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Comment by chatmasta

4 days ago

The company was founded basically out of the effective altruism movement.

What is the impact of effective altruism? I looked it up, but I don't understand how it differs from simple logical consideration, i.e. how it would be responsible for any of Anthropic's eccentricities.

  • It's not real. It's like naming your movement "The Good People". It sprouted from the "Rationalist" community, which is even more self-aggrandizing.

    Neither has any hope of doing any good for the world as they don't understand evolutionary pressures. They are set up to reward making members feel smart, not accomplishing anything.

    And if they ever gain any real power, they will be corrupted immediately.

    • I don't see any of that in Anthropic at all. They're not intelligence above all else, not by a long shot. They're scared of intelligence and obsessed with ensuring it can't be abused, even as they advance the frontier.

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  • It’s logical consideration with “logical” meaning Spock style logic, ie utilitarianism at all costs. Another prominent EA is SBF for example. It’s designed to sound innocuous and many of its cultish promoters may genuinely believe it’s innocuous, but it’s not.

    • Can you help me understand what costs? Utilitarianism alone would not necessarily be so obsessed with these safeguards -- Anthropic seems to have much more of an obsession with moral good than utilitarianism alone would suggest. I feel utilitarianism alone would likely be more obsessed with advancing the technology, making it generally available, and more generally compensating for attackers advancing at similar rates, than with obsessively trying to avoid being the way they get there. In other words, utilitarianism alone wouldn't explain such the obsessive sense of responsibility and fear of reprehensibility over how their tools are used.

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