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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 politic

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.
- luqtas 17d ago
  > 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. this is "direct democracy" and it's not even close to exist in USA... even with that a society can allow powerful people to exist if they don't create any law forbidding that
  - jsrozner 17d ago
    Democracy includes a broader array of governmental organization than just pure direct democracy. If you do believe that individuals should have some ability dictate the terms of their own social organization, then you believe in some amount of democratic principles. Economic power eventually manifests in the political realm. The wealthy effectively get more votes, which means that society moves away from being democratic. Thus substantial wealth inequality is incompatible with democracy in the long run. We have been witnessing that corruption for a while now.
    - luqtas 17d ago
      how the wealthy would get more votes in a direct democratic system? they are literally the minority, thus fewer votes
- throwaway13337 17d ago
  Nearly everyone in the US has a giant car that is basically a tank. They are dangerous. But it’s managed. Centralized power never works. We have the worst times in history to look at. Nationalization just centralizes to a different set of people. It’s personal ownership or oppression. We all need open weight R2D2s.
  - pixl97 17d ago
    [dead]
  - jsrozner 17d ago
    Cars are decidedly less dangerous than tanks, which are less dangerous than nuclear weapons. I am certain that giving a nuclear weapon to every person in the world would not go well.
swatcoder 17d ago
> At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear What value set do you perceive that to be, and why would you take your perception of it to be any more sound than it would be with a politician? It's not like someone can operate companies of that scale, especially startups, through earnestness and openness. Like national politics, their job is fundamentally about perception management and power brokering across dynamic windows of opportunity. Nothing they say or do can be taken at face value, and you can't reduce their incentives to either company or personal profit in any particular form over any particular time scale.
- pixl97 17d ago
  >What value set do you perceive that to be A meat based paperclip maximizer.
- jonas21 17d ago
  I feel like many of Anthropic's issues are due to Dario being too earnest and open. It seems both refreshing (that a CEO has thought deeply about and is willing to talk publicly about the dangers of their product) and depressing (that so many people cynically think this is some sort of marketing ploy).
  - freejazz 17d ago
    Yeah, the guy running a trillion dollar scam is totally the exception to CEO-ism
    - ben_w 17d ago
      What's the old quote from WW2? I couldn't help but notice how each successive headline reporting our glorious victories seemed to draw closer to Tokyo. Something like that. Well. I can't help but notice how each successive headline reporting how this scam/stochastic parrot/"scare quotes intelligence" seems to be solving more and more things that were but a few years ago widely regarded as being indicators of high intelligence.
infogulch 17d ago
Yes it's clear that Sam and Dario seem to be aligned with a value set that prioritizes concentrating trans-national government-mandated centralized control of AI and crowning themselves high priests of this unholy abomination. "At least it's clear that they're aiming to bring hell on earth" -- hard disagree, I think we can aim significantly higher.
goatlover 17d ago
At least politicians are somewhat beholden to their constituents. What keeps Sam and Dario in line other than profit?
forgetfully05g1 17d ago
I find it even, even harder to trust your opinion in this context with a business that has “AI powered” at the top of the landing page.
autoexec 17d ago
> I find it even harder to trust elected leaders from any party. You can vote out an elected leader, but not Sam and Dario. It's very weird that you're so willing to give up any kind of power and want to be ruled by unelected billionaires who only want to take advantage of you at every opportunity.
- ben_w 17d ago
  Hi, I'm not a citizen of the USA. I can't vote out your president, and we've already got a huge trust problem with the one y'all went for.
  - autoexec 17d ago
    Yeah, the entire rest of the world has pretty much been stuck being ruled by unelected billionaires who only want to take advantage of them at every opportunity. It's a problem. It's starting to change though. The EU is starting to walk away from their abusive relationship with Microsoft and Amazon. China has a lot of their own stuff (mostly to better control their people though). As an American, I'm still hoping it's not too late to fix things, but it's got to be hard for those outside the US to be so dependent on it, especially when we're looking like a sinking ship and our current administration is still running around drilling holes in the hull. You can always become a US citizen to get a voice, but I wouldn't recommend it now or you'll be thrown in prison as soon as you show up to your scheduled immigration hearing. The better option is to keep trying to reduce your dependence on US companies and consider the worst aspects of our current situation (in both corporate policy and government) as a cautionary tale so you can try to avoid them in your own country.
MattGrommes 17d ago
Admittedly I haven't thought this through incredibly deeply but what if "nationalize" just means the US government owns half of the company? Then we get profits as recompense for building the company on our shared culture but there's still a profit motive for employees and a check on the direction of the company in the same way VCs have. But without necessarily turning the company into some red-tape bound bureaucracy.
- ceejayoz 17d ago
  Trump's been doing that. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-policy-experts-think-about-the-u-s-governments-stake-in-intel https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-poli... > Then, in August, Trump called for Intel's beleaguered CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign, alleging ties to China. Days later, after Tan met with Trump, the president called him a "success," before announcing that the federal government had bought a stake in the company. Somehow, this isn't derided by the right as socialism.
freejazz 17d ago
> At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear I find this ironic as it's regularly pointed out here that they operate in the exact opposite way.
sillyfluke 17d ago
I shouldn't be surprised, but it's still wild to me that people would trust robber barons rather than their elected officials to run their country. And this continues until you end up electing robber barrons as your elected officials, which is where we are at now. The idea that anything of lasting good can come out such a preference doesn't seem conceivable. And if the educated think like this I guess we're passed blaming the poor and ignorant.
troyvit 17d ago
How about internationalized then? Give the UN something to do?

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.

luqtas 17d ago
> 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. this is "direct democracy" and it's not even close to exist in USA... even with that a society can allow powerful people to exist if they don't create any law forbidding that
- jsrozner 17d ago
  Democracy includes a broader array of governmental organization than just pure direct democracy. If you do believe that individuals should have some ability dictate the terms of their own social organization, then you believe in some amount of democratic principles. Economic power eventually manifests in the political realm. The wealthy effectively get more votes, which means that society moves away from being democratic. Thus substantial wealth inequality is incompatible with democracy in the long run. We have been witnessing that corruption for a while now.
  - luqtas 17d ago
    how the wealthy would get more votes in a direct democratic system? they are literally the minority, thus fewer votes
throwaway13337 17d ago
Nearly everyone in the US has a giant car that is basically a tank. They are dangerous. But it’s managed. Centralized power never works. We have the worst times in history to look at. Nationalization just centralizes to a different set of people. It’s personal ownership or oppression. We all need open weight R2D2s.
- pixl97 17d ago
  [dead]
- jsrozner 17d ago
  Cars are decidedly less dangerous than tanks, which are less dangerous than nuclear weapons. I am certain that giving a nuclear weapon to every person in the world would not go well.

swatcoder 17d ago

> At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear What value set do you perceive that to be, and why would you take your perception of it to be any more sound than it would be with a politician? It's not like someone can operate companies of that scale, especially startups, through earnestness and openness. Like national politics, their job is fundamentally about perception management and power brokering across dynamic windows of opportunity. Nothing they say or do can be taken at face value, and you can't reduce their incentives to either company or personal profit in any particular form over any particular time scale.

pixl97 17d ago
>What value set do you perceive that to be A meat based paperclip maximizer.
jonas21 17d ago
I feel like many of Anthropic's issues are due to Dario being too earnest and open. It seems both refreshing (that a CEO has thought deeply about and is willing to talk publicly about the dangers of their product) and depressing (that so many people cynically think this is some sort of marketing ploy).
- freejazz 17d ago
  Yeah, the guy running a trillion dollar scam is totally the exception to CEO-ism
  - ben_w 17d ago
    What's the old quote from WW2? I couldn't help but notice how each successive headline reporting our glorious victories seemed to draw closer to Tokyo. Something like that. Well. I can't help but notice how each successive headline reporting how this scam/stochastic parrot/"scare quotes intelligence" seems to be solving more and more things that were but a few years ago widely regarded as being indicators of high intelligence.

infogulch 17d ago

Yes it's clear that Sam and Dario seem to be aligned with a value set that prioritizes concentrating trans-national government-mandated centralized control of AI and crowning themselves high priests of this unholy abomination. "At least it's clear that they're aiming to bring hell on earth" -- hard disagree, I think we can aim significantly higher.

goatlover 17d ago

At least politicians are somewhat beholden to their constituents. What keeps Sam and Dario in line other than profit?

forgetfully05g1 17d ago

I find it even, even harder to trust your opinion in this context with a business that has “AI powered” at the top of the landing page.

autoexec 17d ago

> I find it even harder to trust elected leaders from any party. You can vote out an elected leader, but not Sam and Dario. It's very weird that you're so willing to give up any kind of power and want to be ruled by unelected billionaires who only want to take advantage of you at every opportunity.

ben_w 17d ago
Hi, I'm not a citizen of the USA. I can't vote out your president, and we've already got a huge trust problem with the one y'all went for.
- autoexec 17d ago
  Yeah, the entire rest of the world has pretty much been stuck being ruled by unelected billionaires who only want to take advantage of them at every opportunity. It's a problem. It's starting to change though. The EU is starting to walk away from their abusive relationship with Microsoft and Amazon. China has a lot of their own stuff (mostly to better control their people though). As an American, I'm still hoping it's not too late to fix things, but it's got to be hard for those outside the US to be so dependent on it, especially when we're looking like a sinking ship and our current administration is still running around drilling holes in the hull. You can always become a US citizen to get a voice, but I wouldn't recommend it now or you'll be thrown in prison as soon as you show up to your scheduled immigration hearing. The better option is to keep trying to reduce your dependence on US companies and consider the worst aspects of our current situation (in both corporate policy and government) as a cautionary tale so you can try to avoid them in your own country.

MattGrommes 17d ago

Admittedly I haven't thought this through incredibly deeply but what if "nationalize" just means the US government owns half of the company? Then we get profits as recompense for building the company on our shared culture but there's still a profit motive for employees and a check on the direction of the company in the same way VCs have. But without necessarily turning the company into some red-tape bound bureaucracy.

ceejayoz 17d ago
Trump's been doing that. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-policy-experts-think-about-the-u-s-governments-stake-in-intel https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-poli... > Then, in August, Trump called for Intel's beleaguered CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign, alleging ties to China. Days later, after Tan met with Trump, the president called him a "success," before announcing that the federal government had bought a stake in the company. Somehow, this isn't derided by the right as socialism.

freejazz 17d ago

> At least Sam and Dario are aligned with a value set that is understood and clear I find this ironic as it's regularly pointed out here that they operate in the exact opposite way.

sillyfluke 17d ago

I shouldn't be surprised, but it's still wild to me that people would trust robber barons rather than their elected officials to run their country. And this continues until you end up electing robber barrons as your elected officials, which is where we are at now. The idea that anything of lasting good can come out such a preference doesn't seem conceivable. And if the educated think like this I guess we're passed blaming the poor and ignorant.

troyvit 17d ago

How about internationalized then? Give the UN something to do?