> I really enjoyed the work, and for a while I told myself it was relatively harmless, but over time God forced me to confront the reality that the main impact of these tools will be to accelerate the design of a new breed of AI chips...
There's no arguing with someone who claims God forced them to do something, but I do wish this person good luck in whatever they do next.
As much as I cannot disagree more with the author's fundamental premise (religion), it is refreshing to see someone claim to have a belief and then follow through, change their behaviour to match their belief, at no small cost to themselves, and in pursuit of doing the right thing.
If you think humans are a net positive to be around, you wouldn't be spending trillions trying to build a machine to replace them; not just their work, but all aspects of their lives.
Perhaps a good thing to come out of these big companies over-indexing on "AI" is the liberation of creative minds. So many fantastic open source contributors have disappeared into corporate black holes...
I think the scepticism and gaslighting of people sounding the alarm over the trajectory of AI is concerning. This feels like a case of "knowing better" than the actual people involved in the projects.
You might be right. You might be wrong. But being overly confident on a topic you're a spectator to is possibly not the right choice.
Anytime you use absolutes you paint yourself in a corner. Definitely not 100% of things that big tech "democratized", as you put it, has been bad for people.
Presenting it as such does disservice to any serious conversation.
Welcome to the capitalism 101. Everything has price. So far, I would say, humanity done quite well under this _oppressive_ regime when compared with others.
respect for choosing your faith over your work man! I'm trying to find the intersection of my faith and the new tech too. Feel free to email if you ever wanna chat it out.
Thanks for living your values. I might not fully agree but I appreciate people whose convictions are genuine and altruistic.
Sometimes people use the "Yet you participate in society" meme as a shield for blatant hypocrisy, like a Marxist-Leninist Twitch streamer who lives in a multi-million Hollywood mansion, drives a Porsche and wears thousand dollar pants.
I for one cannot be convinced that these companies saying they want to slow down AI progress is for the safety of mankind (or any other altruistic reason). However, I respect someone willing to give up a very comfortable career for his convictions.
> or they don’t they understand that it’s mostly marketing stunt.
Understanding implies having some factual information, proof, data, hard evidence. Meanwhile you frame your conspiracy theory as such and are surprised people don't see it the same way?
If someone did exist who was sincere and not fear-mongering, but was terrified of AI, what would their post need to look like for you to take it seriously?
What's fearmongering? There's no claim that AI will destroy the world here - only a claim that cheap omnipresent AI will make most of society worse - which is hard to dispute.
And Google’s ad-driven money-making machine is making society worse as well, but OP had no problem with this.
It’s a bit of a fad to do these things in the name of AI. I think it’s great OP chooses a more fulfilling life that will surely make them happier, but it feels a bit pretentious.
I think this take is extremely cynical and made in bad faith. Lots of dangers that are due to AI acceleration are raised by a very wide mix of experts, scientists, engineers and researchers.
It is clearly incorrect to call it a conspiracy theory. You can be skeptical, as there is no clear consensus even among experts, but outright dismissal is simply an unscientific position.
As an aside, this was the most eloquent, professional, polite and concise disagreement on HN I've seen in decades. I genuinely aspire to have this level of class and character in public discourse. Bookmarking this comment as reference for the future :)
I did not call it a conspiracy theory; not here at least. Have you even read what Ted Kaczynski has written? Perhaps you'd like some of it if you do. I bet he's also smarter than your average Anthropic employee.
Yet another "AI must be stopped" post... If you're burned out, just say so. Don't philosophise. No, we're not buying that your latest model can almost replace all software engineers. It's us working with the harnesses, adding guardrails etc that make this agentic world possible for everyone.
Isn't AI just the next step in the history of evolution?
I have the feeling it is inevitable that a new species will take over Earth. Just as humans took over a hundred thousand years ago. Now a species even more capable of thinking is coming up.
Thinking a million times faster. Knowing a million times more. Able to wrap its head around a million times more aspects at the same time.
A strong effort to slow it down might slow it down a bit. But does that really make a difference? It's not like we can "brace" ourselves from what is coming. Would the apes have been able to prepare for the arrival of humans if they had had 5 more years?
There's no new species being created here. A tool has been made. Either humanity will wipe itself out using said tool, destroy the tool, or learn to live with the tool.
conceivably you could say humans took over 6000 years ago.
At any rate it can't be a new step in the history of evolution, as AI did not evolve in the same way as other species did and AI is not a species nor alive.
There's no arguing with someone who claims God forced them to do something, but I do wish this person good luck in whatever they do next.
Perhaps a good thing to come out of these big companies over-indexing on "AI" is the liberation of creative minds. So many fantastic open source contributors have disappeared into corporate black holes...
You might be right. You might be wrong. But being overly confident on a topic you're a spectator to is possibly not the right choice.
I have a lot of bones to pick with Google's morality, but "democratizing the transformer and LLMs" is at the bottom of my list.
Presenting it as such does disservice to any serious conversation.
Woe is me, victim of the 21st century separated from my true calling of paying for software.
Edit (rate limited):
> Does Gemma belong to this list?
Yes, and Tensorflow too.
Sometimes people use the "Yet you participate in society" meme as a shield for blatant hypocrisy, like a Marxist-Leninist Twitch streamer who lives in a multi-million Hollywood mansion, drives a Porsche and wears thousand dollar pants.
Understanding implies having some factual information, proof, data, hard evidence. Meanwhile you frame your conspiracy theory as such and are surprised people don't see it the same way?
Or you think, those scumbag billionaires will care more when people fear more?
It’s a bit of a fad to do these things in the name of AI. I think it’s great OP chooses a more fulfilling life that will surely make them happier, but it feels a bit pretentious.
It is clearly incorrect to call it a conspiracy theory. You can be skeptical, as there is no clear consensus even among experts, but outright dismissal is simply an unscientific position.
The reverse also holds, btw.
I have the feeling it is inevitable that a new species will take over Earth. Just as humans took over a hundred thousand years ago. Now a species even more capable of thinking is coming up.
Thinking a million times faster. Knowing a million times more. Able to wrap its head around a million times more aspects at the same time.
A strong effort to slow it down might slow it down a bit. But does that really make a difference? It's not like we can "brace" ourselves from what is coming. Would the apes have been able to prepare for the arrival of humans if they had had 5 more years?
At any rate it can't be a new step in the history of evolution, as AI did not evolve in the same way as other species did and AI is not a species nor alive.