4 ms·
Indeed, I find quite ironic that some people in tech in the US complain about EU "regulations first" approach, but then their government seem to arbitrarily sto
by winterismute 3mo ago
Indeed, I find quite ironic that some people in tech in the US complain about EU "regulations first" approach, but then their government seem to arbitrarily stop things from being released because, well, there is no established policy on safety guarantees or other similar aspects.
- basisword 3mo agoThis applies to most things when it comes to the USG/citizens. Protectionism is communist unless they do it. Thinking about developing a nuke? Well bomb you first despite being the only people to ever use them. Free speech and press - unless we don’t like what you say.
- ronsor 3mo agoThis arrangement is already dubiously legal. The government is already being sued over the Fable incident with Anthropic. No amount of rules can stop people who are willing to break them. Only enforcement can.
- peter422 3mo agoAnthropic just needs to donate millions of dollars to a “MAGA Inc” like Greg Brockman did and they’ll get regulated properly from now on. It’s a perfectly good system for government regulation.
- thegreatpeter 3mo ago[flagged]
- colinbooks 3mo agoalways important to compare things that are actively happening to things that didn’t
- hilariously 3mo agoProbably not personal bribery?
- boredatoms 3mo agoOr perhaps threaten to donate $10b to the DNC
- Goronmon 3mo agoThat threat will probably result in a DOJ investigation into everyone involved until they hit something they think they can prosecute someone for, even if it's not true.
- boredatoms 3mo agoThat makes sense They could double down though, like actually follow through with just 1b and then threaten to do an extra 1b periodically until the investigations are dropped
- alfiedotwtf 3mo ago$100 Million to The Trump Foundation, and Anthropic get to become the US AI Regulator
- outside1234 3mo agoIt looks like Greg needs to make another deposit to the fuhrer
- kashunstva 3mo agoIn some cases, even just bringing a 24K gold desk ornament to the WH is enough; but I suspect these tributes to Dear Leader are subject to inflation, possibly exponentially so.
- moomin 3mo agoAnd enforcement cannot work if you’ve captured all three estates.
- nostrademons 3mo agoDid you mean this in the French Revolution sense (the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners) or in the American sense (the legislative, judicial, and executive branches)? The French Revolution sense would be an ironic counterpoint, because the Revolutionaries did end up capturing all three estates, only to fall to someone (Napoleon) who captured the military, which wasn't considered one of the "three estates" because at the start of the French Revolution destroying civil society, enacting a military dictatorship, and starting a series of wars throughout Europe was considered outside the Overton Window. This perhaps holds some lessons for America today.
- tialaramex 3mo agoI think there is a layer of truth to the idea that MAGA captured what England would call the Fourth Estate, the News Media. England is weird because its model looks like that French model, except that it intertwines the nobility and clergy. Basically an Archbishop and a Earl both sit in Parliament as Lords, while the Commoners control only the Commons of the Parliament. Now today the Commons runs things, but that's relatively modern, in the 19th Century it was completely normal for the Prime Minister to be a Lord, and while some of them were only technically Lords, having in fact been elected but just also nobility anyway for one reason or another, or being ennobled while serving as PM because nobody thought that was a bad idea - others were never elected at all. So weirdly the place which came up with the "Fourth Estate" only really had two other estates, although everyone reading will have known about the French concept too. In the era when Lords routinely become PM (it would still be legal to do this today, but it's hard to imagine it happening, although the Tories did give a Lord one of the Great Offices of State so never say never) almost all those Lords were born into it. Today basically nobody sat in the Lords was born to it (there are about two dozen left, when they die or retire that's the end of it) but there are still always a dozen or so bishops, and Iran is ironically the only other place [except the Vatican which barely counts] where religious leaders are in government by fiat in the modern world... Edited to mention the Vatican before somebody else does.
- darig 3mo ago[dead]
- mvdtnz 3mo agoBut your government is constantly acting illegally. Isn't it time for Americans to... do something? It's clear that your legal framework isn't working.
- nearlyepic 3mo agoDo what, exactly? Throw away our lives? 40% of the nation would rather die than vote for anyone other than a racist, and another 40% would tsk-tsk and say “that’s not how you’re supposed to do it”. There’s no revolution coming to save the day.
- autoexec 3mo ago> Do what, exactly? Throw away our lives? I think the founding fathers were pretty clear about what the American people are expected to do if the systems they put into place aren't enough to preserve freedom. If the colonists had just bent over and spread their cheeks saying "We sure hate being fucked but oh well! what else can we do? Throw away our lives?" we'd still have a king instead of just a wannabe. I'd be very nice if things don't come to that, but ultimately the responsibility to preserve our freedom and democracy is ours. It seems like there are plenty of people lined up to take them from us if we're willing to surrender them. The problem we have now is that an uncomfortably large minority seem happy to do just that.
- nearlyepic 3mo agoThis is a super reductive reading of the American revolution. The idea of the colonies self governing was popular as hell, for obvious reasons. Our current situation is nowhere near the same thing. The people that aren’t frothing-at-the-mouth fascists are still, overall, comfortable enough in their daily lives that they wouldn’t consider violence against the government for a second. We can’t even get 40% of them to go vote. You want to fight 80% of the nation? Be my guest, but for a violent revolution to be anything but a suicide mission you need to flip those numbers, or have the military on your side. And if you think the US military will flip against capital because of some strongly-held belief of “liberty” I have a bridge to sell you. The only thing we can do is try to convince other people that this shit does actually matter. We’re so far in the hole, though, that it’s going to take a long fucking time to dig ourselves out. It’s not going to be some glorious revolution.
- refulgentis 3mo agoOur AI czar, David Sacks, whined and moaned about the idea of regulation, even said Anthropic begging for some guidance was asking for “regulatory capture” and was gloating about how right he was they wanted it, 2 weeks ago. I wonder if he understands why, now.
- GaryBluto 3mo ago> Anthropic begging for some guidance Anthropic was "begging" to make it harder for competing companies to be founded.
- ronsor 3mo agoThey got the "leopards ate my face" ending.
- refulgentis 3mo agoNo, it’s not leopards ate my face / irony / comeuppance, because that would involve regulation. I understand it’s very satisfying if you wanted Anthropic “punished” for asking for real regulation to see this. I can’t deny there was a little bit of me at first that felt that way. It’s untenable, a first order reaction, that I regret intellectually, because if you were against regulation, you’re certainly against waves whatever this is.
- ronsor 3mo agoI don't want anyone being punished. I want everyone to stop acting stupid. I would've much preferred if Dario hadn't run his mouth so much.
- blackqueeriroh 3mo agoYou actually think that would’ve changed things? I don’t. We’d still be here.
- 3mo ago
- alberto467 3mo agoLet’s be real, as an EU citizen I have zero doubts that those models would also have been blocked if developed in EU. I like the US approach better: regulate when the need for it arises, not before when you don’t know how the situation is going to evolve.
- JoshTriplett 3mo ago> regulate when the need for it arises I agree. But that need has absolutely arisen. The US government is not exactly the best steward for this kind of thing, but some model other than "race each other as fast as we can" is desperately needed here.
- fl0id 3mo agoIf they were real about risk, they would have to block a lot more models.
- ascorbic 3mo agoThey're not regulating though – they're arbitrarily blocking releases based on no clear criteria. The EU may be legalistic and rules-based, but I'd take that over capricious and arbitrary.
- axus 3mo agoIt would be really nice if the executive were blocking these releases based on some authority the legislative had granted it.
- MichaelZuo 3mo agoYeah it seems very shady to do it this way… far worse than the EU. The fact that they couldn’t clear an already low bar is a really bad sign.
- blackqueeriroh 3mo agoYes, Trump is the worstPresident we’ve had, the Supreme Court is captured by conservatives, the Republicans would rather die than vote against Trump, we know all of this. It’s bad, okay? And it’s not usually like this.
- WarmWash 3mo agoOn some level though we have to be cognizant of the potential for harm these models have. LLMs are still a little loosey goosey, and we are right on the cusp (if not there already) for an agent to hack a bank and steal money for some rando teenager with a penchant for jail breaking. The regulations are and will be negative, but don't lose sight of what LLMs can do off the leash.
- yunwal 3mo ago> On some level The appropriate level would be regulation though? Like I just don't get how we can argue that arbitrarily throttling companies is ok.
- WarmWash 3mo agoOpenAI fired the starting gun 3.5 years ago before anyone in the industry had a sound safety plan, and not much progress has been made since. So here we are, it's probably going to me messy and err on the side of over-bearing.
- yunwal 3mo agoI'm fine with erring on the side of overbearing, as long as it's not blatant cronyism
- mrngld 3mo agoToo overbearing though and you get... Mistral? A continent that hasn't been on the leading edge of anything (other that expansion of the regulatory state) for decades, and Europe feels it in their employment numbers. Current French (8.2%), Spanish (10.3%) or even Swedish (8.6%) unemployment would count as a disastrous recession in the US. In the US we call 2007-09 the "Great Recession", which peaked at 10.0%, and that relatively brief time left a generational mark. That's a somewhat routine number by EU standards. Not to mention you end up with bizarre effects. If the UK were admitted as the 51st state it'd immediately be the poorest. (Yes, some EU countries are wealthy, but they're also the size of US counties, if we cherry pick just Manhattan we could make some spectacular comparisons too) So, it's a complex issue but the tradeoffs are absolutely tangible yet often dismissed.
- 9dev 3mo agoIt’s a bit in general, because if you actually read the EU AI legislation, most of it follows the right ideas and provides more safety, in the sense that OpenAI and Anthropic used to pretend to care about, but never really did.
- Aerroon 3mo agoWith the way things are, having to disclose training data will basically make it impossible for an EU AI to compete.
- 9dev 3mo agoIm not happy with the AI act in entirety either, but my point was that it’s hard to read it and say "this isn’t generally the right thing to do", where right means responsible and beneficial to society as a whole.
- Aerroon 3mo agoIs it responsible and beneficial if the end result is that we will be forever stuck using foreign made AI? And on top of that we will get brain drain for the people that want to work on AI?
- 9dev 3mo agoHonestly? That’s a big philosophical question, and I don’t know if I can really answer it. But I do personally prefer living in a value-backed society - even if the implementation is imperfect, even if I have to make personal concessions - over one that aims for maximised efficiency. More fundamentally, imho the 20th and 21st century are about competition of systems. And the only system I can get behind is one that strives for minimal suffering. The EU or social liberal democracy isn’t that, but it comes closest.
- Aerroon 3mo agoThe problem is that if your system loses then your system stops existing. This already is the case with AI - all the relevant AI is made according to other people's preferences and we have no say in it. Sure, we can regulate what kind of AI is used in the EU, but if they aren't selling AI to us directly, but instead using AI to make something that they sell to us then we can't compete with that.
- brookst 3mo agoIt would only be ironic of you assume those same people who thing the EU over-regulates also support this US government regulation. It's N=1, but I believe both that the EU approach discourages investment and innovation in the EU, and that this US policy will do the same in the US.
- tptacek 3mo agoI see it too, but worth noting that this is basically unprecedented at least within the last 25 years; I think you have to go back to export controlled cryptography for another example of this kind of abrupt and targeted regulation.
- martinjc 3mo agoA real headscratcher isn't it? And from a government that is supposedly priding itself on small government. How should companies navigate this? What's the framework they should operate within?
- heylook 3mo agoSmall governments don't deploy thousands of military troops into their own cities.
- shimman 3mo ago[flagged]
- newfriend 3mo agoOne of the few roles a "small government" should actually take on is defending from invaders.
- oblio 3mo agoWhich invaders? Has the Iran War taken a 180 degree turn?
- sph 3mo agoUntil a few minutes ago, Iran did technically win the war.
- thewebguyd 3mo ago
- criddell 3mo agoMaybe this is a good opportunity for the European AI companies to jump ahead?
- jessepasley 3mo agoLol
- dopidopHN2 3mo agoThe US is already behind and has been technically. Can't wait for that part to sink in. This start to be a source of second hand embarrassment when I see US folk think their country is still leading the race technically.
- villish 3mo agoDefine leading then. Mythos and GPT score higher on all the benchmarks versus Chinese models. I suppose your anti-american mindset has given you a different definition of leading than the rest of us.
- dopidopHN2 3mo agoI'm american btw. I define leading by : Renewable energy, EV, sustainable agriculture, Drone warfare, public infrastructure, soft power, Grid management, Nuclear. I use AI every day since 2 years and it did not really occurs to me. I think its as important as the crypto industry. Edit: fair, its unhinge of me to say that on a post about LLM regulations. I still feel the same way. We will wake up and be the UK.
- madprops 3mo agoAI is probably old italian tech
- dylan604 3mo agoIs it really ironic or just yet another example of how the current administration just keep finding ways to line their pockets? Big Tech has lots of money, and they'd just like to get a little taste. Placing arbitrary restrictions is a pretty good motivator for those being restricted to find some way to make necessary contributions.
- frollogaston 3mo agoI'm fine with this in principle, it's more like regulations last. They looked at the end result and decided it was too powerful to let loose. But also expect the Trump administration to unfairly use it as leverage against US corps. Meanwhile EU prevented itself from building competitive LLMs in the first place.
- yapyap 3mo agoits the typical US regulations for consumer but not for corporations, disgusting
- al_borland 3mo ago> there is no established policy on safety guarantees Which is the government’s own fault. Elon Musk talked back in 2018 about how he went to Washington and met with Obama and Congress, but they did nothing. In 2020 Andrew Yang’s entire run for president was centered around the risk of AI displacing job. He lost, no one did anything. A couple years later we say the consumer facing LLMs start to roll out. Still, no one does anything. They have time to micromanage the industry, but in all these years they haven’t found the time to establish any meaningful policy?
- WarmWash 3mo agoDeeper than that, what to do with a super smart AI has been floating around intellectual circles since the late 00's. Google had been pussy-footing AI research due to deathly fear of awakening an ASI, because their safety teams still had no answers. Then Altman came along...
- CamperBob2 3mo agoIn your opinion, what was the appropriate action you believe should have been taken in 2018?
- vrganj 3mo agoRegulation is a good thing, even if HN hates it. It's a way to clearly agree on ground rules that you can plan around, not more, not less. The alternative is not no rules, do whatever you want. The alternative is executive capriciousness arbitrarily setting the rules based on whims and messing up your plans.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoWho specifically? Probably just different people.