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tguedes commented on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)   stratechery.com/2026/anth... · Posted by u/toomanybits
grvdrm · 11 days ago
I'm not well-read on the history of nuclear, but is it the case that nuclear developed first in government and was then spread to private industry via gov't outreach/motivation?

Here, I think we're talking about the opposite, right? Private developed, then gov't used. It's so obvious in the first path that gov't would remain in the control, but I'm not sure how to think about what's "right" in the private-to-gov't path.

tguedes · 10 days ago
You're absolutely right and the order of operations matters. But I'm not arguing about what's right in this case. If as Dario says, that advanced AI is at the level of nuclear weapons, then governments around the world will see it as a threat to their power and sovereignty.
tguedes commented on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)   stratechery.com/2026/anth... · Posted by u/toomanybits
sup_use_cha · 11 days ago
If AI reaches that scale, it's going to step in and take control of governments.
tguedes · 10 days ago
Potentially. Or the US government can force over control of the technology. It's impossible to predict right now the implications of this technology in 5 years, let alone 10 years.
tguedes commented on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)   stratechery.com/2026/anth... · Posted by u/toomanybits
stahtops · 11 days ago
Sorry, but literally what are you talking about?

If Ford sells Broncos, and Pete Hegseth says “I’m Batman, we want them with RPG launchers”, Ford is not required to create Bronco’s with RPG launchers.

If Pete wants AI killer robots and AI domestic mass surveillance tools, he can go put out a RFQ like literally any other DOD DARPA project in history and get bids.

tguedes · 10 days ago
You're right in those cases. But if what Dario says is true, that advanced AI is on the scale of nuclear weapons, then that is a threat to the power and sovereignty of the government.
tguedes commented on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)   stratechery.com/2026/anth... · Posted by u/toomanybits
harry19023 · 11 days ago
This analogy makes no sense. You and I can go use Claude right now. The government clearly doesn't think they are nukes. If the government wants to control this technology like a weapon then it should do that, but that's not what's happening.
tguedes · 11 days ago
That's not what is happening, yet. If this technology is at the scale of nuclear weapons, you don't think the government is going to step in and take control of it?
tguedes commented on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)   stratechery.com/2026/anth... · Posted by u/toomanybits
harry19023 · 11 days ago
Ben says over and over again that he's not making the argument about the importance of democratic oversight, but he clearly is. He doesn't like Amodei and is happy to see him fail, and it comes through loud and clear in the piece.

Anthropic, like any other US company, should be free to not sell to the government if they don't want to. These other arguments about oversight are nonsense.

tguedes · 11 days ago
I don't think he ever said in the article that he is not making the argument about the importance of democratic oversight, if anything, in the conclusion, he says:

"The way to address this new reality, however, is with new laws and through strengthening accountable oversight; cheering or even demanding that an unelected executive decide how and where such powerful capabilities can be used is the road an even more despotic future."

But I think you drastically misunderstood the point of this article. Ben is pointing out the implications of Amodei's analogy of advanced AI being like nuclear weapons. The government has a monopoly on nuclear weapons and has extreme regulations and oversight on the companies that help build nuclear weapons for it. And those companies do not tell the government how or when they can use the nukes.

So if advanced AI is like nuclear weapons, why can an unelected executive tell a democratically elected government how to use it?

tguedes commented on Oracle is underwater on its $300B OpenAI deal   ft.com/content/064bbca0-1... · Posted by u/busymom0
AbstractH24 · 4 months ago
I think Oracle would disagree.
tguedes · 4 months ago
But that's the problem with this. The vast majority of the spend is going to be on the Nvidia chips which have a shelf life of 3-5 years. They are not making any significant long term investments.

During the dot com bubble, telecom companies spent 10s of billions of dollars laying down cables and building out the modern public internet infrastructure that we are still using today. Even if a lot of companies failed, we still greatly benefited from some of the the investments they made.

For this bubble, the only long term investment benefits seems to be the electricity build out and a renewed interest and investment in nuclear.

Most (if not all) of Oracle's investments are mostly in chips and data centers.

tguedes commented on Why don't people return their shopping carts?   behavioralscientist.org/w... · Posted by u/ohjeez
panny · 4 months ago
With regard to plates...

https://www.businessinsider.com/waitress-on-tiktok-shows-dif...

With regard to carts, because they roll around, into cars, and cause damage. Leaving your cart loose in the lot is a great way to damage other people's vehicles. The first ding in my first new car was caused by a loose cart some asshole left in the lot while I was shopping.

tguedes · 4 months ago
I was going to comment this exact thing about stacking plates. I think most servers/ex-servers also do this regardless of age. It's even easier to do than returning a shopping cart.
tguedes commented on Why don't people return their shopping carts?   behavioralscientist.org/w... · Posted by u/ohjeez
iamnothere · 4 months ago
Aldi is the only place in the US that I know of that uses this system. It works well enough, no carts in the lot, and surprisingly people sometimes leave a quarter in the cart as a sort of “pay it forward” minor charity. (Good because not everyone keeps change these days.)
tguedes · 4 months ago
The only downside of this in the US is that homeless people will tend to hang around Aldi's asking people if they can return their cart to get the coin. Most of them are friendly and thankful but every once in awhile an aggressive person would make me very uncomfortable.

I also expect Aldi management isn't thrilled about homeless people camping outside their stores.

tguedes commented on The next chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership   openai.com/index/next-cha... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
airspresso · 4 months ago
That's just a privately owned tech company then. Lots of companies never IPO.
tguedes · 4 months ago
Still, I think there needs to be a specific term for a company that has recently had a funding round and will likely IPO in the future, like Stripe. That's a different category than a start-up or privately owned company that will never IPO like Koch Inc.
tguedes commented on The next chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership   openai.com/index/next-cha... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
throwup238 · 4 months ago
If SpaceX is still a “startup”, the word has lost all meaning.
tguedes · 4 months ago
It already has. Any tech company that is pre-IPO and still raising funding rounds is a "startup". I'm surprised there hasn't been someone to come up with a separate term for the stage of these kinds of companies.

u/tguedes

KarmaCake day320October 10, 2018View Original