5 ms·

Britain dances to JD Vance's tune as it renames AI institute

47 points by mellosouls 2y ago

milesrout 2y ago
This is good to see. AI "safety" is a bit like internet "safety". Is it unfortunate what people can do with an unrestricted internet? Yeah, spam and private information and child porn and revenge porn and various other nasty things are out there. But it is broadly recognised that we should not try to solve this by censorship and control over technical methods and hardware resources, but by taking down the bad content we can, when it occurs. Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. Sorry, you can't have an unrestricted server connected to the internet, you can just make webpages using an approved website builder GUI using only those images that aren't filtered out by the host. That is what the internet would be like if it were treated as the censors want to treat AI. No public training data sets. You can't run AI on your computer. You can't train your own models, or even finetune them. You can use the big censored models provided by the big companies that have the resources to get past regulatory approvals, or you can use the product of someone that has done this. If the internet had been like this we'd be decades behind where we are today.
- userbinator 2y ago
  Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. That's how it is in China, officially: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license Whether it's enforced in practice (just like VPN use) is a different matter, however.
- matthewmacleod 2y ago
  It sounds like you have made several unjustified assumptions. Can you explain to us why you think you will not be able to “run AI on your own computer”?
  - willvarfar 2y ago
    I have interpreted many of the opinions about 'AI is so potentially dangerous that we better let only a handful of big companies do it' (as said by the owners of those companies and their cronies) being about regulatory capture and rent seeking. I think Meta released the first open model, LLAMA, because they were behind OpenAI's ChatGPT charm offensive and saw the strategic value in giving away what they had spent millions making in order to erode a competitor's leading position. Again Deekseek gave away what they trained, and claimed it hadn't been that expensive to train anyway, in order to erode the competitor's leading position. But with time and regulatory capture this dries up. At least within America. There's a good chance that Deepseek basically surprised the CCP too. But they have catapulted themselves to big national and international prominence. So going forward their future releases will very much be sanctioned by the Chinese government. So we'll only see further model giveaways if it's seen as strategically beneficial to devalue the competitors in America. (Thinking further ahead: at some point soon there might be a LLM model or augmented model that is so good at getting probabilities right that it can 'outthink' a human. At that point, whichever billionaire controls it has zero upside in sharing it with anyone. It's purpose is no longer to fuel a funding bubble as they can instead use it to outthink humans for their own personal gain. They won't think 'this can outthink humans, so we can offer better clip art pickers and other AI integrations for the masses who might pay for access to it'. They will think 'how do I use this super intelligence to outsmart the humans currently voting in democracies or humans guiding the markets?)
    - nprateem 2y ago
      China creating cheap ripoff is what they do best. No one in the West would use a Chinese model otherwise, so their best strategy is to destroy the US' ability to establish dominance and more unicorns. Expect them to keep putting out models for free.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - pinoy420 2y ago
    UK lawmakers want to push out making you a terrorist or pedo if you own an llm or genai capable of generating such - i.e. any.
- pinoy420 2y ago
  > Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. Sorry, you can't have an unrestricted server connected to the internet, you can just make webpages using an approved website builder GUI using only those images that aren't filtered out by the host. This is what the new online safety bill has you do though. It is ridiculous. And we can not even vote on it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
kergonath 2y ago
Appalling in general, but this > This could see Britain hit with tariffs of up to 21 percent on exports if, as indicated by Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro last night, VAT is considered by the administration as a tax on imports. is particularly insane. How can there be any negociation when one side is either blatantly lying or completely deluded? The fact that it is even considered a serious position to take for a major trading power is nuts. No amount of sanding off DEI edges is going to matter if the US disregard truth and just want to inflict pain until the other side caves.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  > if the US disregard truth There's no if about it. The Trump administration entirely disregards truth, and parrots blatant lies from the kremlin. Is there precedent for this? This seems… historically significant to say the least.
- twlar19 2y ago
  It is a concerted effort. On YouTube, many influencer channels like The Duran (where David Sacks has appeared before the election) tried to get MAGA votes by blaming Biden and the US involvement in Ukraine. They have pivoted to blaming the EU for everything and repeating lies of the same sort as the VAT lie. Coincidentally, the Kremlin is also now blaming the EU for everything. This is especially embarrassing since Sacks himself has always blamed the US before. We are now in a purely business based environment and the EU/Britain had better learn fast to take care of their own business interests before others carve up the world.
ElonChrist 2y ago
[dead]
jl6 2y ago
Renaming from “safety” to “security”. English is slightly unusual, in that many other languages use the same word for both.
- bad_user 2y ago
  I'm not familiar with that many languages, but I'm pretty sure that romance languages have words for both. “Security” refers to active protection against existing threats, whereas “safety” refers to the state of being protected.
- albert_e 2y ago
  In casual usage they feel like two separate concepts to me. I think of it this way: We put iron grills on our apartment balconies. 1. For SAFETY -- prevents the risk of people and kids falling off balconies. 2. For SECURITY -- prevents any intruder from being able to get into the house through balcony. I am not sure these are accurate though as English is not my first language.
  - elric 2y ago
    Both of those concepts translate to "veiligheid" in Dutch.
    - nemoniac 2y ago
      Tsja, zekerheid is a cognate for security. "Zeker" from Latin "Sēcūrus".
      - elric 2y ago
        I've never heard anyone use the word "zekerheid" when talking about security. Verzekering, zekering, zekeren. Sure, but those are all pretty domain specific. No one hires a "zekerheidsagent" to secure their building, or an expert in "cyber zekerheid". Ik ben daar ... vrij zeker van.
- midtake 2y ago
flir 2y ago
> testing powerful AI models for national security risks Er... and then what?
stuaxo 2y ago
Unfortunately the current UK government thinks appeasing the far right is the way to stay in power. Recently they were matching the local mainstream far right party, Reform on immigration - so of course now Reform has moved the goalposts.
- pinoy420 2y ago
  Very interesting you have that point of view. What country are you from. The government demonstrably does not pander to the “far right” - whatever that means. The “far right” is anything other than what Kier agrees with. — e.g. you can not speak out against immigration without being anti immigrant (racist - illegal). You can’t be anti same sex areas without being transphobic (also illegal). You can’t be anti {non Christian rooted religion} without being an extremist (illegal). You can’t not speak out against the war in Ukraine or Gaza. Flying a Union flag gets you interest from the police now as it is becoming a symbol of “far right” nationalism This is not hyperbole. Against the rules to talk about politics here. But I am interested
  - gambiting 2y ago
    I am British, living in Britain, voted labour in last election and I agree with what OP said - it feels like labour is constantly pandering to right wing ideas just to make sure that part of electorate doesn't go to Reform. >>is anything other than what Kier agrees with. Proposed changes to the the citizenship process for asylum seekers isn't a far right idea? Initially being supportive of trans rights and then walking back on it isn't a far right idea? Kier constantly flip flopping on every issue depending on how the wind blows isn't something that strenghtens the right wing parties all the time? People don't call labour "tories lite" for no reason.
    - clessed 2y ago
      Neither of those policy positions are far right. Arguments for stricter controls on immigration are made from across the political spectrum. The left-wing view is mainly because the cheap labour migrants provide mean that not only are they often heavily exploited, but this also drives down average wages for everybody else and increases competition for jobs. Similarly the left-wing opposition to trans policy is driven by feminist principles and preventing harm to children. Once people see the clash of rights and how policy that favours gender identity over sex disadvantages women and girls, walking back support for it is the obvious next step. None of this requires any adherence to far right beliefs.
readthenotes1 2y ago
There would be no motor vehicles if we had told Mercedes and Ford that we would have to stop everything and wait for the environmental impact assessments to be done before replacing the horses
- defrost 2y ago
  Not a great example, the early days of cars saw both cars on the road AND safety warnings to err on the side of the horses while cars were bedded in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    No, they would have had to wait till stop signs were introduced at smaller sections and stop lights at all major, except those for whom traffic circles could be created. Roads would have to be striped properly and there would have been an international Consortium to determine whether people should drive on the left or the right hand side of the road. That would still be ongoing of course
    - defrost 2y ago
      Meanwhile, in reality, the introduction of cars did actually come with initial limitations. In hindsight not nearly enough limitations and caution, slower growth would have ideally come with better recognition of the risks and better appraochesto minimising externalities.
- lores 2y ago
  I really struggle to think why restricting car development in light of environmental concerns would have been a bad thing. Much milder climate change? Better-designed, more pleasant cities? No leaded gasoline? Sure, economic growth would have been held back a couple of decades, but no one would have really noticed.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
pinoy420 2y ago
> use of AI to create child abuse images That old rhetoric again. They are trying to push a law (have pushed?) that brands anyone with an AI capable of generating cp a certified pedo. So basically any diffusion model. Or in fact any llm? I imagine you can ask an LLM to generate you sketchy svgs. Secondary thought to that, what about scary illegal texts telling you how to make explosives or hack. Sorry guys better brandish you a terrorist for having a local llm.
- flir 2y ago
  Doesn't have to be an SVG, just has to be text. Pornography involving children is Right Out, regardless of the medium, and that's not going to change. The distinction between illegal porn, models that are fine tuned to write illegal porn, and general purpose models that may be capable of writing illegal porn but aren't fine tuned to it is going to be an interesting one for the law to figure out. A microcosm of many larger issues, really - maybe even reaching as far as general purpose computing (imagine a GPU that won't run unsigned models). There was a private members bill in 2023 [1] that didn't go anywhere, we signed up for the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on AI in 2024 [2], and there was a consultation on copyright and AI launched in Dec 2024 [3]. There's a bill promised in 2025, but we don't really know what it's going to include (any assumptions seem to be off the table since the AI summit in Paris). I think that's it. [1] https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2024-0016/ https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-20... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-signs-first-international-treaty-addressing-risks-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-signs-first-internatio... [3] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-ar...
belter 2y ago
"Vance floats US troop withdrawal from Germany over free-speech concerns" https://www.politico.eu/article/vance-floats-us-troop-withdrawal-from-germany-over-free-speech-concerns/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vance-floats-us-troop-withdr...

47 points by mellosouls 2y ago

This is good to see. AI "safety" is a bit like internet "safety". Is it unfortunate what people can do with an unrestricted internet? Yeah, spam and private information and child porn and revenge porn and various other nasty things are out there. But it is broadly recognised that we should not try to solve this by censorship and control over technical methods and hardware resources, but by taking down the bad content we can, when it occurs. Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. Sorry, you can't have an unrestricted server connected to the internet, you can just make webpages using an approved website builder GUI using only those images that aren't filtered out by the host. That is what the internet would be like if it were treated as the censors want to treat AI. No public training data sets. You can't run AI on your computer. You can't train your own models, or even finetune them. You can use the big censored models provided by the big companies that have the resources to get past regulatory approvals, or you can use the product of someone that has done this. If the internet had been like this we'd be decades behind where we are today.

userbinator 2y ago
Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. That's how it is in China, officially: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license Whether it's enforced in practice (just like VPN use) is a different matter, however.
matthewmacleod 2y ago
It sounds like you have made several unjustified assumptions. Can you explain to us why you think you will not be able to “run AI on your own computer”?
- willvarfar 2y ago
  I have interpreted many of the opinions about 'AI is so potentially dangerous that we better let only a handful of big companies do it' (as said by the owners of those companies and their cronies) being about regulatory capture and rent seeking. I think Meta released the first open model, LLAMA, because they were behind OpenAI's ChatGPT charm offensive and saw the strategic value in giving away what they had spent millions making in order to erode a competitor's leading position. Again Deekseek gave away what they trained, and claimed it hadn't been that expensive to train anyway, in order to erode the competitor's leading position. But with time and regulatory capture this dries up. At least within America. There's a good chance that Deepseek basically surprised the CCP too. But they have catapulted themselves to big national and international prominence. So going forward their future releases will very much be sanctioned by the Chinese government. So we'll only see further model giveaways if it's seen as strategically beneficial to devalue the competitors in America. (Thinking further ahead: at some point soon there might be a LLM model or augmented model that is so good at getting probabilities right that it can 'outthink' a human. At that point, whichever billionaire controls it has zero upside in sharing it with anyone. It's purpose is no longer to fuel a funding bubble as they can instead use it to outthink humans for their own personal gain. They won't think 'this can outthink humans, so we can offer better clip art pickers and other AI integrations for the masses who might pay for access to it'. They will think 'how do I use this super intelligence to outsmart the humans currently voting in democracies or humans guiding the markets?)
  - nprateem 2y ago
    China creating cheap ripoff is what they do best. No one in the West would use a Chinese model otherwise, so their best strategy is to destroy the US' ability to establish dominance and more unicorns. Expect them to keep putting out models for free.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- pinoy420 2y ago
  UK lawmakers want to push out making you a terrorist or pedo if you own an llm or genai capable of generating such - i.e. any.
pinoy420 2y ago
> Imagine if, to make a website, you had to fill out forms and submit them to the government for approval. Sorry, you can't have an unrestricted server connected to the internet, you can just make webpages using an approved website builder GUI using only those images that aren't filtered out by the host. This is what the new online safety bill has you do though. It is ridiculous. And we can not even vote on it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

kergonath 2y ago

Appalling in general, but this > This could see Britain hit with tariffs of up to 21 percent on exports if, as indicated by Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro last night, VAT is considered by the administration as a tax on imports. is particularly insane. How can there be any negociation when one side is either blatantly lying or completely deluded? The fact that it is even considered a serious position to take for a major trading power is nuts. No amount of sanding off DEI edges is going to matter if the US disregard truth and just want to inflict pain until the other side caves.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
> if the US disregard truth There's no if about it. The Trump administration entirely disregards truth, and parrots blatant lies from the kremlin. Is there precedent for this? This seems… historically significant to say the least.
twlar19 2y ago
It is a concerted effort. On YouTube, many influencer channels like The Duran (where David Sacks has appeared before the election) tried to get MAGA votes by blaming Biden and the US involvement in Ukraine. They have pivoted to blaming the EU for everything and repeating lies of the same sort as the VAT lie. Coincidentally, the Kremlin is also now blaming the EU for everything. This is especially embarrassing since Sacks himself has always blamed the US before. We are now in a purely business based environment and the EU/Britain had better learn fast to take care of their own business interests before others carve up the world.

ElonChrist 2y ago

[dead]

jl6 2y ago

Renaming from “safety” to “security”. English is slightly unusual, in that many other languages use the same word for both.

bad_user 2y ago
I'm not familiar with that many languages, but I'm pretty sure that romance languages have words for both. “Security” refers to active protection against existing threats, whereas “safety” refers to the state of being protected.
albert_e 2y ago
In casual usage they feel like two separate concepts to me. I think of it this way: We put iron grills on our apartment balconies. 1. For SAFETY -- prevents the risk of people and kids falling off balconies. 2. For SECURITY -- prevents any intruder from being able to get into the house through balcony. I am not sure these are accurate though as English is not my first language.
- elric 2y ago
  Both of those concepts translate to "veiligheid" in Dutch.
  - nemoniac 2y ago
    Tsja, zekerheid is a cognate for security. "Zeker" from Latin "Sēcūrus".
    - elric 2y ago
      I've never heard anyone use the word "zekerheid" when talking about security. Verzekering, zekering, zekeren. Sure, but those are all pretty domain specific. No one hires a "zekerheidsagent" to secure their building, or an expert in "cyber zekerheid". Ik ben daar ... vrij zeker van.
midtake 2y ago

flir 2y ago

> testing powerful AI models for national security risks Er... and then what?

stuaxo 2y ago

Unfortunately the current UK government thinks appeasing the far right is the way to stay in power. Recently they were matching the local mainstream far right party, Reform on immigration - so of course now Reform has moved the goalposts.

pinoy420 2y ago
Very interesting you have that point of view. What country are you from. The government demonstrably does not pander to the “far right” - whatever that means. The “far right” is anything other than what Kier agrees with. — e.g. you can not speak out against immigration without being anti immigrant (racist - illegal). You can’t be anti same sex areas without being transphobic (also illegal). You can’t be anti {non Christian rooted religion} without being an extremist (illegal). You can’t not speak out against the war in Ukraine or Gaza. Flying a Union flag gets you interest from the police now as it is becoming a symbol of “far right” nationalism This is not hyperbole. Against the rules to talk about politics here. But I am interested
- gambiting 2y ago
  I am British, living in Britain, voted labour in last election and I agree with what OP said - it feels like labour is constantly pandering to right wing ideas just to make sure that part of electorate doesn't go to Reform. >>is anything other than what Kier agrees with. Proposed changes to the the citizenship process for asylum seekers isn't a far right idea? Initially being supportive of trans rights and then walking back on it isn't a far right idea? Kier constantly flip flopping on every issue depending on how the wind blows isn't something that strenghtens the right wing parties all the time? People don't call labour "tories lite" for no reason.
  - clessed 2y ago
    Neither of those policy positions are far right. Arguments for stricter controls on immigration are made from across the political spectrum. The left-wing view is mainly because the cheap labour migrants provide mean that not only are they often heavily exploited, but this also drives down average wages for everybody else and increases competition for jobs. Similarly the left-wing opposition to trans policy is driven by feminist principles and preventing harm to children. Once people see the clash of rights and how policy that favours gender identity over sex disadvantages women and girls, walking back support for it is the obvious next step. None of this requires any adherence to far right beliefs.

readthenotes1 2y ago

There would be no motor vehicles if we had told Mercedes and Ford that we would have to stop everything and wait for the environmental impact assessments to be done before replacing the horses

defrost 2y ago
Not a great example, the early days of cars saw both cars on the road AND safety warnings to err on the side of the horses while cars were bedded in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  No, they would have had to wait till stop signs were introduced at smaller sections and stop lights at all major, except those for whom traffic circles could be created. Roads would have to be striped properly and there would have been an international Consortium to determine whether people should drive on the left or the right hand side of the road. That would still be ongoing of course
  - defrost 2y ago
    Meanwhile, in reality, the introduction of cars did actually come with initial limitations. In hindsight not nearly enough limitations and caution, slower growth would have ideally come with better recognition of the risks and better appraochesto minimising externalities.
lores 2y ago
I really struggle to think why restricting car development in light of environmental concerns would have been a bad thing. Much milder climate change? Better-designed, more pleasant cities? No leaded gasoline? Sure, economic growth would have been held back a couple of decades, but no one would have really noticed.
- readthenotes1 2y ago

pinoy420 2y ago

> use of AI to create child abuse images That old rhetoric again. They are trying to push a law (have pushed?) that brands anyone with an AI capable of generating cp a certified pedo. So basically any diffusion model. Or in fact any llm? I imagine you can ask an LLM to generate you sketchy svgs. Secondary thought to that, what about scary illegal texts telling you how to make explosives or hack. Sorry guys better brandish you a terrorist for having a local llm.

flir 2y ago
Doesn't have to be an SVG, just has to be text. Pornography involving children is Right Out, regardless of the medium, and that's not going to change. The distinction between illegal porn, models that are fine tuned to write illegal porn, and general purpose models that may be capable of writing illegal porn but aren't fine tuned to it is going to be an interesting one for the law to figure out. A microcosm of many larger issues, really - maybe even reaching as far as general purpose computing (imagine a GPU that won't run unsigned models). There was a private members bill in 2023 [1] that didn't go anywhere, we signed up for the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on AI in 2024 [2], and there was a consultation on copyright and AI launched in Dec 2024 [3]. There's a bill promised in 2025, but we don't really know what it's going to include (any assumptions seem to be off the table since the AI summit in Paris). I think that's it. [1] https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2024-0016/ https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-20... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-signs-first-international-treaty-addressing-risks-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-signs-first-internatio... [3] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-ar...

belter 2y ago

"Vance floats US troop withdrawal from Germany over free-speech concerns" https://www.politico.eu/article/vance-floats-us-troop-withdrawal-from-germany-over-free-speech-concerns/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vance-floats-us-troop-withdr...