Comment by ToValueFunfetti
17 hours ago
The companies are begging to be regulated for this reason and have been doing so for years. HN's response is generally that this is performative for marketing or seeking regulatory capture or haha anthropic you get what you ask for. Maybe the cynics are right, but there's really nothing inconsistent about the naive view here, once you factor in race dynamics and obligations to investors.
Tobacco company says "we are launching a new product that will cause cancer and kill people. It's highly addictive so we expect widespread uptake. We think it is crucial that regulation be introduced for mandatory regular cancer tests so that people can be streamlined into treatment faster when they get sick"
I think Anthropic employees think that their product is more like opiates -- highly dangerous, but with a large potential benefit when applied correctly.
I don't know what OpenAI employees were thinking, but thankfully it looks like they're thinking again.
> The companies are begging to be regulated for this reason and have been doing so for years
Regulations are rules that you force on a market, but the actors in the market should not be assumed to be all operating against the regulations before they come into play. Said in other words, these companies don't need to wait for regulation to not destroy the world, if that's truly what they think will happen.
> inb4 someone else will do it
> these companies don't need to wait for regulation to not destroy the world, if that's truly what they think will happen.
They believe that if they don't destroy the world someone else will so better be them
Exactly this. “I want to win the market. I would prefer that it be a regulated market, but if not, so be it. I’m still playing to win.”
"We're the good guys because we'll destroy the world a little less."
> The companies are begging to be regulated for this reason and have been doing so for years
They can stop doing a thing they claim should be regulated. You dont need to be regulated and forced to do the thing you consider right, especially when you are the primary one collecting the money to do the bad thing.
They could train ai for pro-social purposes, they dont here. They could make it useful for worker, they intentionally try to harm workers. And then pretend "it just happened".
what a naive comment. these companies have world class alignment researchers. a math Fields medalist is also joining OpenAI as one [1].
> They can stop doing a thing they claim should be regulated.
That's not how the world works. there are tradeoffs and we need to learn how to navigate it. not just dismiss it straight up.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Tsimerman