It's kind of complicated comparing different societies where many people have different experiences and choices. I've noticed a bit of a change though over the forty years or so of going to Europe and the US. Forty years ago the part of Italy we went to was quite poor - still using donkeys in agriculture and the like and the US was way ahead. Now the Italians all have cars, internet and the like and the US has kind of gone to extremes with millionaires with five huge vehicles driving past homeless living on the street which is kind of odd as a lifestyle I guess. It's not obvious you'll be happier going from one to the other.
Most of the flagged comment seem to be of the form Russia is justified killing lots of people because . Is that neutral? That sort of thing indeed doesn't seem very popular on HN.
Also I'm not sure if the YC one, Stoke Space may not have a more practical approach https://youtu.be/VzqhZLgpiv0?t=95 - just landing like a lunar lander
I've often heard skeptics say AI enthusiasts think they are building a god but I've never seen any evidence. Are there any quotes implying Anthropic think they are building a god?
> I've often heard skeptics say AI enthusiasts think they are building a god but I've never seen any evidence. Are there any quotes implying Anthropic think they are building a god?
Not Anthropic specifically, but there's this thing that I recently read:
> A.I. company leaders often talk about how their work might lead to human extinction soon. This is astonishing. Even if you wanted to destroy humanity, you wouldn’t say so. If, however, you wanted to save the human species, wouldn’t you stop developing this technology?
> There is an explanation for why some tech leaders, so seemingly worried about an extinction-level event, are plunging ahead with A.I. development: Mankind’s survival, while important to many of them, is less critical than building something they believe to be not only conscious but godlike. A substantial portion of the A.I. community, in celebrating this belief, is quick to support any action or statement that reinforces the idea that the technology is like a deity. They might call for regulation, but only in specific ways — perhaps by deploying more A.I. to control A.I. — that adore the technology’s powers. It is that adoration that is nonnegotiable.
It's by the guy who apparently invented VR and was apparently mentored by Marvin Minsky. So he likely has the kind of access that gives his opinions credibility.
> Thanks, although that still sounds a bit like a skeptical viewpoint.
I think it's unlikely that an AI enthusiasts would literally claim "they are building a god," but such an attitude (or something very similar) is implied by their statements and attitudes, e.g.
1. Talk/hope of building something that so exceeds human capability, it's beyond human comprehension and control.
2. Taking existential risks for humanity (by their own statements) to try to get there, against all reason.
I guess. Anthropic's about page is more "We aim to build frontier AI systems that are reliable, interpretable, and steerable".
I guess they think AI will become smarter than people but I'm not sure that's a god. I've always thought of gods as the dictionary "a supreme being, creator, or a supernatural entity" rather than a souped up chess computer.
> I guess. Anthropic's about page is more "We aim to build frontier AI systems that are reliable, interpretable, and steerable".
That's a marketing page. It sounds like their view is more like "we're building a god, but only we can be trusted to make a good god instead of a devil."
> These schools of thought fused for Dr. Amodei into an unyielding conviction that A.I. could be so dangerous that only he and like-minded technologists could be entrusted with building it. That catalyzed his stated efforts to create A.I. before people without concerns about the safety of humanity did, and spurred a desire to control the technology, his friends and colleagues said.
> I guess they think AI will become smarter than people but I'm not sure that's a god. I've always thought of gods as the dictionary "a supreme being, creator, or a supernatural entity" rather than a souped up chess computer.
We'll seeing God as "a supreme being, creator" is only a particular conception of god. IIRC, polytheists often gods as just powerful supernatural entities that are owed deference (because otherwise they might cause you trouble).
> or a supernatural entity" rather than a souped up chess computer
Obviously a AI machine god would fail a "being supernatural" test, but I'm sure the thinking goes that a super-intelligent AI would be so powerful, it's natural-ness wouldn't matter
All they did was build a really good software engineering tool, and that’s gonna be when the bubble pops, when you realize you really can’t commit it to handling any real workflows, and the slop that people are creating, vibe coding, that have never touched code in their lives.
Altman and Dario were not following others, because they were a first movers.
Also, looking at Ant finances, it looks like they would do better during IPO without those 500B commitments which may or may not be useful or disastrous in the future.
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