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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26562 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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What specifically does he get wrong? What he's asking for is 'lock down all AI labs so they don't leak to China' and 'centralize all AI research under a new Manhattan Project', not to attack anyone unless they look like they're close to pulling ahead.

If AI is super powerful, then logically it becomes super valuable to the big powers. The core of his argument seems pretty sound, provided we accept the technical aspects.

The primary counterarguments I can think of are:

  1. Openly declaring an arms race with this massive securitization of AGI invites laggard powers to lean more heavily into their own areas of expertise. Superintelligence counters nukes but nukes counter power plants and server farms. Russian semiconductors are woeful but their H-bombs are first rate. They could aim for high-altitude air bursts to disrupt US AI rollout with the EMP.
  2. US government interference might be counterproductive. There's a certain shortfall in competence in recent USG procurement and development. The Constellation class frigates come to mind. Pentagon IT is infamously bad - https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/28/us_dod_computers/
  3. Neither Silicon Valley's most cunning tech billionaires nor Washington's most powerhungry bureaucrats are especially trustworthy, even when compared to leading lights in the CCP. A true global partnership would be ideal, albeit almost impossible to organize.

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