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I had to read this twice to understand what they're actually proposing here. The entire premise behind AI is that it can amplify (and in some cases) replace hum

I had to read this twice to understand what they're actually proposing here. The entire premise behind AI is that it can amplify (and in some cases) replace human workers. The blog seems completely backwards to what they're advertising to the enterprise in sales. -- edit -- After more reading I find this really funny: "Enforcement and regulatory authority with teeth. The government should be able to block or deter the deployment of models that pose a significant risk of catastrophic harm. We must also avoid overly broad or heavy-handed regulatory power. Our framework proposes both a mechanism for blocking dangerous deployments, and concrete safeguards that would prevent that power from being misused. Policymakers could begin with a lighter-touch approach, then adapt this as model capabilities advance and the evaluation ecosystem matures." (They link to https://www.anthropic.com/policy-on-the-ai-exponential https://www.anthropic.com/policy-on-the-ai-exponential in this blog post)

lkbm 4mo ago
> The entire premise behind AI is that it can amplify (and in some cases) replace human workers. This seems completely backwards to what they're advertising to the enterprise in sales. idgi. I'm pretty sure this is also exactly what they've been telling enterprise. This has been the line I've been hearing consistently from them (and everyone else).
roxolotl 4mo ago
This is what always confuses me about the “keep up or get left behind” crowd. Either these tools are gods in boxes and we’re all going to be replaced or they are actually something that you can gain expertise around. If you can gain expertise around them then sure there’s value in keeping up. But those shouting we’ve all gotta keep up are mostly the same claiming they are building god boxes. It genuinely has to be one or the other. Something isn’t a god box if you have to learn how to best use it.
- skybrian 4mo ago
  Seems like there is skill in knowing what to ask the genie for, no matter how powerful the genie is? How is that not going to be an issue? That said, there are things people had to worry about last year with weaker models that aren't really a problem anymore, so some of the knowledge you get by "keeping up" becomes obsolete and could be skipped by waiting.
  - the_other 4mo ago
    Context: I vibe code most of my production code, but I come from a long FED career so I'm vibe-coding small things, constantly tweaking, refining prompts, picking work to do that fits with the existing work, etc. So I'm either "doing it wrong" or "being careful". Anyway, that's the perspective I have ATM... So, it seems to me that there's quite a lot of skill to using these "god boxes": which models, connecting to your systems, hosting the code, running the model, running the code, not breaking your production pipelines, having a production pipeline in the first place. Sure, the god boxes help with a lot of that. But they don't help setting up the accounts, connecting your code hosting to your production servers. You can't currently just give random people in your org access to an LLM account and have them safely make production changes w/out some engineering knowledge and oversight. In NGOs, especially the small ones, they already outsource all that to 3rd parties so they don't have to worry about it. But with "just the right amount" of in-house knowledge, gear, config (maybe one office computer hooked up with Claude, or a small GHCP account, with GH + hosting configured), it's possible that anyone in the company might be able to add to the company's suite of useful small tools, or add features. (I also think there's more to "hey claude, make feature X" than we're capturing here, but as I said at the top, I might be doing it wrong.)
- palmotea 4mo ago
  > This is what always confuses me about the “keep up or get left behind” crowd. ... But those shouting we’ve all gotta keep up are mostly the same claiming they are building god boxes. It genuinely has to be one or the other. Something isn’t a god box if you have to learn how to best use it. I think the answer is the shouters are just telling people what they want to hear (a.k.a. lying), in the service of selling more. To the capitalists, they sell "god boxes" with the promise of one day being able to lay of most if not all those pesky, annoying workers. To the workers, they sell "something that you can gain expertise around" to defuse the intense opposition a job-destroying "got box" would create.
clhodapp 4mo ago
I believe this is an attempt to try out a possible answer to the problem of "If AI makes it non-viable for individual companies to pay junior devs, there will be no junior devs". The posited theory: Maybe the AI companies pay them off what is effectively a tax on the industry as a whole (that they can extract because every company has no choice but to pay their fees). It's pretty dystopian so I hope this isn't the future, but... maybe worth trying as an experiment?
- himata4113 4mo ago
  I think I summarized it best: AI companies are taking money out of the developer salary pool and giving it to themselves. I personally don't mind since I don't have to work at a company to make money, but I do feel for people who do.
imglorp 4mo ago
> replace human workers Plenty of charity nonprofits have no/few employees and depend on volunteers for office work. Think animal shelter, food bank, etc. Having a bot perform things like bookkeeping, volunteer coordination, etc would free up volunteers for other things. It wouldn't take many tokens. If Anthropic wanted some serious PR karma they would include a light usage plan for five or ten years in addition to the engineer to get them started.
- himata4113 4mo ago
  None of those generally need AI systems though that benefit from an arbitrary input chat box, majority of the work is physical. I might be bias because my experience already included modern systems with machine based OCR.
  - signatoremo 4mo ago
    > ... things like bookkeeping, volunteer coordination, etc Are they physical work? Maybe you're saying they aren't important?
  - imglorp 4mo ago
    > arbitrary input chat box Agents connect to your business software. A chat box alone can't "generate the monthly report, run the payroll, and contact these new volunteers."

lkbm 4mo ago

> The entire premise behind AI is that it can amplify (and in some cases) replace human workers. This seems completely backwards to what they're advertising to the enterprise in sales. idgi. I'm pretty sure this is also exactly what they've been telling enterprise. This has been the line I've been hearing consistently from them (and everyone else).

roxolotl 4mo ago

This is what always confuses me about the “keep up or get left behind” crowd. Either these tools are gods in boxes and we’re all going to be replaced or they are actually something that you can gain expertise around. If you can gain expertise around them then sure there’s value in keeping up. But those shouting we’ve all gotta keep up are mostly the same claiming they are building god boxes. It genuinely has to be one or the other. Something isn’t a god box if you have to learn how to best use it.

skybrian 4mo ago
Seems like there is skill in knowing what to ask the genie for, no matter how powerful the genie is? How is that not going to be an issue? That said, there are things people had to worry about last year with weaker models that aren't really a problem anymore, so some of the knowledge you get by "keeping up" becomes obsolete and could be skipped by waiting.
- the_other 4mo ago
  Context: I vibe code most of my production code, but I come from a long FED career so I'm vibe-coding small things, constantly tweaking, refining prompts, picking work to do that fits with the existing work, etc. So I'm either "doing it wrong" or "being careful". Anyway, that's the perspective I have ATM... So, it seems to me that there's quite a lot of skill to using these "god boxes": which models, connecting to your systems, hosting the code, running the model, running the code, not breaking your production pipelines, having a production pipeline in the first place. Sure, the god boxes help with a lot of that. But they don't help setting up the accounts, connecting your code hosting to your production servers. You can't currently just give random people in your org access to an LLM account and have them safely make production changes w/out some engineering knowledge and oversight. In NGOs, especially the small ones, they already outsource all that to 3rd parties so they don't have to worry about it. But with "just the right amount" of in-house knowledge, gear, config (maybe one office computer hooked up with Claude, or a small GHCP account, with GH + hosting configured), it's possible that anyone in the company might be able to add to the company's suite of useful small tools, or add features. (I also think there's more to "hey claude, make feature X" than we're capturing here, but as I said at the top, I might be doing it wrong.)
palmotea 4mo ago
> This is what always confuses me about the “keep up or get left behind” crowd. ... But those shouting we’ve all gotta keep up are mostly the same claiming they are building god boxes. It genuinely has to be one or the other. Something isn’t a god box if you have to learn how to best use it. I think the answer is the shouters are just telling people what they want to hear (a.k.a. lying), in the service of selling more. To the capitalists, they sell "god boxes" with the promise of one day being able to lay of most if not all those pesky, annoying workers. To the workers, they sell "something that you can gain expertise around" to defuse the intense opposition a job-destroying "got box" would create.

clhodapp 4mo ago

I believe this is an attempt to try out a possible answer to the problem of "If AI makes it non-viable for individual companies to pay junior devs, there will be no junior devs". The posited theory: Maybe the AI companies pay them off what is effectively a tax on the industry as a whole (that they can extract because every company has no choice but to pay their fees). It's pretty dystopian so I hope this isn't the future, but... maybe worth trying as an experiment?

himata4113 4mo ago
I think I summarized it best: AI companies are taking money out of the developer salary pool and giving it to themselves. I personally don't mind since I don't have to work at a company to make money, but I do feel for people who do.

imglorp 4mo ago

> replace human workers Plenty of charity nonprofits have no/few employees and depend on volunteers for office work. Think animal shelter, food bank, etc. Having a bot perform things like bookkeeping, volunteer coordination, etc would free up volunteers for other things. It wouldn't take many tokens. If Anthropic wanted some serious PR karma they would include a light usage plan for five or ten years in addition to the engineer to get them started.

himata4113 4mo ago
None of those generally need AI systems though that benefit from an arbitrary input chat box, majority of the work is physical. I might be bias because my experience already included modern systems with machine based OCR.
- signatoremo 4mo ago
  > ... things like bookkeeping, volunteer coordination, etc Are they physical work? Maybe you're saying they aren't important?
- imglorp 4mo ago
  > arbitrary input chat box Agents connect to your business software. A chat box alone can't "generate the monthly report, run the payroll, and contact these new volunteers."