Comment by jgalt212
11 hours ago
It's gotten to the point where I expect anyone who makes rose-colored glasses claims about AI to be on the take. Trillions of dollars are stake here. What's a few million here and there to help force the outcome you need?
There is funding for pro-AI as well, but the overwhelming majority of it is being funnelled into the doomer movement. Anthropic in particular is funding the opposite of pro-AI narratives and to promote the idea that AI is going to kill everyone unless it's heavily regulated. They've been trying for regulatory capture since the very beginning.
The Future of Life has funded 30 projects to develop AI safety content since launching a digital media accelerator last year. The application form on the nonprofit's website says it plans to spend $100,000 a month.
Anthropic's perspective is that if the open-weight models and open-source ecosystem is allowed to flourish, they'll lose trillions of dollars. They're desperate to do anything they can to prevent it from happening.
I remember at one of the Black Lives Matter protests seeing someone with a sign like “Tax Cuts for Paid Protesters!”
Let me know if you ever meet someone whose source of wealth was “HackerNews AI Astroturfer”.