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> Ball, who recently joined OpenAI as Head of Strategic Futures, has argued that frontier AI labs could become a “counterbalance to government.” Before joining

by gr_norm 1mo ago

> Ball, who recently joined OpenAI as Head of Strategic Futures, has argued that frontier AI labs could become a “counterbalance to government.” Before joining the company, he described the organizations building the most advanced AI systems as a “new kind of institution under the sun.” Upvoted not because this is an agreeable idea, but so more people see their insanity for what it is.

abixb 1mo ago
Some of the people in the tech industry are, for lack of a better word, borderline insane. They forget how it was literally initial government investments into DARPA and other organizations that laid the foundation for the long ascendance of the tech industry in Northern California, aside from huge pool of talented people imported from mostly Asia. Even a good chunk of artificial neural network and "AI" research was NSF/government-funded, iirc. I've been noticing a level of dislike for the tech industry that I haven't ever seen before among my fellow tech peers, and it's all squarely pointed at one thing — insane concentration of wealth, power and compute at the hands of private corporations.
- bogzz 1mo ago
  And they are all on hackernews reading these comments, and often participating.
- watwut 1mo ago
  They dont forget that. They dont care about any of that. It is a pursuit of a complete power, origins of DARPA are as relevant as history of typewriter.
selectodude 1mo ago
These freaks need to be handled.
pohl 1mo ago
No doubt. Government is already on the ropes in the struggle against billionaires and large industrial/resource-extraction lobbies. If anything, that’s what needs counterweight.
lovich 1mo ago
I expect if someone pulls a Luigi on one of these guys we’re going to see the same surprisingly bipartisan response from the country of “fuck em”
- danny_codes 1mo ago
  Or rather, unsurprising response. Obviously everyone is going to cheer when what's his face gets killed. I mean how many 100,000s of people can your company murder before you get off'd by one of the survivors.
danny_codes 1mo ago
Bro is delusional. The only reason there aren't 45 LLM competitors is compute costs. Once costs fall the tech will commoditize. It is interesting that a role like "Head of Strategic Futures" both exists and attracts insane people.
- CircuitSeuss 1mo ago
  Alternatively, the tech never commoditizes because of the scale of power dynamics at play, and we’re stuck with a few increasingly more wealthy and powerful corporations.
  - danny_codes 26d ago
    Regulatory capture is always an option, true. Certainly seems to be the favored direction of the current administration.
- Incipient 1mo ago
  The role exists because if you and I both know AI is heading towards being a commodity (thanks China!) then openai absolutely knows it too, and they're planning HARD to avoid this existential threat.
- sysguest 1mo ago
  well what can you expect? "Head of" + "Strategic" + "Futures"...? hard to not attract insane people

by gr_norm 1mo ago

abixb 1mo ago

Some of the people in the tech industry are, for lack of a better word, borderline insane. They forget how it was literally initial government investments into DARPA and other organizations that laid the foundation for the long ascendance of the tech industry in Northern California, aside from huge pool of talented people imported from mostly Asia. Even a good chunk of artificial neural network and "AI" research was NSF/government-funded, iirc. I've been noticing a level of dislike for the tech industry that I haven't ever seen before among my fellow tech peers, and it's all squarely pointed at one thing — insane concentration of wealth, power and compute at the hands of private corporations.

bogzz 1mo ago
And they are all on hackernews reading these comments, and often participating.
watwut 1mo ago
They dont forget that. They dont care about any of that. It is a pursuit of a complete power, origins of DARPA are as relevant as history of typewriter.

selectodude 1mo ago

These freaks need to be handled.

pohl 1mo ago

No doubt. Government is already on the ropes in the struggle against billionaires and large industrial/resource-extraction lobbies. If anything, that’s what needs counterweight.

lovich 1mo ago

I expect if someone pulls a Luigi on one of these guys we’re going to see the same surprisingly bipartisan response from the country of “fuck em”

danny_codes 1mo ago
Or rather, unsurprising response. Obviously everyone is going to cheer when what's his face gets killed. I mean how many 100,000s of people can your company murder before you get off'd by one of the survivors.

danny_codes 1mo ago

Bro is delusional. The only reason there aren't 45 LLM competitors is compute costs. Once costs fall the tech will commoditize. It is interesting that a role like "Head of Strategic Futures" both exists and attracts insane people.

CircuitSeuss 1mo ago
Alternatively, the tech never commoditizes because of the scale of power dynamics at play, and we’re stuck with a few increasingly more wealthy and powerful corporations.
- danny_codes 26d ago
  Regulatory capture is always an option, true. Certainly seems to be the favored direction of the current administration.
Incipient 1mo ago
The role exists because if you and I both know AI is heading towards being a commodity (thanks China!) then openai absolutely knows it too, and they're planning HARD to avoid this existential threat.
sysguest 1mo ago
well what can you expect? "Head of" + "Strategic" + "Futures"...? hard to not attract insane people