America has never been one people, one heritage. In fact, the Europeans who settled here did so because of inter-sect/clan/culture oppression and violence. The Europeans have always had issues with each other. The founding fathers had it right, this current strain of thinkers does not.
> Although I think outsiders fail to realize just how little freedom to dissent exists in China.
If we’re being honest, then that’s because of interventionist and destabilizing behaviors that states subject each other to. The only thing which makes sense is some kind of centralized control, what matters is how heavily you lean into it.
The only way out of getting weighed down by AI spending is more opensource AI, and that gets enabled by building more alignment, interpretation and human-intervention tools.
The competitive reality confronting most global economies right now demands a 3% GDP growth rate or more based on the global average.
But instead we have uninspired so-called captains of American industries who can’t find anything better than payroll deductions to boost the bottom line. Could have hired a small-town middle manager for that level of insight. Dumb people getting lucky is the worst curse for humanity.
FAANG companies got to the state that they did, and thus attained national importance, because every asshole in the world bought their thing, on a big or small scale.
The other issue is that major economic uncertainties are keeping companies from spending and creating jobs even though there is work to be done. You’re not going to get the world to play along by being scary. The AI-doom rhetoric isn’t cute, and needs to be toned down if we’re actually going to get anything useful and productive out of these tools. Again, major reality check: we don’t even have proper self-driving cars.
Let’s get a reality check. Current agent performances are no where near that kind of threat, and it’s uncertain when we get there.
I think people continue bullshitting in this domain because they’re worried they have no moat, so they have to discourage via sophistry or bold claims.
For reference, 25% means getting 1 in every 4 question right.
Secondly, if we ever do get to that point, people have lots of social mechanisms they’ve developed over millions of years of evolution which will kick into place. I am not sure anyone dreaming of this “utopia” is then going to be around to see it.
Realistically, the rate at which both MCP, and Claude products have developed competitors should be concerning for anyone at the helm at Anthropic.
MCP was introduced in Nov 2024, and there are already at least 3 competing standards. The same could not be said for something like Tensorflow when it came out, for example, because it took other frameworks/tools a while to “get it” and become something competitive.
Yes, I know these are all open source frameworks and not a “real” example of a product Anthropic should be concerned about, but I am making a point about the rate of competition developing.
There is real danger here of big players becoming irrelevant quickly, which is why they bloviate like they do.
This article is just navel gazing, and commentary on a relatively recent phenomena that doesn’t have any bearing on how thought and life has evolved. What has truly changed the way we live? Agriculture, Religion, Reasoning, and so on. In more tangible terms, it has been things like the printing press, light bulb, planes, transistors, etc.
The internet wouldn’t really be a thing without transistors, so I don’t really count it. I wouldn’t even say that nuclear power changed anything about the way we live, not really—its practical damaging potential is just as easily achieved via other means, which are easier to control and manage.
Is it a victory at all if it’s not political? Then what are you trying to accomplish? These are rhetorical questions. The problem is that leaders or frameworks have not been able to adapt as fast as technological progress.
The U.S. military exists to perpetuate and enforce U.S. policies, and not just for its own sake. You can’t rule over ashes and bones, you can’t rule if you’re ashes and bones. Politics are the point.
My issue with reading (nonfiction) books these days is that they’re essentially extended opinion pieces. While I am open to learning a talking head’s perspective (not everyone who gets a book deal is necessarily an expert in their topic), my main gripe is that many writers don’t incorporate a multifaceted point of view on their subject. I don’t expect encyclopedic information, or comprehensive analysis, but I think including choice perspectives across the entire history of a given subject matter is important. Otherwise, I’ll just chat with a bot about the topic, and get text books or journal articles for deeper understanding. Book writers need to do a better job, maybe we need digital books that enable chatting with the author’s book/bot. Free idea for whoever has the bandwidth to do it.
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