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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

I’m not advocating for this.

~~~~~~

If you really believed these labs were going to result in the extinction of humanity and you saw it first hand, don’t you have a moral obligation not to quit your job but to go and try and kill everyone working on said project, blow it up, or otherwise stop it?

I take these resignations with a grain of salt precisely for that reason. If I worked at a job and I saw some crazy guy or gal was building a doomsday button and it really worked I’d like to think I would do something about it, not just quit my job. If you’re not going to actually do anything about it you might as well keep your job. Quitting doesn’t help anything.

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> I’m not advocating for this.

You're not advocating for it because murdering people is highly immoral and illegal. That answers your question for the most part.

You also have to remember that the magnitude and speed of this stuff is very new to pretty much everybody. It's not exactly trivial to go from "I'm just doing my job" to "I need to kill everybody in my company to save the world" in a year or two, especially if a very, very large part of society doesn't even see the justification for it.

I'm convinced that most people here (even though we have more knowledge closer to the edge of AI development) would show only disdain for an Anthropic employee that murdered everybody there because they believed strongly in the dangers of AI.

> You're not advocating for it because it is highly immoral and illegal. That answers your question for the most part.

Well truthfully I’m not advocating for it because I don’t have any insight into these labs or the true capability of these models. But as a hypothetical if someone knew with 100% certainty that Big AI Button was being built and it would kill all humans or destroy all of humanity there is no moral ambiguity that anyone with the means to do so should stop that button from being built and kill everyone involved to save our species. This doesn’t apply to just AI though, but that’s the topic at hand.

> It's not exactly trivial to go from "I'm just doing my job" to "I need to kill everybody in my company to save the world" in a year or two, especially if a very, very large part of society doesn't even see the justification for it.

I agree with you, which is also why I think “omg I’m quitting they’re going to kill everyone” or other sort of sensationalized comments or news articles should be viewed skeptically - it’s probably fear mongering. Quitting your job here just seems pointless and attention seeking. Likely quit for some other reason.

> But as a hypothetical if someone knew with 100% certainty [...]

This is an unreasonable demand. The quitting employee in this case said this:

"I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities. If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because “it’s happening anyway” - or take this moment to call for different conditions?"

You demand that he should kill multiple people rather than quit his job because he believes the above. This guy doesn't want to be part of the problem and may very well go on to advocate strongly against what's happening from outside Anthropic.

> I agree with you, which is also why I think “omg I’m quitting they’re going to kill everyone” or other sort of sensationalized comment

You didn't read what he wrote, did you? Because that sensationalized comment seems to have originated entirely in your head.

  > This is an unreasonable demand.

I'm not making a demand, I'm setting an anchor point from which we can work backward from. Is there any doubt that if someone was 100% certain that Big AI Button was being built and it would kill all humans that said person has a moral obligation to do everything they can to stop the button from being built and pressed?

  > "You demand that he should kill multiple people rather than quit his job because he believes the above. This guy doesn't want to be part of the problem and may very well go on to advocate strongly against what's happening from outside Anthropic."

Horse Shit. Here's what was written [1]:

  "The people building Al earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt."

> You didn't read what he wrote, did you? Because that sensationalized comment seems to have originated entirely in your head.

Look in the mirror.

[1] https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476203863224394

> if someone was 100% certain

This is unreasonable because nobody can know 100% certain that the AI built at Anthropic will kill everyone. It is also a big-ass strawman because the author never claimed he was 100% certain that AI will kill all humans. You're arguing from an irrelevant hypothetical (in which, I might add, most people would still not automatically change into murderous psychopaths as you apparently think is normal).

> Horse Shit. Here's what was written

It's a whole thread, my man. And nowhere does it say "omg I’m quitting they’re going to kill everyone". Read the entire thread again and then say with a straight face that the gist of it is "omg I’m quitting they’re going to kill everyone".

> This is unreasonable because nobody can know 100% certain that the AI built at Anthropic will kill everyone. It is also a big-ass strawman because the author never claimed he was 100% certain that AI will kill all humans.

Ok then stop arguing about my hypothetical if you don't want to engage with it. Those of us who are interested in talking about it can do so in peace without distracting comments.

> change into murderous psychopaths as you apparently think is normal

Please stop engaging in this hyperbole and go find some other axe to grind.

> It's a whole thread, my man.

I took a direct quote from the thread where earlier you accused me of pedaling in sensationalism and "not reading".

I'm not the one reacting to reasonable behavior with some edgy comment containing broken logic.

The author of the Twitter thread is not some egotistical attention seeker and never said "omg I’m quitting they’re going to kill everyone". His logic for quitting his job and not acting like a psychopath is sound. Yours is not.

I've already explained the matter to my satisfaction.

What if you have 10-20% certainty the AI being built will kill everyone? Go on a rampage and land yourself in prison just so Lab B or China can win the arms race and their AI can kill everyone? Probably not. Quit your job? Sure.

What if you have a 70% certainty?

You don't have to go on a rampage in an American lab. If Chinese labs were ahead I'd bring about the same discussion.

Though separately if the United States (or China or anyone) believed one country or another was truly going to achieve something akin to a metaphorical AI Supremacy maybe you nuke them, or at least the labs/researchers. Many a sci-fi movie has been built on a similar "first strike" premise.

This is a non sequitur. Yes, if someone doesn't actually believe in imminent AI doomsday they are not going full Sarah Connor on Anthropic. Yes, HN will not like if someone pipe bombs the office. What does it have to do with @ericmay's point?

He directly says "They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives", that's a claim of imminent threat to humanity. If he truly believes that, direct action shouldn't be off the table nor even be immoral. Obviously he might not have the temperament or simply be a pacifist, that's totally normal but the point is that tweets are weird even then.

Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk? Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership? Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC? You'know, try anything?

That's where the "take it with a grain of salt" is important, maybe this is just a jumping point to a better job in the next super safe AI lab (for realsies this time)

> Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk?

Who says that's the only thing he is doing?

> Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership?

Again, illegal. You're asking him to sacrifice his life (somewhat similar to Snowden). You can call not doing that cowardice or wisdom, but not proof that he doesn't believe what he is saying.

> Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC?

Because that is up to CNBC to broadcast. Do you really think you can just call them up and get a timeslot for your soap boxing? Also, maybe he believes the tweets are a start to achieve that. He sure managed to get a lot of attention through them already..

Now I don't know the guy, nor do I care much about his tweets or life. I just think some people here try to confirm their own worldview by fallaciously framing his behavior as suspect.

Consequentialism is not the only option. It invaded the mainstream thanks to effective altruism and friends, but deontological ethics is alive and well.

Quitting your job instead of blowing up the office is well aligned with the latter.

> Quitting your job instead of blowing up the office is well aligned with the latter.

How so, in your view?

To clarify, it is not if killing people aligns with your principles.

No true Scotsman?

Not applicable here

Yes, exactly this. Externally, I have absolutely zero evidence that anything this person describes will come to pass, and I do have evidence that LLMs are not capable of many of the things that he mentions. So this seems like perhaps this person has drank the kool aid and is still not thinking clearly.

This reminds me of Trump hysterics. If someone actually believed that Trump was going to end democracy and become dictator for life and kill all minorities etc, he would behave a lot differently than everyone saying that behaves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has entered the chat...

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