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The author of this blog is an AI skeptic (see the backlog of posts). That's fine, but it's hard to square with this particular post. To take Coxon's argument se

The author of this blog is an AI skeptic (see the backlog of posts). That's fine, but it's hard to square with this particular post. To take Coxon's argument seriously, you have to believe frontier models are hypercapable, and not just hype objects. That's what Coxon believes and why he left.

dsign 5d ago
> To take Coxon's argument seriously, you have to believe frontier models are hypercapable, and not just hype objects. It's harder and harder to make the point that frontier objects are just hype objects though. And, even if they stay where they are today, that's more than enough to make them incredibly...destabilizing, to say the least. It's not only it, but frontier models act like knowledge mixers and percolators. Some people (not necessarily everybody), are adept at the discipline of learning, building things and executing projects, and that's all you need today with LLMs filling many of the gaps such person can have. Now, most of those people are actually engineers. So I'm going to go with the article and say that we must stop selling our souls for money.
moolcool 5d ago
All OP has to believe is that Coxon himself believes the hype.
- tptacek 5d ago
  I guess if the entire argument is that people should make moral choices in their employment, sure, but that's not a very interesting piece; people generally already believe that. But I don't think that's their argument. I think their argument is that people should make moral choices to avoid employment with AI firms, and if you're using Coxon for that argument, you can't coherently argue that models are hype objects simultaneously. There is no greater claim you can make about AI hypercapability than that it will eradicate humanity. (I don't buy any of those claims, for what it's worth.)
  - moolcool 5d ago
    The heads of the firms themselves believe it too. Maybe it’s reasonable to quit your job if your boss thinks he’s building a doomsday machine (regardless of how ridiculous you or anyone else find that idea)
    - tptacek 5d ago
      Sure, I guess, but you see how the argument is starting to get tortured.

dsign 5d ago

> To take Coxon's argument seriously, you have to believe frontier models are hypercapable, and not just hype objects. It's harder and harder to make the point that frontier objects are just hype objects though. And, even if they stay where they are today, that's more than enough to make them incredibly...destabilizing, to say the least. It's not only it, but frontier models act like knowledge mixers and percolators. Some people (not necessarily everybody), are adept at the discipline of learning, building things and executing projects, and that's all you need today with LLMs filling many of the gaps such person can have. Now, most of those people are actually engineers. So I'm going to go with the article and say that we must stop selling our souls for money.

moolcool 5d ago

All OP has to believe is that Coxon himself believes the hype.

tptacek 5d ago
I guess if the entire argument is that people should make moral choices in their employment, sure, but that's not a very interesting piece; people generally already believe that. But I don't think that's their argument. I think their argument is that people should make moral choices to avoid employment with AI firms, and if you're using Coxon for that argument, you can't coherently argue that models are hype objects simultaneously. There is no greater claim you can make about AI hypercapability than that it will eradicate humanity. (I don't buy any of those claims, for what it's worth.)
- moolcool 5d ago
  The heads of the firms themselves believe it too. Maybe it’s reasonable to quit your job if your boss thinks he’s building a doomsday machine (regardless of how ridiculous you or anyone else find that idea)
  - tptacek 5d ago
    Sure, I guess, but you see how the argument is starting to get tortured.