alt Hacker NewsI really don't like the excuses that are inherent to the "well it was inevitable" line of thinking. Oppenheimer was still responsible for the bomb despite it being "inevitable" in a similar way.
Despite this, when discussing the egregious behavior of the frontier labs, there is vanishingly little acceptance of the idea that 1) yes, it probably was inevitable in some ways AND 2) those involved, particularly at the top, are still responsible for the consequences of their (bad) decisions.
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I have also not been able to lean towards a side in inevitable v/s responsible.
1. Is it both inevitable and still they are responsible? 2. Or it was inevitable and they were just an instrument to make it happen. 3. Or it wasn't inevitable and if it were not for some specific people then it would not have happened?
I am leaning more towards 2. But if that is the case why are only specific people reaping the benefits of this?
If it is 3 or 1, then why aren't we holding them accountable?
I am not sure what gripe you have with the labs, but I think if you are worried about AI then you got shockingly lucky with the lab leadership. My biggest gripe has been the campaign of negativity against ai.
Both nuclear bombs and AI are not inevitable. Technology depends not just on knowledge, but on infrastructure. Building and maintaining nuclear bombs requires enormous amounts of resources, and it's a conscious decision to continue spending those resources to maintain nuclear capability. Similarly, developing AI requires enormous resources, as you can see from the massive investments in hardware and data centers. If the economic foundation for it doesn't exist, you're not going to get more powerful AI.
The models we currently have aren't going away, and especially the ones small enough to run at home will continue to be used, but if these data center investments end up bankrupting Big Tech, I don't think we're ever going to see anything beyond that. Not for a long time, at least.