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Comment by yesbut | Hacker News Reader

hot take: generative AI isn't an existential threat to humanity.

These companies are insolvent and these stories were designed to scare the public, and governments, into implementing regulations that designate these AI corporations the "responsible stewards" for this technology. The ultimate goal is to block competitors and open source alternatives.

They don't know how to make enough money pay their investors so they are resorting to trying to scare the public into submission.

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I'm skeptical. The phrase "pacing the frontier" implies disproportionate regulation of firms at the frontier, which if anything would give smaller players time to catch up.

Opposite actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49674548

tl;dr

A slowdown that doesn't slow you, that your competitors must also obey, enforced by a government you've asked for an antitrust exemption from, is not a slowdown... it's a moat.

>A slowdown that doesn't slow you, that your competitors must also obey, enforced by a government you've asked for an antitrust exemption from, is not a slowdown... it's a moat.

Why do you believe this is what Amodei is calling for? Why would this be a slowdown that "doesn't slow" Anthropic?

They are already ahead. If everyone slows down equally, they retain their lead.

The existential threat is a general public panic. Then the use of that as an excuse for Martial law, with no intention of ending it, and that triggers the out sized response that ends, well, those countries and their populations from viability in the world economy for a decade or more.

Anthropic made an operating profit in the last two quarters!!

Only if you ignore their losses. They are saying they are profitable when not counting their training costs and other expenses. That’s not a good sign at all

How can they exclude training costs?? How is that not fraud? At the exact same time they're literally saying they will never stop training unless the state bans all their competitors

They aren’t a public company. GAAP does not apply. They can say whatever the fuck they want.

But they are trying very hard to become a public company as quickly as possible? Sure I guess it's literally true but people shouldn't treat it like it's normal. It's like a creepy 40-year-old announcing they're dating someone on their 18th birthday.

When we're looking at whether the company is "insolvent" then they definitely could stop training and it's worth checking if they would survive in that situation, at least for a while.

I think the spending commitments they have already signed close that door too. They don't presently have the revenue to make those commitments regardless of opex; the only way they will be able to hit them is a massive increase in adoption over what we've seen so far. If they stop advancing the models it becomes really hard to see how that doesn't just immediately evaporate. I suspect any "pacing agreement" would include the state bailing out those commitments.

They can stop training at any time and make a profit by selling their existing models.

If you exclude model training costs, customer acquisition / sales, and most of employee compensation, sure they're profitable. If, on the other hand, you prefer GAAP reporting to bullshit, then they're entirely in the red.

It will be a beautiful day months from now when this is no longer a "hot take" but just historical consensus

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