> 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.
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.
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.
"AI companies want to be regarded as something more consequential than ordinary businesses — institutions capable of balancing states — the conversation cannot stop at their freedom from government control. It also has to include the responsibilities that come with becoming indispensable."
--------------
1. We're not there yet. LLM's are great at some things, but we have yet to find out if AI companies are on the fast track to AGI or merely trapped in a deceptively promising local maxima.
2. AI companies, should they build AI capable of replacing more humans, could, potentially, one day, wield economic clout that's disproportionate compared to their own human workforce (instead of just debt). Is political power meant to represent economic output or people though? I would argue that, no matter the impact on the economy, a tech CEO should have one vote, the same as any bum on the street. It may not be the current reality, but that's the ideal of democracy. If we abandon it, the disillusioned masses might not be so complacent about it. Are AI CEO's seriously proposing they be granted a portion of the state's monopoly on violence? Hell no!
3. Couldn't most of this just be done with a competent regulatory body? The current U.S. government doesn't appear capable of regulating lemonade stands and we're always going to be four years or less from another potential bout of gross incompetence. That's what independent regulators are for. Establish a body full of field experts and academics that has the right mix of abilities to figure out what AI companies are doing and how they should be best constrained so that they don't become a net negative to human society. Then put them in an organization that doesn't get hollowed out every four years on the basis of politics.
4. If AI corps really want to make the case that they should be treated differently than other corporations, they need to set better standards of behaviour for themselves. This needs to happen before the conversation we're having now, or it will just be laughably ridiculous, as it is now.
by this article's argument then government should be second to the power of Internet, telecom, electricity, and even water providers. Government can't do very much if the lights are off, communications don't work and the toilets don't flush. Yet all of those examples either live in fear of, are regulated by, the gov.
Unfortunately with the current administration there is a non zero chance that the usurpers merge with the existing government… that wouldn’t be too surprising for Thiel to push for, he’s already the one who made Vance VP and has been pushing the Republican Party to its current anti-democratic form
It is good to see the real game being clarified, and openly admitted to.
Nothing about this technology makes it special. What’s allowing for such conversations is entirely traceable to unsupported claims made by the very companies now looking to cement their control by excluding themselves from all regulation.
A rival to global governmental power. That is the deranged, power hungry goal that is driving the shape of its technology.
The thinking in this article seems muddled to me. Historically there are two fundamental models for rivalries between powerful economic actors and national governments.
* Regulatory capture - AI Labs [partially] capture government functions, i.e., take over. In practice this equates to oligarchy.
* Nationalization - Government takes over AI labs through some form of direct or indirect control (e.g., dirigisme).
The article discussion does not seem to consider either of them. And the idea that AI labs would act in the interest of citizens at large seems laughable. In practice it looks like California Forever [0], which is quite the opposite.
I mostly read it AI Labs == established AI Labs i.e. under control of a few rich people. Else it wouldn't be called AI Labs but, idk. AI Comission (like FCC) or similar
Somehow I feel like this is already the case... How many government employees are already using AI to support their government functions and duties? I'm guessing that its most of them...
Of course they think that. Everybody else should be revolted at that thought. We would point and laugh if they weren’t so serious about it, and if this were not resonating with some people in the current American government.
An astute reader of History could comment that they are just mirroring the structure of power in fascist dictatorships.
That’s something I can get behind. A man living in somewhat similar times said something along the lines of "I hasten to laugh at all, lest I have to cry instead".
(If you want a rabbit hole, Beaumarchais is a nice one. He bankrolled the American war of independence and was instrumental in getting support from the King of France. As an enlightenment philosopher he contributed to the ideology of the Revolution, and then died in 1799. He was instrumental in establishing copyright law in France and founded the first rights management association. He was also a spy and a writer).
As Moises Naim says, these days power is easy to get, hard to use, easy to loose.
As complexity/unpredictability rises in any system its natual that govt will shed power. We have already seen this with setting of interest rates.
There is a long list of reasons why the Treasury Dept, President, House, Senate, Supreme Court or NASA doesnt get to set the rate.
Why did they hand over that power to the central bank? Read some financial system evolution history. Mindlessly ambitious people, the kind who run things hardly ever hand over power to someone else unless they see weilding the power puts a giant bulls eye on their head when the inevitable unpredictable/uncontrolable event occurs. Same goes with the Church or Religious institutions. Why does govt stay out of that lane? Why did Italy hand over the Vatican to the Church?
Haven't read the article, but multiple times during my life I have had to research how to do things in a domain, and have come up against academia (both literature and people), who seemed to have formed an opinion on how to approach certain problems, and what sort of properties a desirable 'correct' solution should have. When I have dug into the reasoning of why things have to be this way, the arguments often devolved into a matter of taste, or the strength of justifications have weakened considerably.
Nevertheless, if one were to turn their backs on existing research, not only would they draw the ire of academics (idc that much), but also would have to do a lot of stuff from scratch themselves, which usually is quite the undertaking.
These flamewars are not uncommon in CS, and usually involve forces and intellects much bigger than mine, and we often end up looking back at viable things left behind in computing history, just because the mainstream decided to go a different way.
If we are to outsource thinking to AI models, we will outsource these consensus driven 'rational' decisions to them, and then AI companies will have a pretty large say on what 'correct' opinions will look like.
there is a huge difference here between that and the central bank
the central bank is semi part of the state, AI Labs are not, AI Labs are fully under directly control of a extremely small number of people in a way which has nothing to do with democracy
founding a Organisation like the FCC but for AI oversight is a completely different topic, but that isn't what he is proposing
> Italy hand over the Vatican to the Church?
because it always had been a nano country under Church control, this is not comparable at all
> Church or Religious institutions.
most democracies have a separation of state and religion where religion has little to no governing power. When this isn't the case it's a failure of the state (often for historic reason). This isn't desirable at all.
This is kinda scary to think about... If we at some point have to pay a 'token-tax' or 'AI-tax' just to have access to something that may be embedded in all aspects of life... I fear society will get even more divided.
It’s generally legal for employers to require employees to supply their own tools as a condition of employment as long as it doesn’t reduce their wage to below minimum wage. Why would developers be any different?
for one, because that's like requiring a particular brand of a tool to be used. That's even ignoring the "required" because usually I can't require that my hide uses a tool unless I, as employer, provide it to him/her
They can require certain “brands” of tools if it’s deemed necessary for some other requirement of the job. In the case of Copilot it’s because Microsoft’s tools already check all the boxes for their enterprise partner requirements and haven’t bothered to do the leg work to get anyone else in-line. It’s completely arbitrary but it’s most likely all legal.
It may not be legal, but somehow I don't doubt that it is happening... I recall several friends over the years being told to use their personal phones or personal computers for work when they were starting out in a new position...
at least in a democracy, even if flawed, power comes from the people, that is the fundamental raison d'être for people allowing a government to exist
this isn't the case of "AI Labs"
what he is proposing is nothing less then establishing at least partial oligarchy, or in other words while indirectly he is relatively openly saying he wants to overthrow not just the US constitution but more or all every democracies constitution (at least in spirit)
EDIT: Assuming AI Labs == existing private AI Labs like OpenAI. Something analog to the FCC for AI or similar is a completely different topic. But this wouldn't be called AI Labs as it wouldn't be a AI Lab. But a faster moving, less bureaucratic, commission (or similar group) which works in tight communication with AI Labs. So I'm pretty sure he means giving OpenAI and co. power officially comparable to the government in some sectors. Which means practical including corruption etc. it might be above that of the government.
These people love the stable regulatory environment of the US government, but despise paying their fair share into it. You could say they are not serious, but unfortunately they are.
This is the guy who said open weight models are “decelerationist” and will lead to “AI communism” and a “dystopian hellscape” so I’d categorize him more as an OpenAI spokesperson than a strategist. His takes always sound more like someone who chugged the kool aid rather than any kind of rational take.
It makes very little sense to regular people because he’s directing his argument to followers of “e/acc” who he assumes should support policies that mindlessly consolidate power and capital in AI “innovators” (aspiring monopolists to the rest of us). Otherwise, who else will give them their immortality mind uploads, full dive VR and the-movie-Her-but-real-life in a few years?
no it's people presenting "this is good for a handful of companies" as if it is the "desirable outcome for the general population" even if the final consequences seem rather bad for the general population and might even threaten democracy
Governments already use AI labs for surveillance, so, just the ownership will change, the victims will always be the citizens (Eg. see Flock cameras). Nothing gets better.
That is a really good point... maybe it will be similar to what happened to the defense sector, where major players swallowed all the minor ones, and then the major ones merged, and became almost embedded into the government afterwards. Both too big to fail and too powerful to leave unchecked (from the goverment's perspective).
Just another scare to gain funding, "because of the implication", overstating their technological impact, conflating scifi with reality. Seems like they aim at overreacting governments, or libertarian plebs to hold the bags this time. C'mon guys, let's do the IPO with crypto, something something Wikileaks!
That's fine, if it doesn't mean throwing your money or taxes at them. Otherwise a democracy eroding social impact will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of tech viability. First and foremost, we should worry about the wealth centralization, resources and power we grant these companies and individuals independent of their product.
> 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.
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.
And they are all on hackernews reading these comments, and often participating.
These freaks need to be handled.
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.
"AI companies want to be regarded as something more consequential than ordinary businesses — institutions capable of balancing states — the conversation cannot stop at their freedom from government control. It also has to include the responsibilities that come with becoming indispensable."
--------------
1. We're not there yet. LLM's are great at some things, but we have yet to find out if AI companies are on the fast track to AGI or merely trapped in a deceptively promising local maxima.
2. AI companies, should they build AI capable of replacing more humans, could, potentially, one day, wield economic clout that's disproportionate compared to their own human workforce (instead of just debt). Is political power meant to represent economic output or people though? I would argue that, no matter the impact on the economy, a tech CEO should have one vote, the same as any bum on the street. It may not be the current reality, but that's the ideal of democracy. If we abandon it, the disillusioned masses might not be so complacent about it. Are AI CEO's seriously proposing they be granted a portion of the state's monopoly on violence? Hell no!
3. Couldn't most of this just be done with a competent regulatory body? The current U.S. government doesn't appear capable of regulating lemonade stands and we're always going to be four years or less from another potential bout of gross incompetence. That's what independent regulators are for. Establish a body full of field experts and academics that has the right mix of abilities to figure out what AI companies are doing and how they should be best constrained so that they don't become a net negative to human society. Then put them in an organization that doesn't get hollowed out every four years on the basis of politics.
4. If AI corps really want to make the case that they should be treated differently than other corporations, they need to set better standards of behaviour for themselves. This needs to happen before the conversation we're having now, or it will just be laughably ridiculous, as it is now.
by this article's argument then government should be second to the power of Internet, telecom, electricity, and even water providers. Government can't do very much if the lights are off, communications don't work and the toilets don't flush. Yet all of those examples either live in fear of, are regulated by, the gov.
Yes, all those examples show that AI labs should be heavily regulated instead of given free rein.
Governments are famously tolerant of other actors seeking to rival or usurp their power.
Unfortunately with the current administration there is a non zero chance that the usurpers merge with the existing government… that wouldn’t be too surprising for Thiel to push for, he’s already the one who made Vance VP and has been pushing the Republican Party to its current anti-democratic form
It is good to see the real game being clarified, and openly admitted to.
Nothing about this technology makes it special. What’s allowing for such conversations is entirely traceable to unsupported claims made by the very companies now looking to cement their control by excluding themselves from all regulation.
A rival to global governmental power. That is the deranged, power hungry goal that is driving the shape of its technology.
Dean Ball is surprisingly blunt given his views, people should probably not let this honesty go to waste.
Well at least they're not hiding their objective any longer.
Is this the timeline where they secret start building Skynet to achieve that goal?
The thinking in this article seems muddled to me. Historically there are two fundamental models for rivalries between powerful economic actors and national governments.
* Regulatory capture - AI Labs [partially] capture government functions, i.e., take over. In practice this equates to oligarchy.
* Nationalization - Government takes over AI labs through some form of direct or indirect control (e.g., dirigisme).
The article discussion does not seem to consider either of them. And the idea that AI labs would act in the interest of citizens at large seems laughable. In practice it looks like California Forever [0], which is quite the opposite.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Forever
edit: clarity
I mostly read it AI Labs == established AI Labs i.e. under control of a few rich people. Else it wouldn't be called AI Labs but, idk. AI Comission (like FCC) or similar
Never gonna happen when governments could just bomb the data centres.
The important meta-conclusion that the article sadly misses is that the government will soon be using AI to regulate AI.
Somehow I feel like this is already the case... How many government employees are already using AI to support their government functions and duties? I'm guessing that its most of them...
Reading this, I feel like the Eisman character in TBS when he's on the phone and he goes "hey there's a bubble".
What makes it a lot more fun is that Oracle's existence depends on OpenAI making it through the bubble.
Of course they think that. Everybody else should be revolted at that thought. We would point and laugh if they weren’t so serious about it, and if this were not resonating with some people in the current American government.
An astute reader of History could comment that they are just mirroring the structure of power in fascist dictatorships.
I still point at laugh. Somebody has to. These people are insane and think they shouldn’t have to follow any rules.
That’s something I can get behind. A man living in somewhat similar times said something along the lines of "I hasten to laugh at all, lest I have to cry instead".
(If you want a rabbit hole, Beaumarchais is a nice one. He bankrolled the American war of independence and was instrumental in getting support from the King of France. As an enlightenment philosopher he contributed to the ideology of the Revolution, and then died in 1799. He was instrumental in establishing copyright law in France and founded the first rights management association. He was also a spy and a writer).
Sounds like someone has a call with Howard Lutnick in their future.
As Moises Naim says, these days power is easy to get, hard to use, easy to loose.
As complexity/unpredictability rises in any system its natual that govt will shed power. We have already seen this with setting of interest rates.
There is a long list of reasons why the Treasury Dept, President, House, Senate, Supreme Court or NASA doesnt get to set the rate.
Why did they hand over that power to the central bank? Read some financial system evolution history. Mindlessly ambitious people, the kind who run things hardly ever hand over power to someone else unless they see weilding the power puts a giant bulls eye on their head when the inevitable unpredictable/uncontrolable event occurs. Same goes with the Church or Religious institutions. Why does govt stay out of that lane? Why did Italy hand over the Vatican to the Church?
Haven't read the article, but multiple times during my life I have had to research how to do things in a domain, and have come up against academia (both literature and people), who seemed to have formed an opinion on how to approach certain problems, and what sort of properties a desirable 'correct' solution should have. When I have dug into the reasoning of why things have to be this way, the arguments often devolved into a matter of taste, or the strength of justifications have weakened considerably.
Nevertheless, if one were to turn their backs on existing research, not only would they draw the ire of academics (idc that much), but also would have to do a lot of stuff from scratch themselves, which usually is quite the undertaking.
These flamewars are not uncommon in CS, and usually involve forces and intellects much bigger than mine, and we often end up looking back at viable things left behind in computing history, just because the mainstream decided to go a different way.
If we are to outsource thinking to AI models, we will outsource these consensus driven 'rational' decisions to them, and then AI companies will have a pretty large say on what 'correct' opinions will look like.
there is a huge difference here between that and the central bank
the central bank is semi part of the state, AI Labs are not, AI Labs are fully under directly control of a extremely small number of people in a way which has nothing to do with democracy
founding a Organisation like the FCC but for AI oversight is a completely different topic, but that isn't what he is proposing
> Italy hand over the Vatican to the Church?
because it always had been a nano country under Church control, this is not comparable at all
> Church or Religious institutions.
most democracies have a separation of state and religion where religion has little to no governing power. When this isn't the case it's a failure of the state (often for historic reason). This isn't desirable at all.
This is kinda scary to think about... If we at some point have to pay a 'token-tax' or 'AI-tax' just to have access to something that may be embedded in all aspects of life... I fear society will get even more divided.
Friend of mine got a new job. He’s required to and only allowed to use Copilot (because muh trusted enterprise partner).
He also has to pay for his subscription/usage out of pocket. Of course they didn’t tell him this until after on-boarding.
The corpo fucks want their cake and to eat it too. That’s where we are headed. Having the privilege to pay to have a bot do our jobs for us.
I don't think this is legal??
It's like telling someone they have to drive none stop for their job but neither giving them a company car or nor a budget for it.
(To be clear done and companies get away with it != legal. I know companies sometimes get away with exactly the example I named in some cases.)
It’s generally legal for employers to require employees to supply their own tools as a condition of employment as long as it doesn’t reduce their wage to below minimum wage. Why would developers be any different?
for one, because that's like requiring a particular brand of a tool to be used. That's even ignoring the "required" because usually I can't require that my hide uses a tool unless I, as employer, provide it to him/her
They can require certain “brands” of tools if it’s deemed necessary for some other requirement of the job. In the case of Copilot it’s because Microsoft’s tools already check all the boxes for their enterprise partner requirements and haven’t bothered to do the leg work to get anyone else in-line. It’s completely arbitrary but it’s most likely all legal.
It may not be legal, but somehow I don't doubt that it is happening... I recall several friends over the years being told to use their personal phones or personal computers for work when they were starting out in a new position...
this should and must not happen
at least in a democracy, even if flawed, power comes from the people, that is the fundamental raison d'être for people allowing a government to exist
this isn't the case of "AI Labs"
what he is proposing is nothing less then establishing at least partial oligarchy, or in other words while indirectly he is relatively openly saying he wants to overthrow not just the US constitution but more or all every democracies constitution (at least in spirit)
EDIT: Assuming AI Labs == existing private AI Labs like OpenAI. Something analog to the FCC for AI or similar is a completely different topic. But this wouldn't be called AI Labs as it wouldn't be a AI Lab. But a faster moving, less bureaucratic, commission (or similar group) which works in tight communication with AI Labs. So I'm pretty sure he means giving OpenAI and co. power officially comparable to the government in some sectors. Which means practical including corruption etc. it might be above that of the government.
They really believe they are the new East Indian Trading Company. Delusion and all.
But the East India Trading Company made money though.
These people love the stable regulatory environment of the US government, but despise paying their fair share into it. You could say they are not serious, but unfortunately they are.
I would say they are not civilized. They are deadly serious.
The "delusions of grandeur" phase of the hype cycle.
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This is the guy who said open weight models are “decelerationist” and will lead to “AI communism” and a “dystopian hellscape” so I’d categorize him more as an OpenAI spokesperson than a strategist. His takes always sound more like someone who chugged the kool aid rather than any kind of rational take.
https://xcancel.com/deanwball/status/2078133895766114412
Sounds more like a crank really.
Open weights deter capex? Who cares!? Nvidia isn't paying me to increase Openai's capex. I want tokens, not capex. Am I misconstruing the argument?
It makes very little sense to regular people because he’s directing his argument to followers of “e/acc” who he assumes should support policies that mindlessly consolidate power and capital in AI “innovators” (aspiring monopolists to the rest of us). Otherwise, who else will give them their immortality mind uploads, full dive VR and the-movie-Her-but-real-life in a few years?
no it's people presenting "this is good for a handful of companies" as if it is the "desirable outcome for the general population" even if the final consequences seem rather bad for the general population and might even threaten democracy
The argument's so moronic I can't even follow it...
Governments already use AI labs for surveillance, so, just the ownership will change, the victims will always be the citizens (Eg. see Flock cameras). Nothing gets better.
That is a really good point... maybe it will be similar to what happened to the defense sector, where major players swallowed all the minor ones, and then the major ones merged, and became almost embedded into the government afterwards. Both too big to fail and too powerful to leave unchecked (from the goverment's perspective).
in the way Elon Musk rivals government power, with his ownership and absolute power over a social media platform, satellite internet much more, sure.
But it doesn’t really rival government power, given that the government would most likely crush anything that truly tries to compete.
(and if you don’t have the power to compete, do you truly rival it?)
Just another scare to gain funding, "because of the implication", overstating their technological impact, conflating scifi with reality. Seems like they aim at overreacting governments, or libertarian plebs to hold the bags this time. C'mon guys, let's do the IPO with crypto, something something Wikileaks!
If I could be wrong either way I'd rather overestimate the impact than underestimate it.
That's fine, if it doesn't mean throwing your money or taxes at them. Otherwise a democracy eroding social impact will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of tech viability. First and foremost, we should worry about the wealth centralization, resources and power we grant these companies and individuals independent of their product.
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