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sarker

competency crisis actor

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joined 2022 September 05 16:50:08 UTC

Suddenly I cannot remember the color of your eyes

Or the things we said as we stood together for the last time


				
User ID: 636


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
sarker


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
competency crisis actor

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 16:50:08 UTC
				


				
					

					
Suddenly I cannot remember the color of your eyes


Or the things we said as we stood together for the last time



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 636


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Makework is always possible, but I'm skeptical that it's worthwhile on current margins.


For example:




teaching children to read before 1st grade and tutoring them in their school work... chauffeuring children to activities,




There isn't really a point in teaching kids that young. For example, dropping arithmetic entirely until 6th grade resulted in zero learning loss by the end of sixth grade.


More broadly, you can only tutor kids or shuttle them around when they aren't in school, and mostly that is compatible with work outside the home. And if you live in a place with functional public transit it isn't necessary to shuttle them  and it's probably good for their independence to let them figure it out themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Zuck wearing a $2M shitter is objectively funny though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A quick skim does not indicate any "underage callboys" in the white house in these sources.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
AGI implies the ability to produce agents that are more sneerable than anything humanity has ever encountered. Call it supersneerability.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Bigfoots are being harvested as slave labor by a more advanced alien race.




Bad news for the future of robotics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First time?


Buy an air filter, if you still can. Otherwise, DIY one. You might need one for every occupied room depending on your house size and how well air mixes in your house. If you don't have filtration, indoor air quality will eventually equilibrate with the outdoors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Farm land stays fixed while food demand falls. Food becomes cheaper.




Harvesting is mostly done by immigrants of various legal statuses doing the work for much less than Americans. The effect of increasing wages for farm laborers on food prices is left as an exercise to the reader.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Two things. First, truth. How do you know that? Maybe it's the consensus among self-anointed seniors at your firm, but is it the consensus? Do you have data on that? A lot of consensuses are illusions.




Seniors are not usually self anointed.




Second, validity. Even if yours is the majority/consensus view, does that imply your view is correct? Is it well thought out? Is there evidence for it? Or ought a marginal view also be listened to? Is there any reason consensus views must be superior? What if they are the result of bias?




You gotta cut it out with the chip on your shoulder.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because I hold the consensus position on this question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But does that makes it presently unclear, in a general sense, or just unclear to you and people like you?




It does make it presently unclear in a general sense.




What if it is clear to me?




Then nothing. Do you want a cookie?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I thought they were the best?




While some are good people, they are on average not sending their best.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To many, including me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I would be very glad if it were "we need to make sure this doesn't help people develop cyber or biological weapons",




Oh, you are in luck!  Amodei:




Models above a threshold of compute should undergo mandatory testing by a qualified third party for their level of risk in four specific areas: cybersecurity, biological weapons, loss of control of AI systems, and automated R&D that could accelerate these other risks.






AI companies that develop advanced AI models must have strong security standards that protect their model weights, should conduct regular red teaming and penetration testing, and should work with the government to defend against major threat actors.






Safety incidents in the four critical areas must be reported promptly.




Hopefully that clears things up.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And who advises on what the regulations should be?




Cor blimey, I never expected you'd come out as a libertarian! I didn't know you even had those in Ireland.


This is a fully general argument against regulation. If you think that AI in particular doesn't need regulation, let's discuss why.




It happened in this instance that Anthropic got slapped with precisely the kind of 'government regulating threats to public safety' that they had asked for in a mealy-mouthed way, and they didn't like the result when it was not in fact "no, our dear trusted special case AI, we will let you dictate terms to us when it comes to regulation, you are the special and shining exception to the rules".




What's the old saw? "My rules  > your rules applied fairly > your rules applied unfairly"? This was not a fair application of the rules, and it has nothing to do with Anthropic needing to be an exception.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Then they both take the plane back home and keep advancing their models. Whatcha gonna do?




I am not interested in debating Plan A, but the implication that there is no proposal to audit compliance is false. This is a pretty low effort response.




AI 2040 is much closer to total disarmament than it is the NLPT, because the NLPT is about punching down (it is plainly true that the US/China could stop any non-nuclear power from advancing models) while AI 2040 / total disarmament is about restraining great powers from pursuing their interests, which is of course completely impossible unless you pull the nuclear card. The NLPT was completely useless at restraining the P5 from having as many nukes as they liked, after all, which is who we're actually worried will create models that are too powerful.




This just sounds like word games. Disarmament isn't when you stop building more nukes or improving existing nukes. Do I need to cite the dictionary?


You've set up an argument where actual nuclear disarmament must have been in the interests of the nuclear powers since it happened. Okay, well then if this happens then it's also in the interests of the great powers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And I note that it happened with no regulation whatsoever.




Of course, that's only because Anthropic happened to be the first actor to reach this capability level and because they are, according to you, in a cult. It didn't have to turn out this way, and it may not turn out this way in the future.




This is jumping from the Motte you just presented to an incredibly speculative Bailey. Nobody has done this, there is no evidence that this is even possible now let alone when people have taken steps to prevent it.




I don't see why "this hasn't already happened" is a good reason to not take safety seriously.




I see no reason why the government with access to K7 should be outwitted by a lone maniac with access to K7. If it seems that way, by all means let's address the problem at hand rather than regulate people's ability to ask questions about knowledge the government doesn't want us to have.




It's not clear to me what you think biosecurity looks like in a world with highly intelligent AI that lacks safety guardrails, but it's difficult to imagine it isn't a panopticon of some sort.




If someone can demonstrate a lab process where a competently trained AI used competently nevertheless turns evil and attempts to cause damage even when made aware that this is not what its creators are asking for, I will take their arguments more seriously.




No "turning evil" is required here. All that's required is a human convincing the AI to help them with something that has evil ends. I hope you won't make me prove to you that humans can fool AIs?




And that's before we get into modifying the world's chips to no longer be able to run unapproved software and putting US/China killswitches in data centers.




You are, of course, conflating Anthropic's proposals with Plan A. They are not the same.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is presently unclear if a junior engineer who has only ever used Claude can become a graybeard.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The fundamental difference is that the NLPT is about stopping weak states from getting nukes (which is possible because it is in the interest of great powers, who already got their nukes), while AI 2040 / total de-nuclearization requires that the great powers hold hands and sing kumbaya against each of their own interests.


The equivalent to AI 2040 but for nukes would be, because you're afraid of Putin deciding Après moi, le déluge and first-striking DC, to first strike Moscow pre-emptively to try and de-nuclearize him in advance. Obviously you can see the problems with this.




At this point there are only two countries with AI models near the frontier. If these countries make a deal that they will not advance their models past a certain capability level and will prevent other powers from doing so, this is much closer to the NLPT than disarmament. Most obviously, it does not entail any reduction in AI capabilities, where disarmament entails a reduction in nuclear capabilities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I also work on AI. There's wide agreement that AI capabilities can be dangerous in the wrong hands unless the AI is aligned. We are now entering the time of AI actually being good at detecting security vulnerabilities in software. In the long run, firms will deploy their own AIs to probe their systems and keep ahead of attackers, but it would have been irresponsible for Anthropic to release a fully capable Mythos-powered zero day factory with no guardrails publicly without working with companies to address their security holes first.


In the medium term, I expect AIs will improve significantly in biological capabilities. It would be really quite bad if Kimi K7 helped some psycho develop a synthetic plague that killed a bunch of people, and it's worth taking steps to prevent such an outcome.


These are basic safety arguments that have been done to death that do not even require superintelligence, superpersuasion, or even a "will" on the part of the AI.




Anthropic's insistence on acting as a priesthood completely undermines their entirely-speculative case.




But it isn't solely Anthropic, you dismiss all safety concerns regardless of their source because you dismiss AI safety period.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That is quite clearly not what Corvos is arguing. If you have a concrete explanation of what in this regulatory framework doesn't take safety seriously, and what would, I'd be interested to hear it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If somebody tells you out of the blue that you are going to die of cancer unless you take a 50g zinc tablet every day, it is obviously relevant if he is a travelling zinc salesman!




If somebody believed that there would be terrible consequences for the human race unless everyone took a 50g zinc tablet, could they be anything but a traveling zinc salesman, or a fellow, uh, traveler?


Your opinion is that we can't trust people concerned about AI safety about AI safety because it may increase their status. Okay, who can we trust about AI safety? People unconcerned about AI safety? Seems like epistemic closure to me.




That is, he has hidden his involvement to push his political manifesto whilst pretending to be an interested bystander




I can't honestly believe you think his involvement is "hidden" when he discloses it in the opening section of his first post on the topic.




Their intended solution is to get the two largest countries in the world to get together and fuck up anyone who disagrees with them in ways that would horrify them for literally any other problem except their super-special Millenarian one.




This is already basically how nuclear non-proliferation works, as we've seen in Iran. Again, you can argue about if AI is as dangerous as nuclear weapons, but if you assume arguendo it is, then this is an obviously similar regulatory regime that basically nobody opposes.


Your argument basically boils down to:


    

  1. 

    If AI really is dangerous, we would need to take drastic action to avoid bad outcomes.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    Drastic action would be bad.
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Therefore, AI can't be dangerous.
    

    4. 



Or perhaps:


    

  1. 

    The people who think AI is dangerous are suggesting drastic action.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    Therefore, AI can't be dangerous.
    

    3. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Did they intentionally bypass the cache, or did they not even know about it? It's not hard to believe that clueless programmers don't know that the value is in the cache.




The H1B code monkeys in Mumbai




Perhaps he's wondering why someone would sponsor a man for an H1B before employing him overseas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It obviously can't be the case that "this increases the power of AI companies that take safety seriously" is an argument against a regulatory regime that takes AI safety seriously. The argument must actually be that AI safety is not a concern, not that even if it is a concern we must still be suicidally unconcerned.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But, on the other hand, did it really change everything? Perhaps not. People still work, get sick, and die, same as they always did. I guess if that changes then we’ll really be in new territory.




Amazing that the invention of fire or even the advent of intelligent life on this planet (using "people" loosely) didn't 'change everything' by this definition. Tough crowd!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


where careless devs don't do even the most basic things to make the computer not have to do the same work twice.




Exactly, because it's basically not worth it outside of actually high performance computing. Who's not going to use a product because it's 20% slower but otherwise better than competitors? Vim is way faster than Microsoft Word, but who cares?




It's especially embarrassing when the shittier way of doing it is harder to write than the non-pessimized way and retarded web dev monkeys do it anyways.




You'll have to provide some examples.