A Hopeless Rant
Two Ways to Grapple with AI Ethics
it's probably too late to pause
Chinese AI researchers worry less about advancing P(doom), inasmuch as their assessment of P(Americans will use AI to impoverish non-Americans) remains more salient
Chinese will not pause, even if Americans agree to pause
Since current AI capabilities allow for recursive self-improvement, Chinese will surpass any paused/throttled American lab
Therefore, Americans will not pause
wat do?
Which AI model iz 4 conscientious ppl?
If we listen to every bit of the tl, then OAI is evil, Anthropic is evil, Microsoft is evil, Facebook is Evil, Amazon is evil, Google is Evil, Apple is shite, Mistral is a cat, open weights models are CCP, etc.
Picking a model provider is kinda like, what kind of straw do we use, given concerns about global warming: plastic, paper, or steel?
Or, as in Taiwan, what kind of restaurant chopsticks do you use:
- cheap Chinese bleached wood disposable cancer sticks
- only support restaurants that employ Taiwanese dishwashers with ivory (or Chinese faux-ivory) chopsticks
- bring your own metal chopsticks and wash them at home
They also have concerns about local vs American pork, local vs imported rice, farm-raised vs ocean-caught fish, etc.
Most Brits and Europeans are shocked how little Americans recycle, and how imperfect is our trash sorting. Most Americans are shocked at European room temperature soda, and you-have-to-pay-for-water-and-public-restrooms. Don't get started on how the rest of the world sees queues/lines in the Middle East, or open defecation across the sub-continent1.
I think the choice of AI model is kind of on the same effectiveness level of using an AeroPress2. It lets you snark about Nespresso drinkers killing turtles and dolphins, and feel better than Chemex pour-over and French press users ("they don't know that...")