There's a difference between being able to be successfully sued (civil liability, petitioned by a private entity) and charged (criminal liability, or petitioned by a government entity).
The thresholds for suing and charging differ greatly depending on the circumstances.
Another set of hypothetical examples that make things muddier:
- If I drive a fishing boat into a pier, I am liable, not the manufacturer of the boat
- If I drive a car over someone lying in the road, I am liable, not the manufacturer of the car
- If my life is in danger and I shoot a gun and kill my attacker, neither I nor the manufacturer are liable so long as I obeyed the relevant self defense laws and gun possession of whatever jurisdiction I am in
- If I fire a gun into a crowd indiscriminately, I am liable and several jurisdictions have used that to also hold gun manufacturer liable as well
That last example has been less successful as of late, but there are other variations too.
Some offer zero data retention policies, but there can be weasel words. For example, on the individual pro plan, you can turn off the setting that lets them train models on your data, but they still have a section in their terms that allows them to evaluate your anonymized data for statistical and "research" purposes. You have to actually get a signed contract along with an enterprise plan that spells out exactly what they're going to use, and what settings enable what retention.
Seems naive to think that those providers - who have a financial interest in selling the data - would not also try to weasel out of the precise definition of ‘zero’ retention.
I've observed this dichotomy myself. Some people will make things because they enjoy the experience of making. Others make things because they enjoy achieving an outcome- happy client, open source community, a new useful tool for themselves, whatever the case may be.
There's also room in the middle, and people who are nowhere on the scale, that just like getting paid.
This would be the more charitable take than your TL;DR
There's plenty of links in Dublin comments for other instances of the tech being developed at least partially, and at least one for in-home fire suppression. Given that last one, I'm thinking it operates on the basis of resonance rather than amplitude to disrupt combustion.
The company my brother works for (fairly small) is involved in the construction and maintenance of the electrical side of the data grid. Apparently they need to hire at least 20 people a month for the foreseeable future to keep up with demand, as they're already booked out with projects into 2030 or something like that.
Overall, it's not exactly a ton of jobs for how much money is going into them, but it isn't nothing.
> Overall, it's not exactly a ton of jobs for how much money is going into them, but it isn't nothing.
I’m not disputing that data center buildouts will have some localized job creation, but the net effect of all those data centers will be overwhelmingly negative on employment if everything the AI companies are saying is true
> Calling data centers “job creating infrastructure” seems like a bit of an oxymoron
That's your original point, which is wrong since, as you admitted, data center boom is clearly creating jobs.
If you meant those jobs are offset by the negative effect of AI in general if we believe AI companies, a study by Anthropic was actively discussed here a few days ago. TLDR: they don't believe there will be mass unemployment because of AI
“Job-creating infrastructure” would be infrastructure that creates jobs. A chamber of commerce, small business lenders, startup accelerators etc. Building infrastructure of any kind has a temporary positive effect on employment. The builder jobs have nothing to do with the purpose of the infrastructure.
I’m sure Anthropic is saying that now, but there’s no escaping the fact that they and OpenAI repeatedly harped on how it would eliminate mass amounts of jobs for years. Or the mass layoffs blamed on AI that we have already seen.
> “Job-creating infrastructure” would be infrastructure that creates jobs. A chamber of commerce, small business lenders, startup accelerators etc.
Such a bizarre logic. Since when a chamber of commerce or startup accelerators are infrastructure?
Railways or roads are job creating infrastructure, did you see road building or maintenance jobs disappear? Same with data centers, themselves and the infrastructure to support them such as energy.
> I’m sure Anthropic is saying that now, but there’s no escaping the fact that they and OpenAI repeatedly harped on how it would eliminate mass amounts of jobs for years
This is what you said earlier: "but the net effect of all those data centers will be overwhelmingly negative on employment if everything the AI companies are saying is true"
Anthropic is evidently not saying that. Now you're saying maybe they are not but they imply to, or hope for that. Weasel words, don't you think?
I too believe that AI will cause massive uncertainty in society. However anyone who pretends to know with any certainty how our AI shaped future will be is just that, pretentious.
You must be misinterpreting. You believe that organizations that promote small business growth don’t count as underlying systems for job creation? Really?
Per Wikipedia:
> Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function.
Let me separate “job creating infrastructure” and “infrastructure that creates jobs” as distinct ideas. Infrastructure is not just physical. Railroads and highways are transportation infrastructure. Data centers are infrastructure, but their primary purpose is not job creation. Any jobs created are tangential to the purpose of supplying networked computer resources. Labor is a cost center for a data center, and their owners aren’t aiming to kill their profit margins.
I wasn’t aware of Anthropic’s recent statements on the matter. And frankly I don’t know why I’d believe that they are being honest when it seems pretty obvious that it’s a play to rehab their reputation. For years they said it would make a majority of jobs obsolete with the heavy implication that their B2B value prop is reducing labor costs.
No, there's no evidence either way. Both are equally possible.
The odds of X forcefully handing a handle over from a user to Meta for an AI product seem lower to me than them being paid for it, but that's not based on anything either.
Using "lost" in a headline is therefore misleading, as it implies a lack of consent where there is no actual knowledge that is the case.
I don't think so, because if it was involuntary from Muse the band, surely they would post something about it. They would get a ton of publicity and goodwill for shit talking Meta, and the fact that they aren't makes it much more likely that they were paid for it.
You're right, I was thinking in my head "equally possible based on the information presented" but didn't write it out. Were I a betting man, I'd put money on them being paid to transfer the name rather than X screwing over a well known band for the benefit of their own competition, Meta.
Having witnessed so many people treat LLMs as a something divine, I can only assume the reasonable people at openai and anthropic were all pushed out long ago, and the majority that remain believe the crazy hype despite Tesla-self-driving-level predictions from these companies that don't come true.
I'm not worried about what they think. I'm worried that too much infrastructure- water, power, defense systems, etc- remain running on tech from an outdated era of understanding security.
> they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.
This genuinely makes no sense. Them getting there first in no way precludes bad actors from also getting there. It might as well be another marketing stunt.
> I can only assume the reasonable people at openai and anthropic were all pushed out long ago
Typical uninformed take on the side of "doomers are crazy".
Both CEO's of OpenAI, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, and many in their leadership, believe AGI has a very real probability of causing humanity's extinction. Both companies were founded upon this belief, it is at the core of the company. Only later were mercenaries hired chasing $1m compensation packages.
If you're a doomer, wouldn't the "let's try to get there so fast" actions of the companies suggest that, in fact, there are no reasonable people in positions of influence there?
By your own description neither Altman or Amodei are reasonable if their thought process goes: "this is an existential risk, give me hundreds of millions of dollars so I can accelerate it."
GP defined reasonable people as not believing in existential risk from AGI. I think the leadership and alignment teams are way more informed and reasonable than some of the very poorly thought through takes like GP just making things up about the labs. There’s just no evidence of it whereas lab leadership are operating under a mostly informed worldview.
Yes, I don’t think lab leadership are totally reasonable as they were concerned about the risks and yet lack of reason caused them to directly contribute to the problem we’re facing. They’re still not being reasonable when they throw their hands up at the arms race and hope the utopia come, when that’s not our trajectory at all and more lab employees are realizing it
If they truly, truly believed that, would they be speeding towards building it? If yes, that would make them truly insane, right? Not as in a quaint "off their rocker" but more "non compos mentis".
Both companies have deluded themselves into thinking the arms race is going to happen anyway and they need to rush to it first, as if somehow that helps. They have publicly stated as such repeatedly. They think the ~10-50% chance of extinction sucks, but that it's going to happen anyway and they believe they can steer it towards something good the best and unlock all the potential positives like infinite life.
I'm not saying they are crazy, I'm saying their predictions have a record of not being accurate, and thus give them no weight compared to others'.
In any case, if Altman really does believe it is an existential threat, he must be a misanthrope as he now opposes heavy handed government regulation, unlike in 2015 when he was the only game in town. It's almost like he doesn't actually believe it and just wanted regulator capture.
Before OpenAI was ever even founded, way before any regulatory capture plausible claims:
"Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) [1] is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity. There are other threats that I think are more certain to happen (for example, an engineered virus with a long incubation period and a high mortality rate) but are unlikely to destroy every human in the universe in the way that SMI could." -Sam Altman
Both companies have deluded themselves into thinking the arms race is going to happen anyway and they need to rush to it first, as if somehow that helps.
How is it not addressed? The company never contained only "reasonable people" that believe AGI is not an existential risk to humanity. At both inceptions were people who believed in AGI x-risk, even the founders. Only after time, did there become more "reasonable people" who were mercenaries and only believed it to be a typical tech job. Today, there are more "reasonable people" than ever there. They haven't been pushed out. We're just witnessing some prescient mercenaries smart enough to Eureka the grave implications of what is actually happening.
The thresholds for suing and charging differ greatly depending on the circumstances.
Another set of hypothetical examples that make things muddier:
- If I drive a fishing boat into a pier, I am liable, not the manufacturer of the boat
- If I drive a car over someone lying in the road, I am liable, not the manufacturer of the car
- If my life is in danger and I shoot a gun and kill my attacker, neither I nor the manufacturer are liable so long as I obeyed the relevant self defense laws and gun possession of whatever jurisdiction I am in
- If I fire a gun into a crowd indiscriminately, I am liable and several jurisdictions have used that to also hold gun manufacturer liable as well
That last example has been less successful as of late, but there are other variations too.
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