← Back to context

Comment by catoc

6 hours ago

It does if the person making the statement has a track record, proven expertise on the topic - and in this case… it actually may mean something to other people

Yes, as we all know that unsourced unsubstantiated statements are the best way to verify claims regarding engineering practices. Especially when said person has a financial stake in the outcomes of said claims.

No conflict of interest here at all!

  • I have zero financial stake in Anthropic and more broadly my career is more threatened by LLM-assisted vulnerability research (something I do not personally do serious work on) than it is aided by it, but I understand that the first principal component of casual skepticism on HN is "must be a conflict of interest".

    •   > but I understand that the first principal component of casual skepticism on HN is "must be a conflict of interest".
      
      

      I think the first principle should be "don't trust random person on the internet"

      (But if you think Tom is random, look at his profile. First link, not second)

  • A security researcher claiming that they’re not skeptical about LLMs being able to do part of their job - where is the financial stake in that?