Said CEOs are horribly biased, they have fiduciary responsibilities that make them useless judges on the relative risk/reward balance of LLMs and AI, if we get there.
"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!" has been a meme for over a decade.
The intent of your comment is unclear to me, so I will ask you to clarify. And I will avoid any attempt at sarcasm from now on.
Great grandparent claimed (or at least strongly implied) that the labs have been saying that their creations might end the human race because the labs expect that saying such things will attract investment in the labs or purchases of their creations. I disputed that claim (using sarcasm).
Do you agree with me or disagree with me? (I honestly cannot tell.)
Would you say that the meme you quoted is sarcasm?
Do you believe that the meme you quoted has attracted investors or buyers?
I did read your comment correctly as a sarcastic way to make the point that, "no, potentially wiping out the human race is not a way to attract investors". I disagree.
I referenced the meme in order to show that yes, the zeitgeist does believe that the investor-class will destroy civilization for short-term profit.
And yes, I believe at least a subset of investors are short-sighted and willing to inflict immense harm for profit, and that claiming the ability to cause incalculable damage is a deliberate attempt to appeal to such people.
I believe the LLM-mania is in no small part driven by an ultimately fraudulent implicit pitch to investors that OpenAI etc will eventually Install Planetary Overlords, and that claiming "we could wipe out the human race" serves as marketing in furtherance of that implication.
So… follow out your own line of thinking. Altman and Dario and whoever is at Google are all saying the same thing, and are all required to make moves better for business…
Scaring tue gov into regulation - is good for business.
Another mark in the “they clearly want regulatory capture” column.
First we should ask why "all the other people who are not CEOs" are talking about this?
Maybe it's because said CEOs put it on the agenda for everyone to talk about.
This is silly. AI CEOs have s lot of visibility, but AI and alignment researchers not affiliated with big corps in any way have been saying this for 20+ years and are finally being listened to. Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence was published in 2014.
Oh like who the media that loves scary things? The “effective altruists” (fucking lol) that are one degree away at most from working for big tech?
My in laws don’t have a microwave because they think it nukes food… one of them mentioned rouge AIs attacking a site called huggingface by name to me… this shit is not organic.
On what regulatory capture actually looks like: <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/what-regulatory-capture-actually-looks-like.html" rel="nofollow">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/wh...
Consider the amount of debt they have piled up. If you don't believe your company can lice up to said debt or the current valuation, and if you do believe fear can lead to government capture that would protect your company from said liabilities, fiduciary liability would incentivize you to push the extinction risk narrative.
If their activities materially increase the probability of human extinction and this poses a risk of potential loss to shareholders then they must disclose it.
If their activities materially increase the probability of human extinction, is there any reason that they should not be treated as invading aliens, or doomsday apocalypse-cult terrorists?
Like, why on Earth would anyone tolerate someone in the same train car playing with a grenade?
In my opinion, no; but they are now getting in bed (Metaphorically) with people who see their software as potential means to "beat China" or "beat Iran" and together they are weaving a very tangled Pandora's box of worms
I dunno, we share an earth with North Korea who has nukes... which perfectly fits your "same train car playing with a grenade" analogy, but we don't do anything about it.
Are you gonna continue to tolerate it? Or are you gonna stop them from playing with grenades in this train car we call earth?
The "increases the risk of extinction" bit is 100% marketing BS that they're spewing to pump up their stock prices and encourage the government to shutout foreign competition (who would use this ability against the USA, of course ).
Read it as "please regulate us so we have a plausible explanation of why we're missing our growth/revenue projections by several orders of magnitude"
surfmike · · focus · HN ↗
_heimdall · · focus · HN ↗
c0nducktr · · focus · HN ↗
usefulcat · · focus · HN ↗
A lot of people will only hear half of that sentence. Semantically speaking.
hollerith · · focus · HN ↗
If only investors and buyers weren't so vulnerable to the "might kill you and everyone you ever cared about" ploy
GolfPopper · · focus · HN ↗
hollerith · · focus · HN ↗
Great grandparent claimed (or at least strongly implied) that the labs have been saying that their creations might end the human race because the labs expect that saying such things will attract investment in the labs or purchases of their creations. I disputed that claim (using sarcasm).
Do you agree with me or disagree with me? (I honestly cannot tell.)
Would you say that the meme you quoted is sarcasm?
Do you believe that the meme you quoted has attracted investors or buyers?
That anyone ever expected that it would?
GolfPopper · · focus · HN ↗
I referenced the meme in order to show that yes, the zeitgeist does believe that the investor-class will destroy civilization for short-term profit.
And yes, I believe at least a subset of investors are short-sighted and willing to inflict immense harm for profit, and that claiming the ability to cause incalculable damage is a deliberate attempt to appeal to such people.
I believe the LLM-mania is in no small part driven by an ultimately fraudulent implicit pitch to investors that OpenAI etc will eventually Install Planetary Overlords, and that claiming "we could wipe out the human race" serves as marketing in furtherance of that implication.
hollerith · · focus · HN ↗
SV_BubbleTime · · focus · HN ↗
So… follow out your own line of thinking. Altman and Dario and whoever is at Google are all saying the same thing, and are all required to make moves better for business…
Scaring tue gov into regulation - is good for business.
Another mark in the “they clearly want regulatory capture” column.
epistasis · · focus · HN ↗
Are we only going to accept arguments based on guessing at motivations or should we perhaps also evaluate the actual material facts?
whattheheckheck · · focus · HN ↗
H4cks0r1337 · · focus · HN ↗
Sharlin · · focus · HN ↗
SV_BubbleTime · · focus · HN ↗
My in laws don’t have a microwave because they think it nukes food… one of them mentioned rouge AIs attacking a site called huggingface by name to me… this shit is not organic.
thakoppno · · focus · HN ↗
Reminds me of “this guy Diego…”
<a href="https://gist.github.com/vyp/8c7a58d2f9a521070283" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/vyp/8c7a58d2f9a521070283
thenthenthen · · focus · HN ↗
eonwe · · focus · HN ↗
_heimdall · · focus · HN ↗
icepush · · focus · HN ↗
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
vkou · · focus · HN ↗
Like, why on Earth would anyone tolerate someone in the same train car playing with a grenade?
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
vkou · · focus · HN ↗
icepush · · focus · HN ↗
braj0 · · focus · HN ↗
Are you gonna continue to tolerate it? Or are you gonna stop them from playing with grenades in this train car we call earth?
jlarocco · · focus · HN ↗
They've played you like a fiddle.
altmanaltman · · focus · HN ↗
legulere · · focus · HN ↗
nick486 · · focus · HN ↗