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Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people seem to have the bizarre opinion that companies like openai declare their own products to be unsafe as some kind of marketing stunt.

Ok- so when is the last time you saw an auto company decide not to release its new car on the grounds that some tragic engineering error was made and the cars were not safe to drive? If the company did that do you imagine it would be good for business?

I'm trying to understand the logic here.

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I would consider it more "bizarre" to assume that Sam Altman was telling the truth about anything.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240112010809/https://www.sfchr...

Car companies sell mostly the same car every year. They don’t have billions (or trillions) of dollars of debt riding on the next model they release being substantially better and cheaper (closer to profitability) than the previous one.

These AI companies have been selling AGI as coming any day for a while now. If it doesn’t arrive soon, the safety angle may be the only spin that keeps the massive (and required) investments pouring in.

If instead the narrative became that LLM progress was slowing, we’d almost certainly be looking at the next global recession.

At this point, there is too much money in AI for the truth to have much of a chance.

And adding to this:

Does anyone really believe that the first company to AGI would decide not to release it in the interests of safety? Of course not. The first company to AGI would not forfeit their historic opportunity.

Yet, we are supposed to believe that in the name of safety, far less capable models are being held back by the very very same companies that are selling the AGI dream.

This is an industry that cannot speak, unless it is speaking out of both sides of its mouth.

Because no car company would ever announce they had an unsafe car. They’d fix the problem and announce an awesome car.

Motorcycle manufacturers have been known to do so. Riding a motorcycle is thrilling in part because it is dangerous. The fact that powerful motorcycles are so difficult to control that most people have no business owning one is absolutely used to make them sound cool and desirable.

For instance, this article repeatedly mentions danger and the need for absolute focus and control:

https://www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk/for-the-ride/news/inspi...

There is also a parallel (though not a very close one) to "pacing the frontier": there's a gentleman's agreement that limits the top speed of motorcycles to 300 kph (186 mph).

Hype: you tell the world you alone have a very powerful and potentially dangerous product, and you're the only one who can be trusted keeping it safe.

Because they declare that their product is unsafe regularly, which gains massive exposure on every news outlet worldwide, then they release the model anyway with zero negative repercussions.

What's with so many people using bad analogies to try and explain simple topics?

Last time this happened: GPT - 4 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/17/openai-sa...

(Not saying that it is a marketing stunt, though they said the same thing about GPT-2).

I think the marketing stunt portion is more that the technology is "too powerful". It's just TOO good. It's so intelligent we couldn't possibly give it to the public! This message, to anyone who's using AI, means that there's something even BETTER than the one they're currently using.

Different type of business. Many car companies release new cars showing you how much more powerful and implied dangerous they are. Both in capabilities and design style. In the US (other places too , but especially) they also get much bigger with less visibility which gets double dangerous. But the sentiment they're going for is pretty close - "you want this powerful thing, don't you?"

>In the US they also get much bigger with less visibility.

Those are usually presented as an improvement in safety. And they are—for the people inside. Not so much for everyone else.

> so when is the last time you saw an auto company decide not to release its new car on the grounds that some tragic engineering error was made and the cars were not safe to drive?

How about we actually try to make it sound cool? They're not releasing the new car because the horsepower was too much, they need more time to get it under control.

I could easily see a car company doing that.

"Drink responsibly."

At the moment, their main "customer" is investors, not users. But even users want to use the most dangerous model, because dangerous is just another word for powerful.

Sports cars are advertised with how fast they can accelerate from time to time, or tesla's "ludicrous mode" - that is them advertising how dangerous it is.

It's perfectly safe for YOU, the CUSTOMER.

It's just so powerful that, like, the WORLD can't handle it, man!

Why do you think they would announce this then?

They know what they're doing, even if you don't.

I think your inclination to take them at face value is the bizarre behavior

There are cars that market based on only being track legal — and even more that market on requiring being tuned down for street safety.

Most sports cars do the second, exactly like OpenAI.

Considering that the venn diagram of AI safety gooners and OpenAI is a circle, and that these idiots are starting to worship this stuff as a religion, expecting rational action from them is kind of ludicrous. For all we know Aella promised them a gangbang if they delayed the model a week.

Okay. I see what is going on here. You are all operating from the deeply held belief that it is inconceivable that a machine can be made that can do every cognitive task a human can do.

And it is very, very important that you understand that that belief is not a rational belief. It is a defense mechanism. People don't want to believe things that are scary, so they make up rationalizations to be able to believe what they want to believe.

And honestly, all of you are right on the edge of full blown conspiracy theory thinking patterns, imagining that this is all some 4D chess marketing or something. I like to recall this quote by Alan Moore on conspiracy theories:

"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory.

The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control.

The world is rudderless."

And that's the actual truth of what is happening here. As vulgar and low as the people in charge of these companies are, they are also stupid humans like us flailing around in the dark. Nobody is in control. Nobody has any grip on this technology. Nobody knows how dangerous it might be. Hugging face was a warning shot; we may not get another. Humans are not the smartest thing imaginable; we are quite stupid. We are just barely above the threshold of consciousness. Machines of far greater power are possible.

lol just unplug the computer and go outside

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