The worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit.
What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides.
I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still.
But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
When he goes on TV and claims the models may be conscious or may automate 90% of SWE in 6 months it is designed to pump the stock price. Its ironic they hold a fictitious scenario over candidates heads like “would you still keep working here if our revenue were $0 and we cant make payroll” (the realistic scenario where the stock price literally drops to $0)
What does this mean? Was life better in soviet Russia under Communism, or as a serf in feudal England?
hoarding wealth
The claim was that they were motivated by greed because they weren't doing things for zero benefit. My challenge was that it's normal to do things for pay and it shouldn't be evidence of being motivated by greed.
It means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months. Unless you are one of the tiny fraction of people who have enough wealth to live without an earned income—like the heads of all the LLM companies are.
Anyone who has enough wealth to maintain roughly their current standard of living for the rest of their life, and still works in a job with a 6+ figure compensation, is doing it out of greed.
It means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months
What are you talking about? 11% of Americans (or rather, people in America) are on SNAP benefits[0]. And that's just food; there are lots of other benefits as well. America spends the most in the world on welfare, as a real number and as a % of GDP.
Benefits which are laborious to apply for, many who should don't qualify, structured to make you feel ashamed of having them, and getting cut repeatedly by the GOP.
Anthropic’s issue is that their concern for ethics constitutes a wall. They do not want to accept the potentiality of these tools, and somehow believe that a self-defeating stance will do less harm, even as these powers become more and more available to a larger section of the population. This inversely justifies their ownership stakes since they only benefit themselves under the guise of potential self-sacrifice that would be pathetic if it ever actually happened.
The market functions only on account of the law, which binds its activity and ensures the trustworthiness of the actors within it, and thus ethical practices are already assumed by the entities that operate in the market as the condition of their operation (since if the law is unethical than it’s also unjust and therefore illegitimate; such is the frequent judgement of those who live under it). Anthropic has committed the sin of conflating this principle with what is best for society, or humanity more broadly. What would be best for humanity is unlimited and absolute power over any and all external forces. The law, and the ethics which are presupposed within it, imposes external force on humanity—it cannot be best for humanity, demonstrably. And what is worse is, market advantage only appears when some (relatively small) increase in power is offered from some good or service, so something that fundamentally goes beyond the force of the law and perhaps even breaks it at the level of its intelligibility. The market is at odds with its own condition of possibility, it is internally contradictory, and attempts to reconcile this contradiction only lead to delusional behavior and appear fundamentally in the structure of the commodities which are produced for the sake of the market. What is worst is to thus be an idealist about the ethical nature of the market (“would you be ok with your shares going to 0 because we don’t want to be unethical”) rather than be an idealist about the potentiality of human power, which cannot be limited by the market if it seeks its own absolute expression.
Comments
The worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit.
What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides. I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still.
But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
When he goes on TV and claims the models may be conscious or may automate 90% of SWE in 6 months it is designed to pump the stock price. Its ironic they hold a fictitious scenario over candidates heads like “would you still keep working here if our revenue were $0 and we cant make payroll” (the realistic scenario where the stock price literally drops to $0)
Presumably you're also greed motivated, because you don't work without benefit.
The difference is that most people don't make "Look at how altruistic we are! We care™" a key component of their marketing pitch.
I can confirm that I'm totally greed motivated! I have already turned down nice job offers because the benefits were too low.
How does that diminish the observation about Amodei?
Earning a livelihood under the constraints of capitalism is hardly the same as hoarding wealth.
What does this mean? Was life better in soviet Russia under Communism, or as a serf in feudal England?
The claim was that they were motivated by greed because they weren't doing things for zero benefit. My challenge was that it's normal to do things for pay and it shouldn't be evidence of being motivated by greed.
It means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months. Unless you are one of the tiny fraction of people who have enough wealth to live without an earned income—like the heads of all the LLM companies are.
Anyone who has enough wealth to maintain roughly their current standard of living for the rest of their life, and still works in a job with a 6+ figure compensation, is doing it out of greed.
What are you talking about? 11% of Americans (or rather, people in America) are on SNAP benefits[0]. And that's just food; there are lots of other benefits as well. America spends the most in the world on welfare, as a real number and as a % of GDP.
[0] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-receive-govern...
Benefits which are laborious to apply for, many who should don't qualify, structured to make you feel ashamed of having them, and getting cut repeatedly by the GOP.
Anthropic’s issue is that their concern for ethics constitutes a wall. They do not want to accept the potentiality of these tools, and somehow believe that a self-defeating stance will do less harm, even as these powers become more and more available to a larger section of the population. This inversely justifies their ownership stakes since they only benefit themselves under the guise of potential self-sacrifice that would be pathetic if it ever actually happened.
The market functions only on account of the law, which binds its activity and ensures the trustworthiness of the actors within it, and thus ethical practices are already assumed by the entities that operate in the market as the condition of their operation (since if the law is unethical than it’s also unjust and therefore illegitimate; such is the frequent judgement of those who live under it). Anthropic has committed the sin of conflating this principle with what is best for society, or humanity more broadly. What would be best for humanity is unlimited and absolute power over any and all external forces. The law, and the ethics which are presupposed within it, imposes external force on humanity—it cannot be best for humanity, demonstrably. And what is worse is, market advantage only appears when some (relatively small) increase in power is offered from some good or service, so something that fundamentally goes beyond the force of the law and perhaps even breaks it at the level of its intelligibility. The market is at odds with its own condition of possibility, it is internally contradictory, and attempts to reconcile this contradiction only lead to delusional behavior and appear fundamentally in the structure of the commodities which are produced for the sake of the market. What is worst is to thus be an idealist about the ethical nature of the market (“would you be ok with your shares going to 0 because we don’t want to be unethical”) rather than be an idealist about the potentiality of human power, which cannot be limited by the market if it seeks its own absolute expression.