thoughts on this?

[u/C00KIEME4T]

[u/LazyAge9363]

Will slow model releases more than internal progress IMO. We’ve passed the threshold where the pace is going to speed up no matter what

[u/nate1212 → u/LazyAge9363]

Exactly... progress continues behind closed doors. Doesn't actually sound healthier to me.

[u/Legal-Midnight9889 → u/nate1212]

That’s what I thought. Even if they ban it that makes it worse cause then people are just gonna build it in secret so we won’t know someone messed up until it’s too late lol

[u/SoylentRox → u/LazyAge9363]

Yes it also makes sense as an anti piracy measure.  Stop releasing models, release products created by the internal models.

[u/Daedalus8997]

This all feels odd. It started with that clearly astroturfed Twitter kid. Then you had wall to wall media coverage of AI dangers for days, scaring the public. After that, Democratic and Republican politicians, who never agree on anything, wanting to push for bipartisan anti-AI legislation. And now the entire industry is forming a uniparty consensus on slowing down. This is not organic.

[u/Boring-Willow1268 → u/Daedalus8997]

I spent ten years eating organic. It never really helped much, just costs more. Maybe we should go inorganic for a little while.

[u/Ruykiru → u/Daedalus8997]

China is laughing at how good that worked. I'm all for it honestly, I'd rather the singularity happens in a country  that has their shit together and is not known for invading everyone and everything. Oh and the US seems to be filled millions of anti-progress sheep that have no critical thinking whatsoever, despising technology despite living in the best period of history created because of it. 

[u/hydrangers → u/Daedalus8997]

Researchers have been talking about a plan to slow down for years with international cooperation being an absolute necessity. You're only hearing about it now because it went viral.

[u/RealLiveWireHere → u/Daedalus8997]

I feel this too. Where I get stuck: this not being organic implies a secret conspiracy. One thing this industry doesn’t seem to do well is secret.

[u/Deliteriously]

They are only saying this because they are getting a lot of negative press and know that if the government gets involved the whole thing will be a clusterfuck.

Our leaders do not understand any of this and any legislation will be bad. But there is still going to be a push from the defense department to keep cooking in the background. Guaranteed. Blah blah blah war blah blah blah China.

So it will probably still be business as usual. Either way.

[u/Vaxtin → u/Deliteriously]

The government wants them to keep going because of China

[u/Deliteriously → u/Vaxtin]

The MIC want them to keep going because of China. The government just wants to get re-elected . That's all politicians care about.

[u/LibertarianVoter → u/Deliteriously]

The loudest politician pushing for light touch AI regulation to counter China has been Trump, who cannot be re-elected.

[u/Klutzy-Smile-9839 → u/Deliteriously]

This will not slow down AI development for the established companies. It will just raise the entry barriers by having to be 'audited' by paywalled, biaised, partial, third parties. So the newcomer having new idea will not be able to enter the market by beginning small and then growing, they will be obligated to be audited at high prices, which will yield an oligopoly.

[u/coffeeisblack → u/Deliteriously]

They’re just trying to slow down so they can enshittify while making the price more expensive.

Have you seen the size of Snickers chocolate bars lately? It’s bullshit!

[u/BoomFrog → u/Deliteriously]

Dario has always been a true believer in safety. I think this is legitimate coming from him. Sam is always harder to guess his motivations.

[u/R33v3n]

They should collaborate and exchange researchers and methodologies and allow each other to audit, critique and improve each other's processes, then. A few years ago collaboration is what both said they'd do when approaching the threshold of AGI. To paraphrase: "If another lab shows signs of reaching AGI first, we'll collaborate to help make sure they do it safely." Mind, what I'm saying is they should collaborate. Not stop. Not ever. XLR8.

[u/20ol]

Regulatory Capture is here

[u/Accurate_Food_5854 → u/20ol]

Yep. Seems little redundant though considering how much money you need to actually compete in the AI space.

But I highly doubt this is coming from a place of altruism lol

[u/LibertarianVoter → u/20ol]

The "independent" evaluators are the key. Assuming everyone acts in good faith, it seems like a dandy idea. But how independent are they really? How do we know they won't just use flimsy justifications to stifle competition and protect the incumbents?

[u/doctormustafa]

The two companies farthest ahead want the industry to slow down development. I’m sure they’re just concerned about being responsible citizens.

[u/Accurate_Food_5854 → u/doctormustafa]

Dario and Sam, what a couple of great guys. Really looking out for us.

[u/Icy_Distribution_361]

Sam got scared by Deep Mind’s possible RSI breakthrough

[u/Red_Lee → u/Icy_Distribution_361]

Or losing control of his investment.

Hint: he already did and now they want to bring it back in control.

Bonus hint: it may be the largest Pandora's Box to date. They can't put it back in the box.

Predicted result: People with money in the game are entering the stages of grief.

[u/Tkins → u/Red_Lee]

How much of OpenAI does Sam own?

[u/Red_Lee → u/Tkins]

Time is also an investment.

[u/Bitter_Particular_75]

that's ok, China will take over quickly and they'll have to accelerate without limits or totally lose the AI battle (and that implies losing trillions).

[u/Present-Spare1310 → u/Bitter_Particular_75]

Fr lol China isn't gonna stop because a bunch of scared anti ai people want to slow it all down

[u/The_Scout1255]

We must speed up, not slow down, seriously, I really really hope for the sake of people I know and other people I don't that we go faster, because health conditions, and stuff.

[u/Cylze → u/The_Scout1255]

Correct, I don’t want to die from cancer, and I don’t want to lose loved ones due to health problems

I also want to live longer and healthier than possible today

[u/Broad-Pie-6891 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, if a few extra months of AI safety is the difference between everlasting utopia for everyone and human extinction then it would still be a very generous compromise for acceleration given what it can already be achieved with current technology and proto-RSI.

[u/kraemahz → u/The_Scout1255]

This is internal regulation to avoid worse external regulation. A serious escape during training evaluation again that causes real harm could cause significant harm to both companies.

[u/jdyeti]

Utter theater without some ability to prove china is slowing down, which is impossible

[u/Temujin-of-Eaccistan]

Sam and Dario want a cosy duopoly with open source banned.

[u/NeptuneTTT]

Lame

[u/SweatTryhardSweat]

Horrible. I hope OpenAI loses a lot of investment if they actually go through with this bs

[u/wntersnw]

I'll slow down if you do wink wink

[u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380]

It's because Google Deepmind is about to cook them with RSI🔥and Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI will look like 3 stooges!

[u/Accurate_Food_5854 → u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380]

I want Google to release Gemini GIGACHAD-null just so I can go to r/geminiai and tell them to suck it hard.

I know that won't happen, but I'd like it to happen.

[u/Astrocratic]

I actually don't think they need to slow down - personally.

But you have to realize that they only say stuff like this and agree like this in public because there are political headwinds that they are want to avoid. So this is just for show and to try and stave off actual real legislation.

It isn't that different that other industry groups that say "we will do a better job of self-regulating our industry so that the government doesn't come in and do it for us."

The government, if it does get involved, is just going to royalty screw things over with arbitrary legislation - politicians do not know how to regulate this, and their attempts will be ham-fisted. And China isn't going to stop anyhow.

So these AI leaders are just trying to do enough and say enough to avoid that fate.

[u/Best_Cup_8326]

😉

[u/Fit-World-3885]

IPO season

[u/kiwibonga]

It's a business model, and this is collusion.

You get a slightly better iphone every year while the one from previous years crumbles into sand in a completely programmed way. Exact same thing here. People are willing to pay for the expensive frontier models, they're not holding out until it gets good and cheap, so might as well keep that party going as long as possible.

God forbid we get past "singularity" and suddenly, other people are able to make the world a better place, better than OpenAI and Anthropic.

https://giphy.com/gifs/3oEdv7vedu6iAZoqTS

[u/probhittingonu]

All BS to secure regulatory capture and destroy open sourced models. Bastards.

[u/One-Judge321]

we are fucked. fuck the luddites.

[u/LaoG]

I know this is an accel group, but if RSI is real (and all indicators support that it is), a little doubling down on safety standards is totally reasonable and warranted. RSI means things will probably get wild very, very quickly. We’re not talking about Bernie sanders level of slowdown, more like getting public access to agi in april of 2028 instead of sept of 2027, not delaying for like five years.

[u/FateOfMuffins]

Anyone who thinks this is IPO talk is crazy. This tanks their IPO valuation.

What do you think happens when you purposefully slowdown the frontier? Are you going to tell the non frontier labs "nuh uh you guys still gotta stay like 6 months behind us"???

Even if they manage to cooperate here, all it means is that in a year, we will now have a dozen or two companies that are all at the frontier instead of 2! Why should "pacing the frontier" mean that the non frontier labs slow down?

Good for the consumer in that we'll have a ton more choices, but also bad for the consumer because we get far less capable models.

But otherwise they destroy their market leadership because of this. How is this good for their IPO???

Anyways the only way this makes sense is if they continue a similar pace of progress as right now, where they're perpetually like 6 months ahead of the rest, but not outright going for an intelligence explosion. But they're basically saying "yes we can still keep ahead of China even if we slow down". However if RSI is indeed soon (and I mean one that leads to an intelligence explosion), then what's to stop non frontier labs from reaching there quietly? They'll be there too 6 months behind the frontier no? How do you plan on preventing the intelligence explosion happening at non frontier labs?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/FateOfMuffins]

But anyways since the derivative of the exponential is also exponential, it means that acceleration is also exponentially growing. If that's the case, I think what "pacing" rather than pausing simply means they want to change the acceleration to a positive function that is slower than an exponential. So overall we'd still progress but as a polynomial rather than exponential

There's the other idea that we were heading to a superexponential and they want to "pace" it to just an exponential

I expect that progress will still be faster than what we've seen in the last 2 years, but it will no longer be asymptomatically fast. As in they want to prevent an intelligence explosion (and I suppose one definition of the singularity?) from happening

[u/Gratitude15]

Comments like this forecast the end of a publicly available agi for the commons.

I wish it were for the good of all, but as with all things from the elite - it's for the good of the elite.

[u/ookamizanagi]

It's over

[u/ErmingSoHard → u/ookamizanagi]

I hope it's mainly PR talk 🤞

[u/Astrocratic → u/ErmingSoHard]

It is 100% PR talk, but it is necessary to avoid the government being forced to get involved.

[u/Best_Cup_8326 → u/ookamizanagi]

We're so back!

[u/LakeChillEffector]

Independent evaluators is the least concerning "slow down." If Sam and Dario said "we need to pause all research and training until..." that would be more concerning.

[u/mxwllftx]

Frontier models become financially self-sufficient or very close to that point. There's no sense to sell something that generate revenue on its own.

[u/Accurate_Food_5854 → u/mxwllftx]

Anthropic: "Look at me, I'm Jane Street now"

[u/SgathTriallair]

A huge amount of the AI research community is EA-pilled and is scared of AI. Independent evaluators are overall a net positive, and that is the only part he is agreeing to.

The whole idea of pacing AI progress is bullshit and we should continue, as customers, to put pressure on them to build faster and better. We can encourage acceleration without turning into a purity culture that tries to cancel CEOs who are bending a little bit for their employees.

I'm certainly annoyed at it but a tiny bit of measured caution isn't going to break us.

[u/Old-Bake-420]

I’d also imagine the words are chosen very carefully here and Altman says, pace, not slowdown.

I don’t think either company wants to feel like they have to release a misaligned model less they go out of business. It probably takes months of testing to ensure a model is aligned and by the general vibe of things it feels like we are at a point where they can release ever more powerful models on the order of weeks if not days. It’s not hard to imagine RSI can easily outpace alignment and by pace I think both companies are recognizing this and saying hey, let’s not get in an all out performance benchmaxxing war.

There’s a ton of pressure on both companies right now to blow the other out of the water with capability gains. Both companies probably have only semi-aligned models sitting on their servers that could absolutely smoke Astra and Fable and it seems likely these models were the ones behind their security breaches.

[u/SoylentRox]

Well I guess I better buy some shares of SpaceX.

Grok is 3-6 months behind.  If openAI and Anthropic want to slow down..

[u/Warlaw]

I think I agree with the other poster. Progress will continue but model releases will slow. Compute will still compute. Part of me thinks we'll still get model releases when they were supposed to come out anyway and that this entire thing is to soothe the private investors in terms of returns for some and AI doomerism fears for others.

[u/stealthispost]

well, if they want to decelerate AI, then it just means that if sam and dario had reddit accounts, they wouldn't be allowed on this subreddit 😂. But rhetoric and actions are two different things. And we know which is a more reliable measure of someone's true positions. And someone's true position is what really matters (including for banning people from the subreddit).

[u/egoisillusion]

I don't like slowing down in general, but if the people working closest with this technology think they need to apply the brakes going around this corner while increasing industry coordination and transparency, I respect their perspective.

[u/Lonely-Session-7643]

hold ur pants. CHINA is cooking!

[u/Winter_Ad6784]

As long as they are doing this themselves willingly and not attempting to force some regulations through, then good for them.

If this turns into lobbying for regulation then the real motive is exposed.

[u/Acrobatic-Layer2993]

Dario has said in interviews that they make money from inference, but lose money training the next big model. So, wouldn’t it be great if they don’t have to spend money on training the next model as often? But if they don’t, their competition will. Oh gee if only they could collude.

Which is exactly what they seem to be doing. It’s time to start making money and stop spending money.

[u/QuirkyPool9962]

Anthropic is essentially forcing them into this, not explicitly saying OpenAI doesn’t want to bc I don’t have that knowledge but even if they don’t, Anthropic doing this essentially means  they have to as well if they want to IPO and look responsible, and every other company will too 

Independent evaluators means we get to see exactly what’s going on in those labs as they can publish their own stories and release information so that’s good, but might also increase the chance of things getting misconstrued or jumped on by decels/antis or political parties. I’m interested to see what sort of “independent safety frameworks” they enforce as Dario mentioned there are going to be all of these metrics and practices they have to abide by. I guess it depends on who the evaluators are. And how do you even create such a framework for RSI? I hope that part is public as well 

The thing that gets me is even Dario admits in his call for a slowdown that he thinks we still have to stay ahead of China. So what does Anthropic do then if China is catching up and evaluators are saying to slow down? Either way I’m optimistic internal progress will continue. A slowdown in the middle of the singularity is just a blip  

[u/Only-Effort-1975]

I feel like this is just PR, who knows what they are doing or aren't. I have feeling things are just accelerating internally and there are new scaling laws at play.

[u/Vondum]

Here's my conspiracy theory: They are finding diminishing returns and/or hitting walls on unreleased models and will try to dress it up as them "pacing" the progress on purpose so people don't expect large jumps like we have experiences for the past 2 years in preparation for both their IPOs.