Comment by frabcus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by frabcus | Hacker News Reader

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The idea was that technology is now powerful enough, everything need not be just competition any more. The world could also work to let every human have a good life. Neither China nor America truly seem to have that goal, despite it being both possible and ethical. Europe at least did, based on our experiences of the horrors of the early/mid C20.

It's true that in the last 10 years that vision feels like it has crumbled. And the inevitableness of competition is coming back. International law and human rights are dissolving - rule based on power. This works well for anyone while it works for them - except for our souls, and longer term... It's hubristic and eventually empires fall. Europe has already experienced this, and remembers it.

Whether these empires will fall to global economic collapse from lack of co-operation, or environmental destruction from lack of charging for externalities, or from global war, or simply from out of control AI, remains to be seen.

But never question, it is possible to avoid all those. But we have to try to, not just cheaply go "competition good", because of the short term thrill of the win. Competition is good, and so is cooperation.

China and America's goals will not be influenced one bit by the EU bureaucracy. The only effect it will have it will make EU fall behind even further.

We'd need quite some changes in the EU to focus on actually winning at something again. Winning at the expense of some of the lofty ideals. I'd rather EU have a decent frontier model lab that plays to win, and steps on toes while doing so, than have a very elaborate bureaucracy that tries to prevent that from happening. Its no surprise the bureaucrats have the exactly opposite goals, and its sad that most of the population won't see the consequences of this conflict of interest until it's too late to do anything -- because the Americans and the Chinese have near AGI capabilities, plentiful energy sources, and, really, not a lot of reasons to remember where Europe is on the map.

> I'd rather EU have a decent frontier model lab that plays to win, and steps on toes while doing so, than have a very elaborate bureaucracy that tries to prevent that from happening

What in the AI Act makes it hard to develop frontier models?

Its just a tax and an annoyance, and in a very competitive and difficult economy.

I am already receiving notices from some EU countries that they will want sit downs on how we use AI, and apparently they have the right to demand access to detailed designs and source codes. Fine, whatever, a waste of time, but why would anyone start an AI company here, knowing that there will be bureaucrats focused on making that startup's life harder? Considering AI talent is mobile I'd think a lot of such talent will just hop on a plane and have their startup somewhere less overregulated.

This is a very naive viewpoint that does not understand that superintelligence is a race between the West and China.

While the EU is twiddling its thumbs about copyright, it is shooting its own side in the foot during the most important race in human history.

The pure absurdity of this is a reflection of how the EU routinely chooses short term safety and good vibes over long term prosperity and success. This mindset is why the EU has been utterly unable to compete for years -- and now, they want to impose their failed model on the actually successful Western companies.

Yes, that's fair, and particularly so for AI. The best action would be to speak softly and carry a big stick.

But ultimately, to avoid the dangers of AI, a control treaty of which the only similar historical example was nuclear weapons, will be needed between the US and China. And perhaps, Europe would be better at negotiating that if it was all three.

Meanwhile, legislating to label deepfakes, and evaluating models for safety, should hardly be controversial. And in an ideal world, the US and China would agree and be collaborating with Europe on doing that, not whining about it. That includes reform of copyright.

It is totally unrealistic to think that any country could regulate the other country's race to superintelligence.

This is a technology that will give the victor control over the future of humanity forever, and the ability to lock out any competitors from reaching the same level of capability.

Do you really think China would sign any agreement here in good faith? It would be hopelessly naive to negotiate a slowdown and assume that China is not lying through their teeth and accelerating internally. The stakes are too high - we would do the same.

The only option is to win the race, because no entity is naively trusting enough to risk losing this race.

Not unrealistic - the same thing happened with nuclear weapons, between two superpowers who were at cold war with each other. China and US now are much more similar to each other.

Of course it won't happen without the threat of mutual annihilation, but superintelligent AI provides that threat.

As to how... Obviously you have to be smart and tough and invent mechanisms to make it work without trust. Plan A has a bunch of ideas to start with https://ai-2040.com/supplements/verification-plan

> the most important race in human history

This feels like it needs a lot of asterisks. A race implies someone will win it - how exactly is China winning by making those models freely available? "The West" can use that tech, it's not locked away in some vault.

This is a very easy question to answer: they're commoditizing AI and compressing margins for the US labs, while their state funds large scale buildouts. It's a decelerating force for the US because it removes dollars that the labs would otherwise put into R&D.

Obviously China will not release models if they ever get far ahead of the US's best models in capability. You can't seriously think that "free models" will remain the game plan if they take an indisputable lead?

But how is it relevant to the EU right now? It seems like sitting it out and spending that money on weapons is a better option for EU money as it solves an immediate danger.

Why would we need to worry about China getting far ahead of US models given the spending trajectory of US companies? If China does get ahead, US companies will just keep pumping more money into the problem to keep the race going. But to what end? LLMs are not going to morph into AGI, that will be a new paradigm.

For most people, the best LLM is the one that is cheapest to them, as models are incredibly good. I'd wager ~90% of people using AI today wouldn't be able to differentiate GPT Sol from GLM 5.3 Flash in their day-to-day usage. The models are already good enough today for most workloads, next year's model won't change that.

> Why would we need to worry about China getting far ahead of US models

If China gets to superintelligence first, the EU is cooked. This is a regime that has permanently disappeared tens of thousands of their human rights lawyers.

> will just keep pumping more money into the problem to keep the race going

Do you think taxing the US companies at 3% of global turnover and twiddling thumbs over copyright helps or hurts the West in the race to superintelligence?

> most workloads, next year's model won't change that.

"Most workloads" are irrelevant, the models matter only at the edge of the hardest problems they can solve, you are thinking of these models like any other technology when they will soon solve incredibly difficult problems that may give one country a real edge over the other.

> If China gets to superintelligence first, the EU is cooked.

If it's as dangerous as you say, the first country that will get to this will be in big trouble, regardless of who they are.

> Do you think taxing the US companies at 3% of global turnover and twiddling thumbs over copyright helps or hurts the West in the race to superintelligence?

Global turnover taxation was meant to prevent companies using creative accounting to not pay taxes, not to hurt "the West".

> they will soon solve incredibly difficult problems that may give one country a real edge over the other

What is this based on aside from AI hype?

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