helm of humanity.
- Gasp0de 2y agoIt could be worse, Elon Musk could be involved with it.
- maxlin 2y agoI don't like how OpenAI turned majorly from what it was founded upon and their bias training ... but when considering the actual opponent here is China, it's not the worst. I think OpenAI was originally founded against that kind of force. Autocratic governments becoming masters of AI.
- aylmao 2y agoInterestingly perhaps, as a foreigner (not from the USA or China) I can tell you not everyone around the world shares this perspective. There's people who trust China's single-party system over the USA's oligarchy.
- b59831 2y agoPropaganda is a powerful tool.
- vineyardmike 2y agoI’m an American who was definitely raised in a “China Bad” world. The last few months, between TikTok ban, RedNote, elections, United Healthcare CEO, etc I’ve seen so many people compare the US to China, and favor China. Which is of course crazy because China has things like forced labor and concentration camps of religious minorities, and far worse oppression than the US. But many people just view everything coming out of the US Gov’s mouth as bad. Is the Chinese government worse than the US government? Probably. Do people universally think that still? Not really. The US Gov will have to contend with the reality that people -even citizens- are starting to view them and not their “enemy” as the “Bad Guys”.
- portaouflop 2y agoI don’t get the good guys / bad guys mindset tbh. Sure china gov is pretty bad and the us is by many metrics better - but why center your whole worldview around things that probably don’t affect you that much in your daily life? US also has forced labour, huge prison population, bombing civilians and journalists to oblivion, literally nuking other countries and religious fanatics — do I still think china would be less pleasant as our new overlord? Yes — Do I think the world is better off with US-American hegemony? I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s a net good for the world if not one power is dominating — maybe it’s the start of a hellish ww3. I choose to believe the former. edit: typos
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]