5 ms·

OpenAI and Anthropic should be nationalized. I find it difficult to trust Sam Altman or Dario Amodei.

by pcestrada 17d ago

manav 17d ago
and you trust the government?
- klaff 17d ago
  not this one
  - redsocksfan45 17d ago
    [dead]
vb-8448 17d ago
Even better: force them to release weights.
- bibimsz 17d ago
  who even has the inventive to do that? certainly not the government.
- autoexec 17d ago
  Even better: force them to release every scrap of data they trained their AI on.
- timmg 17d ago
  My gut reaction is that this is not a good idea. But I could imagine a scenario where you are required to release weights for publicly-used models after N years. Kinda like how drugs have a limited patent. Not sure what N should be. But it would make for an interesting rule.
  - nullbio 16d ago
    > But I could imagine a scenario where you are required to release weights for publicly-used models after N years. Kinda like how drugs have a limited patent That's not a bad idea actually.
deleted 17d ago
[deleted]
prettyblocks 17d ago
I guess that's one way to guarantee development slows down to a crawl, but in no way would it increase trust.
- bibimsz 17d ago
  why would that be the case? it's not true for top secret defense contractors today. and the frontier labs already operate in the dark, openness is a liability. nationalization to me simply means the government is their main customer and stakeholder, and shield them from liability, governance, and openness. not that the frontier labs become part of the government per se.
  - pixl97 17d ago
    >eans the government is their main customer and stakeholder, and shield them from liability, governance, and openness I personally believe they already have this, why would the current government at least want to formalize this when it can have it with no public discussion.
  - WarmWash 17d ago
    Well we can say whatever we want if we have our own definitions for everything, no?
    - deleted 17d ago
      [deleted]
bibimsz 17d ago
they will. to shield from oversight, liability and profitability concerns, and to ensure unimpeded rapid development, with the frontier only being available to elite (not you). definitely not to add public transparency. the frontier labs are the new top-secret defense contractors.
indymike 17d ago
I find it even harder to trust elected leaders from any party. At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear, whereas political leaders values changes as do the polls their livelihood depends on changes.
- ceejayoz 17d ago
  > At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear… How could we possibly know this?
  - deleted 17d ago
    [deleted]
  - vasco 17d ago
    What do you think their value set is if not "gimme more money"? Seems pretty clear cut to me.
    - ben_w 17d ago
      "Number go up" is table stakes, it's how you keep track of the score well before you reach their level. However, that's like saying I'm motivated by food. I mean, yes, I like food, but this isn't a useful description to let you guess what move they'll make next, especially as they're opening opining about radical economic transformations that are likely to do to money what money did to real estate when the industrial revolution came. And that's still true even if you don't believe they're anywhere near actually achieving any of these things.
- jsrozner 17d ago
  No system of governance can deal with immense concentration of power. The US Constitution was about separation of powers. Democracy is about (in theory at least) giving each person a meaningful say in their own governance, which in turn implies not allowing any single person to become too powerful. Political leaders become a problem when they amass too much power. Corporations become a problem when they amass too much power. It doesn't matter what Sam and Dario's purported values are. They aspire to power and absolutely power always corrupts absolutely. Technologies which are infinitely powerful or whose power grows too quickly outrun any reasonable attempt at regulation. If you imagine that tomorrow everyone were given a tank, we might think, "alright, everyone has a tank so it's not too bad." But humans are squishy, and our houses are (relatively) squishy compared to tanks. Substantial collateral damage would result from everyone having a tank, and it seems likely that substantial collateral damage will result from everyone having a cyberterrorism-capable slop machine.
binlog 17d ago
Makes sense let’s trust Donald Trump instead
- greenmilk 17d ago
  a maliciously engineered dichotomy
cmrdporcupine 17d ago
The nature of the US state is such that the distinction between nationalized and not is almost meaningless. Like Lockheed-Martin or Boeing, etc. there's just interpenetration between the corporate boardroom and the state. They act in each other's mutual interests. The Chinese system is just more explicit and open about this. And as a non-American, I can't trust the US state anymore than I can trust its dominant corporate entities. So I fail to see the advantage to the world to it being nationalized. In fact under the current administration this would be an even worse outcome.
- woah 17d ago
  You're taking companies that work almost exclusively for the US government and represent a tiny portion of the US economy as representing all US companies?
  - pixl97 17d ago
    This is a weird contextual failure on your part. Not all companies have a concentration of power. The government has no mutual interest in those companies. Now, when you talk about things in the F100 the situation changes drastically. If you produce things like planes, weapons, and weaponization of software you are talking about something completely different in kind.
  - cmrdporcupine 17d ago
    Beyond the defense sector, the US state has always intervened publicly and privately to mediate and balance competing corporate "private" interests. It has also periodically aggressively helped subsidize, bankroll, and enforce the interests of some key sectors; notably the petroleum/energy sector. And finance. In those sectors the state and private sector are fully intertwined in a strategic way. I think "AI" is now joining that list. OpenAI and Anthropic will not be allowed to fall over or explode, and speculative investors I think are confident even with the dubious financial situation because they know this. Especially insofar as there's now a strategic alignment of the fossil fuel sector and the "AI" datacentre sector as they are now becoming massive users of natural gas. (Worse: Here in Canada that has taken on a very explicit role in that new datacentres seem to be pitched mainly in areas with remarkably traditionally expensive electricity and 100% reliance on natural gas [Alberta] and even coal [Saskatchewan] power generation -- instead of places like Quebec and B.C. that have copious hydroelectricity. On the surface it makes no sense until you realize it's more about finding customers for domestic natural gas than it is strategically about AI itself.)
imadierich 17d ago
[dead]
mukyu 16d ago
How do you think that would go? A large portion of OpenAI workers were ready to jump ship the moment the board coup'd Altman. How do you think they are going to react to Donald Trump being in charge? It is not likely that OpenAI would continue to function.

OpenAI and Anthropic should be nationalized. I find it difficult to trust Sam Altman or Dario Amodei.

manav 17d ago

and you trust the government?

klaff 17d ago
not this one
- redsocksfan45 17d ago
  [dead]

vb-8448 17d ago

Even better: force them to release weights.

bibimsz 17d ago
who even has the inventive to do that? certainly not the government.
autoexec 17d ago
Even better: force them to release every scrap of data they trained their AI on.
timmg 17d ago
My gut reaction is that this is not a good idea. But I could imagine a scenario where you are required to release weights for publicly-used models after N years. Kinda like how drugs have a limited patent. Not sure what N should be. But it would make for an interesting rule.
- nullbio 16d ago
  > But I could imagine a scenario where you are required to release weights for publicly-used models after N years. Kinda like how drugs have a limited patent That's not a bad idea actually.

deleted 17d ago

[deleted]

prettyblocks 17d ago

I guess that's one way to guarantee development slows down to a crawl, but in no way would it increase trust.

bibimsz 17d ago
why would that be the case? it's not true for top secret defense contractors today. and the frontier labs already operate in the dark, openness is a liability. nationalization to me simply means the government is their main customer and stakeholder, and shield them from liability, governance, and openness. not that the frontier labs become part of the government per se.
- pixl97 17d ago
  >eans the government is their main customer and stakeholder, and shield them from liability, governance, and openness I personally believe they already have this, why would the current government at least want to formalize this when it can have it with no public discussion.
- WarmWash 17d ago
  Well we can say whatever we want if we have our own definitions for everything, no?
  - deleted 17d ago
    [deleted]

bibimsz 17d ago

they will. to shield from oversight, liability and profitability concerns, and to ensure unimpeded rapid development, with the frontier only being available to elite (not you). definitely not to add public transparency. the frontier labs are the new top-secret defense contractors.

indymike 17d ago

I find it even harder to trust elected leaders from any party. At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear, whereas political leaders values changes as do the polls their livelihood depends on changes.

ceejayoz 17d ago
> At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear… How could we possibly know this?
- deleted 17d ago
  [deleted]
- vasco 17d ago
  What do you think their value set is if not "gimme more money"? Seems pretty clear cut to me.
  - ben_w 17d ago
    "Number go up" is table stakes, it's how you keep track of the score well before you reach their level. However, that's like saying I'm motivated by food. I mean, yes, I like food, but this isn't a useful description to let you guess what move they'll make next, especially as they're opening opining about radical economic transformations that are likely to do to money what money did to real estate when the industrial revolution came. And that's still true even if you don't believe they're anywhere near actually achieving any of these things.
jsrozner 17d ago
No system of governance can deal with immense concentration of power. The US Constitution was about separation of powers. Democracy is about (in theory at least) giving each person a meaningful say in their own governance, which in turn implies not allowing any single person to become too powerful. Political leaders become a problem when they amass too much power. Corporations become a problem when they amass too much power. It doesn't matter what Sam and Dario's purported values are. They aspire to power and absolutely power always corrupts absolutely. Technologies which are infinitely powerful or whose power grows too quickly outrun any reasonable attempt at regulation. If you imagine that tomorrow everyone were given a tank, we might think, "alright, everyone has a tank so it's not too bad." But humans are squishy, and our houses are (relatively) squishy compared to tanks. Substantial collateral damage would result from everyone having a tank, and it seems likely that substantial collateral damage will result from everyone having a cyberterrorism-capable slop machine.

binlog 17d ago

Makes sense let’s trust Donald Trump instead

greenmilk 17d ago
a maliciously engineered dichotomy

cmrdporcupine 17d ago

The nature of the US state is such that the distinction between nationalized and not is almost meaningless. Like Lockheed-Martin or Boeing, etc. there's just interpenetration between the corporate boardroom and the state. They act in each other's mutual interests. The Chinese system is just more explicit and open about this. And as a non-American, I can't trust the US state anymore than I can trust its dominant corporate entities. So I fail to see the advantage to the world to it being nationalized. In fact under the current administration this would be an even worse outcome.

woah 17d ago
You're taking companies that work almost exclusively for the US government and represent a tiny portion of the US economy as representing all US companies?
- pixl97 17d ago
  This is a weird contextual failure on your part. Not all companies have a concentration of power. The government has no mutual interest in those companies. Now, when you talk about things in the F100 the situation changes drastically. If you produce things like planes, weapons, and weaponization of software you are talking about something completely different in kind.
- cmrdporcupine 17d ago
  Beyond the defense sector, the US state has always intervened publicly and privately to mediate and balance competing corporate "private" interests. It has also periodically aggressively helped subsidize, bankroll, and enforce the interests of some key sectors; notably the petroleum/energy sector. And finance. In those sectors the state and private sector are fully intertwined in a strategic way. I think "AI" is now joining that list. OpenAI and Anthropic will not be allowed to fall over or explode, and speculative investors I think are confident even with the dubious financial situation because they know this. Especially insofar as there's now a strategic alignment of the fossil fuel sector and the "AI" datacentre sector as they are now becoming massive users of natural gas. (Worse: Here in Canada that has taken on a very explicit role in that new datacentres seem to be pitched mainly in areas with remarkably traditionally expensive electricity and 100% reliance on natural gas [Alberta] and even coal [Saskatchewan] power generation -- instead of places like Quebec and B.C. that have copious hydroelectricity. On the surface it makes no sense until you realize it's more about finding customers for domestic natural gas than it is strategically about AI itself.)

imadierich 17d ago

[dead]

mukyu 16d ago

How do you think that would go? A large portion of OpenAI workers were ready to jump ship the moment the board coup'd Altman. How do you think they are going to react to Donald Trump being in charge? It is not likely that OpenAI would continue to function.