Thread

LeCun has "zero concerns" about AI wiping out humanity, recent "rogue" incidents

399 points · 752 comments · Anon84

lukewarm707 · 1791068851 · focus · HN ↗
Per <a href="https://trace.manifund.org/" rel="nofollow">https://trace.manifund.org/ a total of $2,846,125,859 USD has been wired into 'ai safety' causes, many involving ai consciousness and p(doom).
The outcome of this 'safety' is restricting public access to AI and giving a monopoly of access to the industry. This is the ai nonprofit-industrial complex actively concentrating monopoly power in Anthropic in particular as creator, interpreter and safety regulator of AI.
Much of the $2.8bn listed is indirectly, from Anthropic and EA. Three of the four people who participated in the $125m Anthropic Series A are now folding their 1000x Anthropic return into AI 'safety'. Some is from FTX/Alameda, which invested 86% of the Series B.
Dustin Moskovitz: Facebook/Asana/Anthropic Series A, funds EA Good Ventures, transferred to Coefficient Giving, then $1.5bn into ai safety. $500m of Anthropic into an unknown foundation. Funding: $160m to Resolution (alignment research), $93m to Epoch AI (investigating the trajectory of AI), $63m to Redwood Research (oai report), $67m to MATS ( EA type alignment and security researchers), Institute for AI Policy and Strategy, Fund for Alignment Research, $53m to Kairos (building talent infrastructure for AI safety), $32m to Bluedot (online safety courses), $15m to MIRI (Yudkowsky).
Jaan Tallinn: Led the Series A, now $10bn in Anthropic. Funds $199m (85%) of the Survival and Flourishing Fund, then $161m to AI safety including $14m to lightcone (Lesswrong, Lighthouse). $10m to BERI (existential risks), Palisade Research (studying AI capabilities to prevent loss of control.) PauseAI, MIRI, METR etc. Much of what Coefficient funds.
Eric Schmidt: Anthropic Series A, $72m to AI safety via Schmidt Sciences. Over $1m per individual AI2050 researcher.
FTX: Led the Anthropic Series B, bankruptcy estate sold $884m of Anthropic in 2024; $40m to AI Safety. Same orgs, Redwood, Lightcone, etc.
Ruairí Donnelly (Chief of Staff FTX): FTX tokens plus assorted donors, $91m to AI safety via Macroscopic Ventures. $15m to Cooperative AI (currently whitewashing openai under 'multiagent safety')
1. 0xDEAFBEAD · 1791070486 · focus · HN ↗
  If people are willing to give a lot of money to a cause, sometimes that means their concern about that cause is real.
  None of the info you provided really falsifies the Occam's Razor hypothesis: Anthropic is a public benefit corporation with a public benefit mission to "responsibly develop and maintain advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity". You don't have to like or trust them, but they very well might be sincere. For example here's a talk that was given 10 years before Anthropic's founding: <a href="https://vimeo.com/158576192" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/158576192
  1. lukewarm707 · 1791071080 · focus · HN ↗
    Is Tallinn sincere about holding $10bn of Anthropic, who refuse to slow down until everyone else slows down.
    Then funding PauseAI, who protest outside the AI companies?
    He is funding protests against the thing he owns.
    0xDEAFBEAD · 1791071416 · focus · HN ↗
    Why do you think Tallin holding ~1% of Anthropic would be a controlling interest that would allow him to force it to pause?
    miohtama · 1791071480 · focus · HN ↗
    There cannot be regulation if people are not scared
    0xDEAFBEAD · 1791071919 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    afthonos · 1791073339 · focus · HN ↗
    Don’t ruin their vibe.
    jswelker · 1791079314 · focus · HN ↗
    Indeed I find LeCun and Huang (and Trump?) recently arguing against AI regulation to be much more eyebrow raising than the folks asking for regulation.
    lukewarm707 · 1791132035 · focus · HN ↗
    It is important to note that Anthropic is not calling for a harsher liability regime. They intend to maintain the current projected profitability of the company. This is a case of obeying market competition.
    Note the Anthropic scaling policy. I am taking care not to take quotes out of context. This is an accurate excerpt.
    "This section outlines our recommendations for what it would take, at an industry-wide level, to keep catastrophic risks reliably low through a period of rapid advances in AI capabilities." [...]
    "The right column describes our recommendations for industry-wide safety at each threshold." [...]
    "In particular, we cannot unilaterally and unconditionally commit to staying in line with the industry-wide recommendations in the right column." (p4) [<a href="https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/e670587677525f28df69b59e5fb4c22cc5461a17.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/e670587677525f28df69b59e5fb4c2...]
    They refuse to act safely if it would cause them to fall behind in the industry.
    "We hoped that by the time we reached these higher capabilities, the world would clearly see the dangers, and that we’d be able to coordinate with governments worldwide in implementing safeguards that are difficult for one company to achieve alone." [<a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/responsible-scaling-policy-v3" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/news/responsible-scaling-policy-v3]
    They will not act safely unless they are able to collude with other firms to set production quotas.
    This is a formal declaration that Anthropic will not slow down according to what they consider to be safe unless they are able to form a cartel.
    A cartel is illegal.
    To create the cartel, Anthropic must pursuade the government to make coordinated production legal. To make the case for the cartel, Anthropic relies on safety. They are blackmailing the entirety of the world by threatening to proceed at an unsafe pace, unless they are granted their cartel.
    pixl97 · 1791136282 · focus · HN ↗
    bla bla bla.
    Let's play a game. Prove that you are not a power seeking AI looking to stop regulation in order to ensure the race continues. See, two can play this game of throwing random claims around.
    >They will not act safely unless they are able to collude with other firms to set production quotas.
    And? Neither will OpenAI, nor will any of the major players. Hell, there isn't even much legal precedent on what "safely" even is here. This is not a cartel, it's asking the government to make a set of laws and rules for everyone to play under otherwise the entire system ends up being a race to danger.
    The people in Anthropic were thinking about AI safety when you were still in diapers. Not everything is a vast conspiracy.
    throwawayk7h · 1791082696 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm against AI but I'll invest in it too. Either I win or I get a return on my investment.
  2. 0xDEAFBEAD · 1791072610 · focus · HN ↗
    There is also money going towards trying to prevent AI regulations btw. See Leading the Future, etc.

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