ConstableJelly

I sympathize with the cynicism in your last paragraph, but I push a little optimism back on a couple points. 1: our capability for speech may be limited by the corporations who have grabbed control over our media platforms, but insofar as freedom of speech refers to our ability to speak freely without retaliation from the government, we do still have real free speech. It’s a juvenile point, but given events in the last few years it’s not a right I take for granted as I did previously. That being said, I did just watch a video of FBI agents interrogating a woman in front of her house for posting non-violent content on Facebook relating to Gaza that you can add to a pile of evidence that the government is frequently toeing the line on free speech, so… that’s not good.

2: Regulatory authority has become almost laughably meek, granted, but you’re commenting on a video of one of the most aggressive regulators to hold the position in as long as I’m aware. This is a powerful sign that regulatory capture is not inevitable if we care enough to vote for candidates who will appoint strong regulators – even if it hurts our pride to do so (<<conscientious vote objectors).

So many layers.

They’ve got a really talented bench of people, I’m surprised this has gone on so long (though I am far from a regular viewer). My vote would have gone to Jordan Klepper, who I think has both the intelligence and sincere anger that made Jon Stewart the cultural force he was on the show. My theory is that the execs saw him as too much of a risk after his previous (unfortunately) failed solo outings.

First two books in the series were “Fellowship of the King” and “The Two Trees” so…I’m not entirely convinced they were even very original stories…

I…don’t think that’s what the referenced paper was saying. First of all, Toner didn’t co-author the paper from her position as an OpenAI board member, but as a CSET director. Secondly, the paper didn’t intend to prescribe behaviors to private sector tech companies, but rather investigate “[how policymakers can] credibly reveal and assess intentions in the field of artificial intelligence” by exploring “costly signals…as a policy lever.”

The full quote:

By delaying the release of Claude until another company put out a similarly capable product, Anthropic was showing its willingness to avoid
exactly the kind of frantic corner-cutting that the release of ChatGPT appeared to spur. Anthropic achieved this goal by leveraging installment costs, or fixed costs that cannot be offset over time. In the framework of this study, Anthropic enhanced the credibility of its commitments to AI safety by holding its model back from early release and absorbing potential future revenue losses. The motivation in this case was not to recoup those losses by gaining a wider market share, but rather to promote industry norms and contribute to shared expectations around responsible AI development and deployment.

Anthropic is being used here as an example of “private sector signaling,” which could theoretically manifest in countless ways. Nothing in the text seems to indicate that OpenAI should have behaved exactly this same way, but the example is held as a successful contrast to OpenAI’s allegedly failed use of the GPT-4 system card as a signal of OpenAI’s commitment to safety.

To more fully understand how private sector actors can send costly signals, it is worth considering two examples of leading AI companies going beyond public statements to signal their commitment to develop AI responsibly: OpenAI’s publication of a “system card” alongside the launch of its GPT-4 model, and Anthropic’s decision to delay the release of its chatbot, Claude.

Honestly, the paper seems really interesting to an AI layman like me and a critically important subject to explore: empowering policymakers to make informed determinations about regulating a technology that almost everyone except the subject-matter experts themselves will *not fully understand.

We replaced our HP OfficeJet with a Brother this year. I don’t even know what we were thinking getting the HP 5 years ago or so, it was gross overkill for us. But of all the things it could do, it was most consistent with printing like shit and jamming paper. Part of the problem was that we just print too infrequently, but having to replace overpriced cartridges from HP didn’t help. You also have to install apps for wireless printing (or if there’s a workaround we didn’t bother with it).

The Brother is a color laser printer and it’s perfect for us. No apps needed, super quiet and hassle-free (there have been no paper jams or transmission errors), and the print quality is crisp as hell.

Google may be evil, but you can’t deny they still attract top talent.

By jove I think you might be right.

This is so fucking exhausting.

Lee – who went from hoping for the appointment to, in recent weeks, making a political issue out of knocking Newsom on the assumption she wouldn’t get it – spent Monday and Tuesday reaching out to fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus to urge them to stick with her, even though there is now another Black woman in the spot. Schiff’s initial response was to trumpet the big lead he has in fundraising, which aides were hoping would get both Butler’s attention and that of reporters busy assessing her chances. California political insiders have noticed anti-Butler opposition research appearing and a new anti-Butler account on X, and have been pointing fingers over who is behind them. False rumors that Newsom offered others the appointment first have been floated, too.

Patting backs, making nonsense announcements to get media attention, oppo research… I mean, I’m not naive, this is the way things go. But we’re never going to get the best-qualified people to serve in government while campaigning requires this much machination unrelated to the actual merit of the candidates. Maybe some time around our evolution to a full Type 1 civilization we’ll have figured this out.

A generation living too late to explore the Earth and too early to explore space–also doomed to live so long in the era between a fledgling, pre-corporatized internet and a free and open post-corporatized internet (which I consider inevitable, eventually, because a capitalist, enshittified internet can’t sustain indefinitely…right?).