6 ms·

? It absolutely is a race. Whether thats a positive thing or not is debatable but every lab is definitely in a race. What prize do you win? Imagine a world w

? It absolutely is a race. Whether thats a positive thing or not is debatable but every lab is definitely in a race. What prize do you win? Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI. Or a world where Europe only gets access to frontier models 6 months later. Far from ideal.

ux266478 1mo ago
> What prize do you win? Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI. "Winning the race" doesn't give you that in any meaningful capacity. It gives you, at the absolute most, a temporary window where that's the case. See: nuclear weapons.
- xeromal 1mo ago
  Russia invaded Ukraine specifically because they have nukes. Everyone is afraid to fight back.
- jr3592 1mo ago
  As if time isn't money? Everything is temporary... Getting somewhere first has immense value.
  - ux266478 1mo ago
    A reductive equation, economics isn't thermodynamics. Money is fictional and value is subjective and unstable. Within this context, being first to AGI means nothing if the second invention of it comes 2 months later and works an order of magnitude faster than what the first iteration had self-improved to at that point in time. First mover advantage isn't decisive, you have to actually be able to capitalize on it in a robust way.
    - fn-mote 1mo ago
      > works an order of magnitude faster This is the weakest part of the argument. Absolutely no reason to believe the second inventor will be 10x faster. Does this ever happen? Even in traditional manufacturing, the second “inventor” starts behind and has to improve their own process to surpass the first.
    - 799tppp 1mo ago
      [dead]
- booi 1mo ago
  Citing nuclear weapons isn't the flex you think it is. There are only 9 countries that have nuclear weapons and they absolutely flex this power over non-nuclear powers (see Ukraine, Germany, SE Asia etc..) Europe already has an innovation problem that's already causing structural economic instabilities which Germany has been struggling (and lately failing) to prop up. As much as it pains me to say this, AI is already a tech revolution and it seems like Europe is just ignoring it. There's more innovation in 3 blocks in downtown San Francisco than the entire continent of Europe.
  - ux266478 1mo ago
    > There are only 9 countries that have nuclear weapons QED being first didn't grant exclusivity. The premise wasn't that AGI isn't useful. There are actually layers to the metaphor where first-mover advantage of AGI is even less meaningful than it was for nuclear weapons, but I leave those as an exercise to the reader to discover.
    - fn-mote 1mo ago
      > first-mover advantage of AGI is even less meaningful This is your opinion. Lots of tech money appears to disagree. You should at least try to explain your contrarian position, or cite your favorite source that makes an argument that you believe.
      - ux266478 1mo ago
        > You should at least try to explain your contrarian position FWIW I explained it fully and provided the argument, along with explicit grounding examples. Can you tell me what exactly you don't understand? To quote your other post: > This is the weakest part of the argument. Absolutely no reason to believe the second inventor will be 10x faster. Nor is there any reason to believe that it will work at any usable speed. An LLM capable of AGI running at 0.000001tok/s isn't a very good head start. Nor is it a good moat if it can't actually realize anything material fast enough. Lord knows America has labor problems. I'm demonstrating the context is a lot more complicated than "be first". There are innumerable specific examples. They're not guaranteed to happen, that's not the point being made. Also "no reason" is curious when it's the explicit pattern this exact industry has exhibited. Chinese models lag a few months, and come in swinging with an order of magnitude more efficiency. Does it apply? Who can say. It's certainly on the table. Pretending like it's any more ridiculous than AGI itself is irrational. > Does this ever happen? Even in traditional manufacturing, the second “inventor” starts behind and has to improve their own process to surpass the first. To use the industry itself once again: Japan was the first to deep learning. Performance issues prevented them from capitalizing on it. Now they're barely even a player on the field. Interestingly and adjacent to the industry, Japan was second to symbolic AI, and the FGCS was lightyears ahead of America's crufty Lisp ecosystem. For a more modern example, Google was the first to transformers. Much of this revolution is thanks to them. A shame that Gemini is third-rate at best. It's not unique to this industry. That second inventor more often than not does a better job than the original one. It's a pretty common pattern. Otherwise, we wouldn't need patents. My "contrarian position" is anything but. There is nothing new under the sun. You don't just need to be first, you need to maintain exclusivity.
vrganj 1mo ago
This presupposes AGI or ASI are a real, reachable thing. My read is they might be, but not as LLMs. Until there's a fundamental rearchitecture, I'm AGI-agnostic and given that view, it doesn't seem rational to bet the house on it. We'll see.
expedited123 1mo ago
> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI. You've fallen for the hype. The only way these AI companies can justify their bullshit worth and burn of capital is by promising a magical AGI. It's just marketing and it is still unclear if LLM's will ever be profitable. If they won't - then EU is doing the right thing laying low. > Or a world where Europe only gets access to frontier models 6 months later. What a calamity!
- w4yai 1mo ago
  > If they won't - then EU is doing the right thing laying low. Exactly. People seem to forget that US is burning money at an accelerating rate without any promise of returns. This is a high risk situation. Time will tell.
tripledry 1mo ago
> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI My own bet is that this won't happen with the current race, but that's another discussion. Anyways, bit of a doomer take but if I imagine a world with AGI/ASI, countries don't mean shit anymore. Humans are not the top dog anymore.
toasty228 1mo ago
> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI Who says the LLM race ends at an AGI/ASI finish line in the first place ?

ux266478 1mo ago

> What prize do you win? Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI. "Winning the race" doesn't give you that in any meaningful capacity. It gives you, at the absolute most, a temporary window where that's the case. See: nuclear weapons.

xeromal 1mo ago
Russia invaded Ukraine specifically because they have nukes. Everyone is afraid to fight back.
jr3592 1mo ago
As if time isn't money? Everything is temporary... Getting somewhere first has immense value.
- ux266478 1mo ago
  A reductive equation, economics isn't thermodynamics. Money is fictional and value is subjective and unstable. Within this context, being first to AGI means nothing if the second invention of it comes 2 months later and works an order of magnitude faster than what the first iteration had self-improved to at that point in time. First mover advantage isn't decisive, you have to actually be able to capitalize on it in a robust way.
  - fn-mote 1mo ago
    > works an order of magnitude faster This is the weakest part of the argument. Absolutely no reason to believe the second inventor will be 10x faster. Does this ever happen? Even in traditional manufacturing, the second “inventor” starts behind and has to improve their own process to surpass the first.
  - 799tppp 1mo ago
    [dead]
booi 1mo ago
Citing nuclear weapons isn't the flex you think it is. There are only 9 countries that have nuclear weapons and they absolutely flex this power over non-nuclear powers (see Ukraine, Germany, SE Asia etc..) Europe already has an innovation problem that's already causing structural economic instabilities which Germany has been struggling (and lately failing) to prop up. As much as it pains me to say this, AI is already a tech revolution and it seems like Europe is just ignoring it. There's more innovation in 3 blocks in downtown San Francisco than the entire continent of Europe.
- ux266478 1mo ago
  > There are only 9 countries that have nuclear weapons QED being first didn't grant exclusivity. The premise wasn't that AGI isn't useful. There are actually layers to the metaphor where first-mover advantage of AGI is even less meaningful than it was for nuclear weapons, but I leave those as an exercise to the reader to discover.
  - fn-mote 1mo ago
    > first-mover advantage of AGI is even less meaningful This is your opinion. Lots of tech money appears to disagree. You should at least try to explain your contrarian position, or cite your favorite source that makes an argument that you believe.
    - ux266478 1mo ago
      > You should at least try to explain your contrarian position FWIW I explained it fully and provided the argument, along with explicit grounding examples. Can you tell me what exactly you don't understand? To quote your other post: > This is the weakest part of the argument. Absolutely no reason to believe the second inventor will be 10x faster. Nor is there any reason to believe that it will work at any usable speed. An LLM capable of AGI running at 0.000001tok/s isn't a very good head start. Nor is it a good moat if it can't actually realize anything material fast enough. Lord knows America has labor problems. I'm demonstrating the context is a lot more complicated than "be first". There are innumerable specific examples. They're not guaranteed to happen, that's not the point being made. Also "no reason" is curious when it's the explicit pattern this exact industry has exhibited. Chinese models lag a few months, and come in swinging with an order of magnitude more efficiency. Does it apply? Who can say. It's certainly on the table. Pretending like it's any more ridiculous than AGI itself is irrational. > Does this ever happen? Even in traditional manufacturing, the second “inventor” starts behind and has to improve their own process to surpass the first. To use the industry itself once again: Japan was the first to deep learning. Performance issues prevented them from capitalizing on it. Now they're barely even a player on the field. Interestingly and adjacent to the industry, Japan was second to symbolic AI, and the FGCS was lightyears ahead of America's crufty Lisp ecosystem. For a more modern example, Google was the first to transformers. Much of this revolution is thanks to them. A shame that Gemini is third-rate at best. It's not unique to this industry. That second inventor more often than not does a better job than the original one. It's a pretty common pattern. Otherwise, we wouldn't need patents. My "contrarian position" is anything but. There is nothing new under the sun. You don't just need to be first, you need to maintain exclusivity.

vrganj 1mo ago

This presupposes AGI or ASI are a real, reachable thing. My read is they might be, but not as LLMs. Until there's a fundamental rearchitecture, I'm AGI-agnostic and given that view, it doesn't seem rational to bet the house on it. We'll see.

expedited123 1mo ago

> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI. You've fallen for the hype. The only way these AI companies can justify their bullshit worth and burn of capital is by promising a magical AGI. It's just marketing and it is still unclear if LLM's will ever be profitable. If they won't - then EU is doing the right thing laying low. > Or a world where Europe only gets access to frontier models 6 months later. What a calamity!

w4yai 1mo ago
> If they won't - then EU is doing the right thing laying low. Exactly. People seem to forget that US is burning money at an accelerating rate without any promise of returns. This is a high risk situation. Time will tell.

tripledry 1mo ago

> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI My own bet is that this won't happen with the current race, but that's another discussion. Anyways, bit of a doomer take but if I imagine a world with AGI/ASI, countries don't mean shit anymore. Humans are not the top dog anymore.

toasty228 1mo ago

> Imagine a world where only one country has AGI/ASI Who says the LLM race ends at an AGI/ASI finish line in the first place ?