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Comment by baq | Hacker News Reader

> I hope they're willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values.

that's about as naive as it can be.

if they have any values left at all (which I hope they have) them not being at the table with labs which don't have any left is much worse than them being there and having a chance to influence at least with the leftovers.

that said, of course money > all else.

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I don't hold the belief that it's always better to have influence in a group where you don't trust leadership – in this case, those who decide at the metaphorical table – vs. trying to affect change through a different avenue.

It's probably naive, but it's also the reasoning that drove many early employees to Anthropic. Maybe the reasoning holds at smaller scales but breaks down when operating as a larger actor (e.g. as a single person or startup vs. a large company).

This is a common logical fallacy. It's not true that the party A with a few values can influence the party B with no values. It's only ever the case that party B fully drags party A to the no-values side. See also: employees who rationalize staying at companies running unethical or illegal projects.

Employees and employers are not sitting at the same table, this is a category error. We're talking lab to lab. Obviously in a fiercely competitive market like this with serious players not sharing the same set of rules it's close to pointless, but it's still better than letting those other players do their things uncontested.

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