5 ms·

I'm not familiar with this parable, but that sounds like a good thing in this case? Notably, this is not a gun.

by rattray 1y ago

herpdyderp 1y ago
In general, such broad surveillance usually sounds like a bad thing to me.
- VonGuard 1y ago
  You are right. If people can see where you are at all times, track your personal info across the web, monitor your DNS, or record your image from every possible angle in every single public space in your city, that would be horrible, and no one would stand for such things. Why, they'd be rioting in the streets, right? Right?
johnQdeveloper 1y ago
Well what if you want the AI red team your own applications? That seems a valid use case that'd get hit.
rapind 1y ago
Not really. It's like saying you need a license to write code. I don't think they actually want to be policing this, so I'm not sure why they are, other than a marketing post or absolution for the things that still get through their policing? It'll become apparent how woefully unprepared we are for AIs impact as these issues proliferate. I don't think for a second that Anthropic (or any of the others) is going to be policing this effectively or maybe at all. A lot of existing processes will attempt to erect gates to fend off AI, but I bet most will be ineffective.
madrox 1y ago
It depends on who is creating the definition of evil. Once you have a mechanism like this, it isn't long after that it becomes an ideological battleground. Social media moderation is an example of this. It was inevitable for AI usage, but I think folks were hoping the libertarian ideal would hold on a little longer.
- lurk2 1y ago
  It’s notable that the existence of the watchman problem doesn’t invalidate the necessity of regulation; it’s just a question of how you prevent capture of the regulating authority such that regulation is not abused to prevent competitors from emerging. This isn’t a problem unique to statism; you see the same abuse in nominally free markets that exploit the existence of natural monopolies. Anti-State libertarians posit that preventing this capture at the state level is either impossible (you can never stop worrying about who will watch the watchmen until you abolish the category of watchmen) or so expensive as to not be worth doing (you can regulate it but doing so ends up with systems that are basically totalitarian insofar as the system cannot tolerate insurrection, factionalism, and in many cases, dissent). The UK and Canada are the best examples of the latter issue; procedures are basically open (you don’t have to worry about disappearing in either country), but you have a governing authority built on wildly unpopular ideas that the systems rely upon for their justification—they cannot tolerate these ideas being criticized.
  - madrox 1y ago
    Well said
lurk2 1y ago
>but that sounds like a good thing in this case? Who decides when someone is doing something evil?
- hackable_sand 1y ago
  Everyone decides that tf?
Aurornis 1y ago
I’m actually surprised whenever someone familiar with technology thinks that adding more “smart” controls to a mechanical device is a good idea, or even that it will work as intended. The imagined ideal of a smart gun that perfectly identifies the user, works every time, never makes mistakes, always has a fully charged battery ready to go, and never suffers from unpredictably problems sounds great to a lot of people. But as a person familiar with tech, IoT, and how devices work in the real world, do you actually think it would work like that? “Sorry, you cannot fire this gun right now because the server is down”. Or how about when the criminals discover that they can avoid being shot by dressing up in police uniforms, fooling all of the smart guns? A very similar story is the idea of a drink driving detector in every vehicle. It sounds good when you imagine it being perfect. It doesn’t sound so good when you realize that even a 99.99% false positive avoidance means your own car is almost guaranteed lock you out of driving it some day by mistake during its lifetime, potentially when you need to drive it for work, an appointment, or even an emergency due to a false positive.
- rattray 1y ago
  Sure; api.anthropic.com is not a mechanical device.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > The imagined ideal of a smart gun that perfectly identifies the user, works every time, never makes mistakes, always has a fully charged battery ready to go, and never suffers from unpredictably problems sounds great to a lot of people. People acccept that regular old dumb guns may jam, run out of ammo, and require regular maintenance. Why are smart ones the only ones expected to be perfect? > “Sorry, you cannot fire this gun right now because the server is down”. Has anyone ever proposed a smart gun that requires an internet connection to shoot? > Or how about when the criminals discover that they can avoid being shot by dressing up in police uniforms, fooling all of the smart guns? People already do this.
  - dabluecaboose 1y ago
    > People acccept that regular old dumb guns may jam, run out of ammo, and require regular maintenance. Why are smart ones the only ones expected to be perfect? This is stated as if smart guns are being held to a different, unachievable standard. In fact, they have all the same limitations you've already pointed out (on top of whatever software is in the way), and are held to the exact same standard as "dumb" guns: when I, the owner, pull the trigger, I expect it to fire. Users like products that behave as they expect.
demarq 1y ago
things that you think sound good, might not sound good to the authority in charge of determining what is good. For example using your LLM to criticise, ask questions or perform civil work that is deemed undesirable becomes evil. You can use google to find how the UK government for example has been using "law" and "terrorism" charges against people for simply tweeting or holding a placard they deem critical of Israel. Anthropic is showing off these capabilities in order to secure defence contracts. "We have the ability to surveil and engage threats, hire us please". Anthropic is not a tiny start up exploring AI, it's a behemoth bank rolled by the likes of Google and Amazon. It's a big bet. While money is drying up for AI, there is always one last bastion for endless cash, defence contracts. You just need a threat.
- skeezyboy 1y ago
  > You can use google to find how the UK government for example has been using " "law" and "terrorism" charges how dare they invoke law
  - jzackpete 1y ago
    their whole point is that the law can be abused

I'm not familiar with this parable, but that sounds like a good thing in this case? Notably, this is not a gun.

herpdyderp 1y ago

In general, such broad surveillance usually sounds like a bad thing to me.

VonGuard 1y ago
You are right. If people can see where you are at all times, track your personal info across the web, monitor your DNS, or record your image from every possible angle in every single public space in your city, that would be horrible, and no one would stand for such things. Why, they'd be rioting in the streets, right? Right?

johnQdeveloper 1y ago

Well what if you want the AI red team your own applications? That seems a valid use case that'd get hit.

rapind 1y ago

Not really. It's like saying you need a license to write code. I don't think they actually want to be policing this, so I'm not sure why they are, other than a marketing post or absolution for the things that still get through their policing? It'll become apparent how woefully unprepared we are for AIs impact as these issues proliferate. I don't think for a second that Anthropic (or any of the others) is going to be policing this effectively or maybe at all. A lot of existing processes will attempt to erect gates to fend off AI, but I bet most will be ineffective.

madrox 1y ago

It depends on who is creating the definition of evil. Once you have a mechanism like this, it isn't long after that it becomes an ideological battleground. Social media moderation is an example of this. It was inevitable for AI usage, but I think folks were hoping the libertarian ideal would hold on a little longer.

lurk2 1y ago
It’s notable that the existence of the watchman problem doesn’t invalidate the necessity of regulation; it’s just a question of how you prevent capture of the regulating authority such that regulation is not abused to prevent competitors from emerging. This isn’t a problem unique to statism; you see the same abuse in nominally free markets that exploit the existence of natural monopolies. Anti-State libertarians posit that preventing this capture at the state level is either impossible (you can never stop worrying about who will watch the watchmen until you abolish the category of watchmen) or so expensive as to not be worth doing (you can regulate it but doing so ends up with systems that are basically totalitarian insofar as the system cannot tolerate insurrection, factionalism, and in many cases, dissent). The UK and Canada are the best examples of the latter issue; procedures are basically open (you don’t have to worry about disappearing in either country), but you have a governing authority built on wildly unpopular ideas that the systems rely upon for their justification—they cannot tolerate these ideas being criticized.
- madrox 1y ago
  Well said

lurk2 1y ago

>but that sounds like a good thing in this case? Who decides when someone is doing something evil?

hackable_sand 1y ago
Everyone decides that tf?

Aurornis 1y ago

I’m actually surprised whenever someone familiar with technology thinks that adding more “smart” controls to a mechanical device is a good idea, or even that it will work as intended. The imagined ideal of a smart gun that perfectly identifies the user, works every time, never makes mistakes, always has a fully charged battery ready to go, and never suffers from unpredictably problems sounds great to a lot of people. But as a person familiar with tech, IoT, and how devices work in the real world, do you actually think it would work like that? “Sorry, you cannot fire this gun right now because the server is down”. Or how about when the criminals discover that they can avoid being shot by dressing up in police uniforms, fooling all of the smart guns? A very similar story is the idea of a drink driving detector in every vehicle. It sounds good when you imagine it being perfect. It doesn’t sound so good when you realize that even a 99.99% false positive avoidance means your own car is almost guaranteed lock you out of driving it some day by mistake during its lifetime, potentially when you need to drive it for work, an appointment, or even an emergency due to a false positive.

rattray 1y ago
Sure; api.anthropic.com is not a mechanical device.
ceejayoz 1y ago
> The imagined ideal of a smart gun that perfectly identifies the user, works every time, never makes mistakes, always has a fully charged battery ready to go, and never suffers from unpredictably problems sounds great to a lot of people. People acccept that regular old dumb guns may jam, run out of ammo, and require regular maintenance. Why are smart ones the only ones expected to be perfect? > “Sorry, you cannot fire this gun right now because the server is down”. Has anyone ever proposed a smart gun that requires an internet connection to shoot? > Or how about when the criminals discover that they can avoid being shot by dressing up in police uniforms, fooling all of the smart guns? People already do this.
- dabluecaboose 1y ago
  > People acccept that regular old dumb guns may jam, run out of ammo, and require regular maintenance. Why are smart ones the only ones expected to be perfect? This is stated as if smart guns are being held to a different, unachievable standard. In fact, they have all the same limitations you've already pointed out (on top of whatever software is in the way), and are held to the exact same standard as "dumb" guns: when I, the owner, pull the trigger, I expect it to fire. Users like products that behave as they expect.

demarq 1y ago

things that you think sound good, might not sound good to the authority in charge of determining what is good. For example using your LLM to criticise, ask questions or perform civil work that is deemed undesirable becomes evil. You can use google to find how the UK government for example has been using "law" and "terrorism" charges against people for simply tweeting or holding a placard they deem critical of Israel. Anthropic is showing off these capabilities in order to secure defence contracts. "We have the ability to surveil and engage threats, hire us please". Anthropic is not a tiny start up exploring AI, it's a behemoth bank rolled by the likes of Google and Amazon. It's a big bet. While money is drying up for AI, there is always one last bastion for endless cash, defence contracts. You just need a threat.

skeezyboy 1y ago
> You can use google to find how the UK government for example has been using " "law" and "terrorism" charges how dare they invoke law
- jzackpete 1y ago
  their whole point is that the law can be abused