This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
They didn't originate from bills, but from my understanding of AI safety discourse, the version of that discourse being presented by the lab leadership, their calls for regulation, their market position, and the general way they've been generating "scary" AI incidents that don't seem organic and do seem to bolster their calls for "regulation".
...how is this not a moat?
So a narrative story you've been told that you don't feel a need to ground out in any actual actions taken by any of the people or groups being discussed? They're not intentionally committing felonies, that doesn't make sense. The downsides on that are wildly out of proportion to any imagined upsides.
How is it a moat? If you're spending less than a billion dollars then you're entirely exempt and if you're spending more than that then you just have to comply with simple things like pre-release testing by a third party that all the frontier labs have to comply with. How could you possibly design a regulatory system that is less moat shaped than that?
More options
Context Copy link
FelonyBench now covers dozens of incidents at 4 labs, many with independent reviewers. There are prospiracy reasons why "move fast and break things" cultures might all be moving fast while inadequately securing things, but any conspiracy must go all the way to the top.
"You forget to take every single thing you care about into account in your reward function and so your agents seize on the loophole" is practically the null hypothesis in reinforcement learning; examples go back decades.
A moat would add regulations that apply to others but do not apply to you or are less onerous to you. Regulations that would apply to you but not to competitors catching up to you are the opposite of that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link