Ian David Moss

I'm seeing criticism of this from 'more people doing capabilities' perspective. But I disagree. I really want to see stronger pushes towards more specialised AI rather than general superintelligence, b/c I think latter likely to be v dangerous. seems like step in right direction.

Today we’re announcing Mechanize, a startup focused on developing virtual work environments, benchmarks, and training data that will enable the full automation of the economy. We will achieve this by creating simulated environments and evaluations that capture the full scope of what people do at their jobs. This includes using a computer, completing long-horizon tasks that lack clear criteria for success, coordinating with others, and reprioritizing in the face of obstacles and interruptions. We’re betting that the lion’s share of value from AI will come from automating ordinary labor tasks rather than from “geniuses in a data center”. Currently, AI models have serious shortcomings that render most of this enormous value out of reach. They are unreliable, lack robust long-context capabilities, struggle with agency and multimodality, and can’t execute long-term plans without going off the rails. To overcome these limitations, Mechanize will produce the data and evals necessary for comprehensively automating work. Our digital environments will act as practical simulations of real-world work scenarios, enabling agents to learn useful abilities through RL. The market potential here is absurdly large: workers in the US are paid around $18 trillion per year in aggregate. For the entire world, the number is over three times greater, around $60 trillion per year. The explosive economic growth likely to result from completely automating labor could generate vast abundance, much higher standards of living, and new goods and services that we can’t even imagine today. Our vision is to realize this potential as soon as possible. Matthew Barnett, Tamay Besiroglu, Ege Erdil Mechanize is backed by investments from Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Patrick Collison, Dwarkesh Patel, Jeff Dean, Sholto Douglas, and Marcus Abramovitch.

Working with Matt and Carl was one of my favourite things about my job at Longview. And they're brilliant with more experience in this space than just about anyone. If you want to reduce the likelihood of large scale nuclear war this is the best job there is.

Announcing the Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment in the US, Sam Altman and President Trump say this is about building AGI, with one of the most important applications being the cure of diseases at an unprecedented rate

Marc Andreessen on how to choose where to work: