What Just Happened With the “Pacing AI” Debate
Happy Monday.
The current thing in tech and business is Dario’s blog “We Must Pace the Frontier.”
Today’s Lineup
- Adjacent Founder Nico Wittenborn at 11:30 AM
- Scout Motors President & CEO Scott Keogh at 12:00 PM
- Lead Edge Capital Founder & Managing Partner Mitchell Green at 12:30 PM
- Acquired Co-Hosts Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal at 1:00 PM
- Cognichip Founder & CEO Faraj Aalaei at 1:30 PM
Run of Show
What Just Happened With the “Pacing AI” Debate
Over the weekend, the AI doom debate turned into the AI slowdown debate with Dario sharing a blog Saturday morning titled “We Must Pace the Frontier.” Here’s Dario’s three-step plan on how he proposes to pace the frontier.
- Give independent third-party evaluators access to AI companies so they can verify safety practices.
- Frontier labs in democratic countries should work together (with the government’s help) to establish AI safety standards.
- The U.S. and other democratic countries should try to coordinate with authoritarian governments.
Exactly one hour later Elon chimed in agreeing with Dario on an industry slow down with Sam and Demis also agreeing.
The timeline, on the other hand, had some concerns and questions about Dario’s post. Who will these third-party evaluators be? Why wait for Washington to regulate the frontier? If Anthropic believes AI is advancing too quickly, why not simply slow down on its own?
David Sacks raised some of these questions on 𝕏:
You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement.I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible.But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier.
I liked reading Gavin Baker’s round-up of the last 24 hours on Saturday where he includes what Dario, Sam, Elon, Alexandr Wang, Clem, and others are saying about the slow down. He closes out the recap with his own thoughts of what he thinks will happen:
An executive order seems likely after all this and the language in this EO is going to be really important. It is possible to democratize and distribute AI broadly and safely without centralizing it in the hands of a few corporations who might each become more powerful than any single government.I do not want a few humans in control of intelligence.I want us all to have our own intelligences that reflect our own values and human variation in all of its richness.
Lastly, this morning Ben Thompson shared his thoughts on Dario’s blog. Thompson argues that any attempt to slow AI will fall apart if China isn’t willing to slow down too, which makes the push for oversight of frontier labs both ineffective and potentially political:
This is an attempt by a specific political movement in San Francisco, moving in conjunction with one of the major political parties, to insert itself in the operations of every AI company, nominally in pursuit of a goal that is futile. I find the constant “because of China” admonitions to often be tiring, but in this specific case it’s absolutely justified: “pacing the frontier” in a world of geopolitical competition with China is stupid and not going to happen; that reality ought to end the whole argument.
Here’s the timeline from the weekend:
Saturday at 8am PT: Elon Musk responds on X agreeing with Dario on an AI slowdown
Saturday at 9:30am PT: Sam also agrees with Dario on “pacing the frontier”
Saturday at 8:14pm PT: David Sacks asks questions about Dario’s blog post
Sunday at 9:17am PT: Gavin Baker’s round-up of the weekend
Monday morning: Ben Thompson’s Stratechery: Pacing the Frontier, AI’s Digital Limits, AI Commissars
We’ll be discussing this deeper on the show today. See you on the stream.
Clip Spotlight: Thijs Simonian predicts robotics will have its own version of the 3D printing craze, with people buying cheap, open-source robot arms and connecting them to agents.
"I can see a world quite soon where, similar to when everyone went and bought 3D printers and ran software, everyone's going to buy plastic, cheaper robot arms that you can clip onto a table, put stuff in front of, and plug them into agents."
"The price of classic robotics equipment is thousands of dollars at the moment. This arm I'm using here is a Hugging Face SO-100 robot, which is open source, fully 3D printable, and around $200."
"People can just pull up Codex and start controlling robots with it right now."
Headlines
Dario Amodei: We Must Pace the Frontier
FT: Donald Trump rejects calls from tech bosses for AI slowdown
Stratechery: Pacing the Frontier, AI’s Digital Limits, AI Commissars
Sam Altman’s full interview with Fortune
Dario Amodei’s full interview with Face The Nation
Reuters: China state newspaper blasts Anthropic’s calls to slow AI as ‘Cold War’ tactic
WSJ: China Also Thinks AI Could Kill Us. But First, It Wants to Match the U.S.
Bloomberg: Nvidia Mulls $10 Billion Anthropic IPO Backing, Reuters Says
Tyler Cowen: The mathematicians rebel against AI
Former FTC commissioner Lina Khan chimes in on the AI regulatory capture debate
FT: Druckenmiller: no US rate cuts needed
Bloomberg: Musk’s xAI Resolves Claims Against Apple Over AI Competition
FT: Hostile forces using AI for ‘cognitive warfare’ against China, spy agency warns
WSJ: Why Companies Are Unlikely to Hit Pause on AI
TMZ asks Matt Damon his opinion on AI doom
Reuters: Tesla to unveil long-delayed Roadster on Oct. 1, Musk says
FT: JPMorgan cut off Situational Awareness lending after AI losses
Posts of the Day
Special thanks to our sponsors: Ramp, Shopify, CrowdStrike, MongoDB, NYSE, Codex, Public, Console, Railway, Figma, and Cisco.
点赞
收藏
点踩
分享