This is a good post, but it applies unrealistic standards and therefore draws too strong conclusions.
>And at least OpenAI and Anthropic have been caught lying about their motivations:
Just face it: It is very normal for big companies to lie. That does make many of their press and public facing statements not trustworthy, but is not predictive of their general value system and therefore actions. Plus Anthropic, unlike most labs, did in fact support a version of SB 1047 at all. That has to count for something.
>There is a missing mood here. I don’t know what’s going on inside the heads of x-risk people such that they see new evidence on the potentially imminent demise of humanity and they find it “exciting”.
In a similar vein, humans do not act or feel rationally in light of their beliefs, and changing your behavior completely in response to a years off event is just not in the cards for the vast majority of folks. Therefore do not be surprised that there is a missing mood, just like it is not surprising that people who genuinely believe in the end of humanity due to climate change do not adjust their behavior accordingly. Having said that, I did sense a general increase and preponderance of anxiety when o3 was announced, perhaps that was a point where it started to feel real for many folks. Either way, I really want to stress that concluding much about the beliefs of folks based on these reactions is very tenuous, just like concluding that a researcher must not really care about AI safety because instead of working a bit more they watch some TV in the evening.
This is a good post, but it applies unrealistic standards and therefore draws too strong conclusions.
>And at least OpenAI and Anthropic have been caught lying about their motivations:
Just face it: It is very normal for big companies to lie. That does make many of their press and public facing statements not trustworthy, but is not predictive of their general value system and therefore actions. Plus Anthropic, unlike most labs, did in fact support a version of SB 1047 at all. That has to count for something.
>There is a missing mood here. I don’t know what’s going on inside the heads of x-risk people such that they see new evidence on the potentially imminent demise of humanity and they find it “exciting”.
In a similar vein, humans do not act or feel rationally in light of their beliefs, and changing your behavior completely in response to a years off event is just not in the cards for the vast majority of folks. Therefore do not be surprised that there is a missing mood, just like it is not surprising that people who genuinely believe in the end of humanity due to climate change do not adjust their behavior accordingly. Having said that, I did sense a general increase and preponderance of anxiety when o3 was announced, perhaps that was a point where it started to feel real for many folks.
Either way, I really want to stress that concluding much about the beliefs of folks based on these reactions is very tenuous, just like concluding that a researcher must not really care about AI safety because instead of working a bit more they watch some TV in the evening.