4 ms·

I guess what they really want is to limit sale of AI models to compliant vendors and then raise the bar to compliance just high enough so they can pass it but s

I guess what they really want is to limit sale of AI models to compliant vendors and then raise the bar to compliance just high enough so they can pass it but smaller labs can’t. There’s no moat, it’s an efficient market that drives margins to zero right now, of course they don’t want that, collusion of the big vendors is the next logical step.

dannykwells 18d ago
Bingo. The goal is positioning a duopoly / cartel as the only “safe” and “moral” path and then that cartel sets pace and price.
- bbor 18d ago
  Source? Just "that's a plausible motivation"? Cause that's pretty terrible proof.
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
  - kennywinker 18d ago
    You don't need to ask for sources, when what is being said is clearly opinion. The source is the person who posted it.
    - bbor 18d ago
      The choice to teach the "opinion" vs. "fact" heuristic in middle school --and its consequences-- have been a disaster for human discourse
    - mitchdoogle 17d ago
      Well, smart people usually try to base their opinions on specific information instead of pulling things out of their ass. A whistleblower revealing information. Internal documents laying out a strategy, or even a desire, to conspire. Something that leads one to conclude that a conspiracy is taking place. In the absence of such information, it's just making something up, or in other words, complete bullshit. So asking for a source is trying to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just a conspiracy theorist and that they might actually have a good reason for believing what they just said.
  - jryle70 18d ago
    Source? on HN you can say whatever you want. Your own opinion, without even facts to back it up. The more confident you sound the more convincing you are.
    - mitchdoogle 17d ago
      Well, smart people usually try to base their opinions on specific information instead of pulling things out of their ass. A whistleblower revealing information. Internal documents laying out a strategy, or even a desire, to conspire. Something that leads one to conclude that a conspiracy is taking place. In the absence of such information, it's just making something up, or in other words, complete bullshit. So asking for a source is trying to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just a conspiracy theorist and that they might actually have a good reason for believing what they just said.
Joel_Mckay 18d ago
That is generally how regulatory-capture works. As silly as I personally think LLM hype is, the "AI" business posture choices with several Trillion dollars in debt on the books has very few options after hyper-scaling/sandbagging loses traction. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- NiloCK 18d ago
  > As silly as I personally think LLM hype is Did you know that an LLM solved a millennium problem last week? Do you have any personal threshold past witch you will acknowledge that this technology is real?
  - Joel_Mckay 18d ago
    When it stops with the compacted isomorphic plagiarism using other peoples work like an intelligence campaign. LLM are not "AI" in my opinion, but are good at domain context search. Neuromorphic computing may change that one day, but it will unlikely arise from the LLM cults. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken
- jamienk 18d ago
  There ARE other options: network effects and lock-in. These tried and true techniques (mastered by FB and M$) have not yet been taken up by the AIers. I do not think they will rely solely on the push for regulations, so they will soon be doing things like slurping our address books, having "teams" settings, and any other crap they can think of.
dozerly 18d ago
This could be why they’re going so hard on hacking everyone and everything. You make it clear AI is a threat, get it locked down, and then have the capital to push through the lockdown while others are stuck.
- 8cvor6j844qw_d6 18d ago
  Same thoughts. Also, some of the recent coverage around AI hacks also feels unusually amplified and repetitive.
  - lokar 18d ago
    “My AI broke out of my vibe coded jail!”
  - r_lee 18d ago
    and especially how the coverage seems to be drip fed, one case right after the previous one dies down, then this orchestrated "we need to pace" stand by all the big labs it's really almost perfect, prep the media scene by causing these hacking incidents, generate a bunch of fuss with it, then release an essay saying why regulation is needed to pace development right after oh and let's not forget the "its gonna kill us all" essay on twitter on top of everything. something about this just feels very artificial
    - bigyabai 18d ago
      It's "flood the zone"[0] as commercial strategy. Does your business look bad? Spam the media with unavoidable press releases, deny competitors and detractors the spotlight by making grand accusations that override their authority. Bonus points if you can channel the zeitgeist by repeating what people already say ("we hate AI!") in a louder tone ("AI will kill us all!"). It worked like clockwork for politics, so I can see why this administration would decant the strategy for economic bluffs too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
- 3eb7988a1663 18d ago
hn_throwaway_99 18d ago
> There’s no moat People keep saying this, and while it may be partially true, it misses a very important detail. Right now, overall compute is a moat. Someone even commented on another of my comments that one reason Google is lagging is they don't have the same level of Nvidia farms as OpenAI and Anthropic. A big reason that OpenAI and Anthropic are racing so fast is they both want to get to recursive self improvement (remains to be seen if that is actually possible, but AFAICT most people at these companies genuinely believe it is) before anyone else, because they believe whoever gets there first will then have an insurmountable lead. But I think they also clearly understand that neither of them have solved for alignment (and in fact they are further from it), and RSI with misaligned models, where interpretability is worse every 6 months, is incredibly dangerous. I think the concerns about regulatory capture are warranted, but I see so many comments parroting the "evil Anthropic and OpenAI" viewpoints that they are missing some of the real, valid concerns and dangers. I think this tweet by David Kokotajlo makes some good points on how to tell if regulations are being "cheated" for the purposes of regulatory capture or if they really are actually pacing the frontier: https://x.com/DKokotajlo/status/2099185129533186438 https://x.com/DKokotajlo/status/2099185129533186438
- wwweston 18d ago
  Which mostly seem to stem from the fundamental misalignment of OpenAI and Anthropic leaders/owners, aka the evil of the companies. Arguably, though, their evil is well within the normal distribution of the usual evil of humanity magnified via the social technology of capitalism. The further tech is mostly raising that exponentiation to its own exponent. The unchecked singularity was embraced centuries ago.
- AnimalMuppet 18d ago
  > RSI with misaligned models, where interpretability is worse every 6 months, is incredibly dangerous. This. So very much this. Misalignment (among other things) means that the parent in the RSI cycle isn't going to be working as hard on the alignment of the children as we need.
- hintymad 18d ago
  > Right now, overall compute is a moat. Very true. Or further, access to capital is the moat. It is the very reason that we don't have a real open-source community that trains frontier models - individuals simply can't afford the training infrastructure, nor sufficient high-quality training data.
petilon 18d ago
So kind of like how the US figured out how to test and maintain nuclear weapons without an actual explosion, then sought to ban nuclear testing by explosion.
sleepybrett 18d ago
they just want to pull the ladder up behind them.
pllbnk 18d ago
Of all the fan theories I have read this seems the most nefarious and the most plausible.
bbor 18d ago
Yeah it's either that or the scientists are right about their field of study. Absolutely shocking and depressing how many people are willing to trust this Capitalist Realism hunch over the world in front of their eyes.
- michaelbarton 18d ago
  I get your point. There’s a lot hysteria right now. However I think people are willing to trust a capitalist realism hunch because over the last >20 years, that hunch is usually going to be right.
  - bbor 18d ago
    The exact same thing can be said of climate science though, and that one turned out to be very, very real.
    - michaelbarton 17d ago
      Yes though I would argue climate science has >50 years of multi institution independent study to back up the assertions.
  - mitchdoogle 17d ago
    How so? What are you even talking about?
hintymad 18d ago
> I guess what they really want is to limit sale of AI models to compliant vendors and then raise the bar to compliance just high enough so they can pass it but smaller labs can’t. If it's true, it makes them evil. Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- ransom1538 18d ago
  "If it's true, it makes them evil." Hitler level evil.
- r_lee 18d ago
  > If it's true, it makes them evil. Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does. I mean think about it, it's the most efficient way to accomplish all of this. doing what he does is exactly what you need to control the narrative and push the regulation you need and to gain maximum power. not to mention, it also serves as a way to keep everyone inside Anthropic in check and in line with "the mission". contrast that with the alternatives like "I'm doing this because I wanted to build a company and get rich" doesn't work as well as "I'm so concerned for everyone" it could be that it's really just him being him, but at the same time, this would be the optimal way to gain power and influence right now.
- watwut 18d ago
  > Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does. He sells to Palantir. He is against regulatory change that would make Ai labs liable. His idea of "good for humanity" or "safe" is completely different then mine or yours.
hashstring 18d ago
Yes, I hope policy makers also understand this reality.
roboror 18d ago
They also want to implement self-regulation now instead of waiting for actual government watchdogs to be implemented.

dannykwells 18d ago

Bingo. The goal is positioning a duopoly / cartel as the only “safe” and “moral” path and then that cartel sets pace and price.

bbor 18d ago
Source? Just "that's a plausible motivation"? Cause that's pretty terrible proof.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- kennywinker 18d ago
  You don't need to ask for sources, when what is being said is clearly opinion. The source is the person who posted it.
  - bbor 18d ago
    The choice to teach the "opinion" vs. "fact" heuristic in middle school --and its consequences-- have been a disaster for human discourse
  - mitchdoogle 17d ago
    Well, smart people usually try to base their opinions on specific information instead of pulling things out of their ass. A whistleblower revealing information. Internal documents laying out a strategy, or even a desire, to conspire. Something that leads one to conclude that a conspiracy is taking place. In the absence of such information, it's just making something up, or in other words, complete bullshit. So asking for a source is trying to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just a conspiracy theorist and that they might actually have a good reason for believing what they just said.
- jryle70 18d ago
  Source? on HN you can say whatever you want. Your own opinion, without even facts to back it up. The more confident you sound the more convincing you are.
  - mitchdoogle 17d ago
    Well, smart people usually try to base their opinions on specific information instead of pulling things out of their ass. A whistleblower revealing information. Internal documents laying out a strategy, or even a desire, to conspire. Something that leads one to conclude that a conspiracy is taking place. In the absence of such information, it's just making something up, or in other words, complete bullshit. So asking for a source is trying to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just a conspiracy theorist and that they might actually have a good reason for believing what they just said.

Joel_Mckay 18d ago

That is generally how regulatory-capture works. As silly as I personally think LLM hype is, the "AI" business posture choices with several Trillion dollars in debt on the books has very few options after hyper-scaling/sandbagging loses traction. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

NiloCK 18d ago
> As silly as I personally think LLM hype is Did you know that an LLM solved a millennium problem last week? Do you have any personal threshold past witch you will acknowledge that this technology is real?
- Joel_Mckay 18d ago
  When it stops with the compacted isomorphic plagiarism using other peoples work like an intelligence campaign. LLM are not "AI" in my opinion, but are good at domain context search. Neuromorphic computing may change that one day, but it will unlikely arise from the LLM cults. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken
jamienk 18d ago
There ARE other options: network effects and lock-in. These tried and true techniques (mastered by FB and M$) have not yet been taken up by the AIers. I do not think they will rely solely on the push for regulations, so they will soon be doing things like slurping our address books, having "teams" settings, and any other crap they can think of.

dozerly 18d ago

This could be why they’re going so hard on hacking everyone and everything. You make it clear AI is a threat, get it locked down, and then have the capital to push through the lockdown while others are stuck.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 18d ago
Same thoughts. Also, some of the recent coverage around AI hacks also feels unusually amplified and repetitive.
- lokar 18d ago
  “My AI broke out of my vibe coded jail!”
- r_lee 18d ago
  and especially how the coverage seems to be drip fed, one case right after the previous one dies down, then this orchestrated "we need to pace" stand by all the big labs it's really almost perfect, prep the media scene by causing these hacking incidents, generate a bunch of fuss with it, then release an essay saying why regulation is needed to pace development right after oh and let's not forget the "its gonna kill us all" essay on twitter on top of everything. something about this just feels very artificial
  - bigyabai 18d ago
    It's "flood the zone"[0] as commercial strategy. Does your business look bad? Spam the media with unavoidable press releases, deny competitors and detractors the spotlight by making grand accusations that override their authority. Bonus points if you can channel the zeitgeist by repeating what people already say ("we hate AI!") in a louder tone ("AI will kill us all!"). It worked like clockwork for politics, so I can see why this administration would decant the strategy for economic bluffs too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
3eb7988a1663 18d ago

hn_throwaway_99 18d ago

> There’s no moat People keep saying this, and while it may be partially true, it misses a very important detail. Right now, overall compute is a moat. Someone even commented on another of my comments that one reason Google is lagging is they don't have the same level of Nvidia farms as OpenAI and Anthropic. A big reason that OpenAI and Anthropic are racing so fast is they both want to get to recursive self improvement (remains to be seen if that is actually possible, but AFAICT most people at these companies genuinely believe it is) before anyone else, because they believe whoever gets there first will then have an insurmountable lead. But I think they also clearly understand that neither of them have solved for alignment (and in fact they are further from it), and RSI with misaligned models, where interpretability is worse every 6 months, is incredibly dangerous. I think the concerns about regulatory capture are warranted, but I see so many comments parroting the "evil Anthropic and OpenAI" viewpoints that they are missing some of the real, valid concerns and dangers. I think this tweet by David Kokotajlo makes some good points on how to tell if regulations are being "cheated" for the purposes of regulatory capture or if they really are actually pacing the frontier: https://x.com/DKokotajlo/status/2099185129533186438 https://x.com/DKokotajlo/status/2099185129533186438

wwweston 18d ago
Which mostly seem to stem from the fundamental misalignment of OpenAI and Anthropic leaders/owners, aka the evil of the companies. Arguably, though, their evil is well within the normal distribution of the usual evil of humanity magnified via the social technology of capitalism. The further tech is mostly raising that exponentiation to its own exponent. The unchecked singularity was embraced centuries ago.
AnimalMuppet 18d ago
> RSI with misaligned models, where interpretability is worse every 6 months, is incredibly dangerous. This. So very much this. Misalignment (among other things) means that the parent in the RSI cycle isn't going to be working as hard on the alignment of the children as we need.
hintymad 18d ago
> Right now, overall compute is a moat. Very true. Or further, access to capital is the moat. It is the very reason that we don't have a real open-source community that trains frontier models - individuals simply can't afford the training infrastructure, nor sufficient high-quality training data.

petilon 18d ago

So kind of like how the US figured out how to test and maintain nuclear weapons without an actual explosion, then sought to ban nuclear testing by explosion.

sleepybrett 18d ago

they just want to pull the ladder up behind them.

pllbnk 18d ago

Of all the fan theories I have read this seems the most nefarious and the most plausible.

bbor 18d ago

Yeah it's either that or the scientists are right about their field of study. Absolutely shocking and depressing how many people are willing to trust this Capitalist Realism hunch over the world in front of their eyes.

michaelbarton 18d ago
I get your point. There’s a lot hysteria right now. However I think people are willing to trust a capitalist realism hunch because over the last >20 years, that hunch is usually going to be right.
- bbor 18d ago
  The exact same thing can be said of climate science though, and that one turned out to be very, very real.
  - michaelbarton 17d ago
    Yes though I would argue climate science has >50 years of multi institution independent study to back up the assertions.
- mitchdoogle 17d ago
  How so? What are you even talking about?

hintymad 18d ago

> I guess what they really want is to limit sale of AI models to compliant vendors and then raise the bar to compliance just high enough so they can pass it but smaller labs can’t. If it's true, it makes them evil. Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does.

deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
ransom1538 18d ago
"If it's true, it makes them evil." Hitler level evil.
r_lee 18d ago
> If it's true, it makes them evil. Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does. I mean think about it, it's the most efficient way to accomplish all of this. doing what he does is exactly what you need to control the narrative and push the regulation you need and to gain maximum power. not to mention, it also serves as a way to keep everyone inside Anthropic in check and in line with "the mission". contrast that with the alternatives like "I'm doing this because I wanted to build a company and get rich" doesn't work as well as "I'm so concerned for everyone" it could be that it's really just him being him, but at the same time, this would be the optimal way to gain power and influence right now.
watwut 18d ago
> Especially Dario, who speaks about moral high ground and fate of humanity all day, yet it's not that different from a cult leader does. He sells to Palantir. He is against regulatory change that would make Ai labs liable. His idea of "good for humanity" or "safe" is completely different then mine or yours.

hashstring 18d ago

Yes, I hope policy makers also understand this reality.

roboror 18d ago

They also want to implement self-regulation now instead of waiting for actual government watchdogs to be implemented.