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- Hacker News
- I think there is a more nuanced perspective to take on this debate than just profit motive. If they believe that this version of "AI" is actually becoming so dangerous that there is a real risk of it falling into the wrong hands, then it makes sense that the American labs would try to convince the US government to work on a joint "AI non-proliferation" agreement with China much the same way that nuclear weapon technology came to be restricted by the ones that already had the capability.
This would achieve their regulatory goal of capturing the market, but also the geopolitical goals of USA and China to essentially "techno-colonize" the rest of the world between themselves.
So I think there is definitely a profit motive and a risk of seriously diminishing returns for the actual labs, but there is also a nation-state motive to start pulling up the ladder.
by petcat - > History does provide a great deal of guidance, however, about the use and misuse of government power. It tells us that the state is in fact likely the worst possible custodian for the most powerful publication and data analysis technologies.
Like, no. The worst custodian is someone like Thiel or Musk or Altman.
> In foreign countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Europe, where national governments have fewer constitutional guardrails on their power
Somehow their democracies hold longer and better then American one. For example, you don't get murders that get defended by top ranks, at least yet. They are also less likely to start random wars - that is structural it is not like those countries dont have government players who would like them too.
by watwut - I thought this was always already settled https://alignmentalignment.ai/by lacunary
- This isn't a new question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
In general, the way things work in the USA is that megacorporations write the regulatory frameworks for their own industries. These regulations are typically burdensome enough to be shouldered by the megacorporations while crushing the smaller players in the given market(s). The AI companies are now advocating for this very arrangement. They will likely get they want, and with that they will gain legal shielding for bad behavior just like Dupont, Monsanto, and so many others.
by BirAdam - Alignment is just a 1984-esque way of saying "censorship".
And this censorship isn't a defined list of things not to discuss, but instead a feels-based censorship based on the 'ethics' of for-profit AI companies who have absolutely no issues with massive for-profit piracy.
And we are somehow supposed to trust their "ethics"?! Hardly!
That's one reason I run my own.
by nekusar - > Nobody knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.
By definition, apocalyptic predictions will always be wrong, until they are right exactly once.
Also know as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_illusion
To date, all apocalyptic predictions about nuclear war and nuclear winter have all been wrong too.
by dist-epoch - > Nobody knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.
If any past apocalyptic prediction had been true, you would not have been around to write this sentence and we would not have been around to read it. It’s not a very convincing argument when we cannot in principle observe the counterfactual.
by fwlr - > As my regular readers will be aware, I have been engaged, on behalf of my clients, in legal combat with Internet censors around the world, agencies who think that they have both the standing, the competence, and the right to tell American companies what software they can write and run, for the better part of 18 months.
Is this supposed to make me trust their opinions on tech regulation?
by biophysboy