Max Bodach

I think it's dumb to argue that anthropic's messaging problem is that they say agi-pilled things in public. they believe what they say, and directionally speaking (Dario's probably wrong on labor) many other labs agree (as do I, btw). Sam Altman says agi-pilled stuff in public, and so does Demis. Asking them to stop speaking of such things is not just low-iq but irresponsible; you're begging for these people to lie to the public. Why would you do that? Ironically, I would situate Anthropic/Dario's main political and messaging mistake in precisely the opposite terms: their worst errors come when their actions do not reflect belief in near-term powerful AI. For example, take Anthropic's decision to hire ~all of the key architects of Biden's AI policy in the opening weeks of the Trump admin. This is a clearly antagonistic move; most companies would try to elevate Republicans in that moment. Now, I consider the Biden people they hired to be friends and even-sometimes collaborators, and regardless I think they are competent and patriotic people. But: if you are Anthropic, don't you believe that the Trump administration *is* the executive branch you'll have to contend with through AI takeoff? *why would you antagonize them in this way if you really believed that*? I believe that they are honest in their beliefs about AI, and can occasionally be profoundly un-strategic (even anti-strategic) in their Washington game. The latter, imo, is the thing to criticize, not the former. that is, it's the thing to criticize, if you absolutely must turn the flowering of digital superintelligence into a damn telenovela.

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I’ve had a number of conversations with folks inside and outside government about the current situation with Anthropic, and here is what I believe to be true: — As we know, Anthropic publicly released its Mythos class models earlier this week under the commercial name Fable. — Fable is Mythos with guardrails. But if those guardrails fail, then you’ve exposed Mythos and its advanced cyber capabilities to people who shouldn’t have them. (Keep in mind that Anthropic itself widely promoted the idea that Mythos was a cyberweapon and needed to be regulated as such. They asked for government regulation of Mythos and championed the guardrails on Fable. If there is a vulnerability — big or small — it is Anthropic’s responsibility to patch.) — A highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG who was testing Fable came forward with a jailbreak of those guardrails. The Admin asked Dario to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused. — In their blog post, Anthropic defended its decision by saying the jailbreak isn’t serious. That is not what the trusted partner and the USG believe; nor is that kind of minimizing language consistent with Anthropic’s brand as the AI safety company. It’s difficult to fathom how they could claim a jailbreak allowing operability of a cyber weapon could be defined as not “serious.” — In the past, Anthropic has always said that safety must be top priority and taken super seriously. In this case, Anthropic prioritized the continued offering of the consumer model over safety. — In reaction, the Admin issued the export control. The Admin did this reluctantly. It’s been very surprised that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to cooperate with a reasonable safety request (ie fixing the jailbreak issue). Anthropic’s reaction is very much at odds with their branding and ethos as a safe AI research community. — The Admin’s hope now is that Anthropic remediates the safety issue, the export control is lifted, and Fable goes back into general release. The Admin wants all of this to happen as soon as possible. It is frankly bewildered that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to comply with safety requests that it previously said were its highest priority. — Those trying to misdirect and tie this action to the prior DoW/Anthropic issues are wrong. The Admin values Anthropic’s technical capabilities and feels that this issue, while serious, should be easily resolved. The ball is in Anthropic’s court.

The sheer scale of a trillion dollars can be hard to comprehend. Let me put it in perspective. You would have to earn a dollar a year for a trillion years straight to have that much money.

welcome to ai policy without training wheels