Altman, Amodei, and Hassabis have borrowed power that may be conditioned on their AI progress. Musk’s situation is more complex. He has more notional ownership, which means he has more short-run control, but on some timeframes he’s still dependent on access to capital that depends on growth expectations, though these are much less specific to AI. Xi’s power is probably least entangled with this specific thing; Thiel’s suggested that the Chinese interest in AI is mostly about internal mass surveillance, though accountability and transparency to the executive more generally seems to me like a better fit for Xi’s problems: https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/doge-in-context/
Their “belief” in ASI is cynical opportunism or otherwise deeply confused.
Overpromising and then pivoting is normal for startupworld. If the story is that what you’re working on is world-destroying-level dangerous, and that’s picked up in the vibe, investors just hear that you’re doing something powerful and transgressive, kind of like Uber. And no one’s really worried that Uber will kill everyone. Musk’s concerns about AI are notoriously confused: https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/openai-makes-humanity-less-safe/
That also explains why “cut a deal with Sam Altman” is not an appealing option to Musk; he already did that!
Some complicating factors that might help explain:
Owned vs borrowed power https://medium.com/@samo.burja/borrowed-versus-owned-power-a8334fbad1cd
Altman, Amodei, and Hassabis have borrowed power that may be conditioned on their AI progress. Musk’s situation is more complex. He has more notional ownership, which means he has more short-run control, but on some timeframes he’s still dependent on access to capital that depends on growth expectations, though these are much less specific to AI. Xi’s power is probably least entangled with this specific thing; Thiel’s suggested that the Chinese interest in AI is mostly about internal mass surveillance, though accountability and transparency to the executive more generally seems to me like a better fit for Xi’s problems: https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/doge-in-context/
These people are crazy.
Many of these people been strongly selected and conditioned for maniacal dedication to progress, so asking them to notice that that’s not in their interest is a difficult: https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/approval-extraction-advertised-as-production/
Their “belief” in ASI is cynical opportunism or otherwise deeply confused.
Overpromising and then pivoting is normal for startupworld. If the story is that what you’re working on is world-destroying-level dangerous, and that’s picked up in the vibe, investors just hear that you’re doing something powerful and transgressive, kind of like Uber. And no one’s really worried that Uber will kill everyone. Musk’s concerns about AI are notoriously confused: https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/openai-makes-humanity-less-safe/
That also explains why “cut a deal with Sam Altman” is not an appealing option to Musk; he already did that!