I assume only the weight of economic pressure and lack of alternatives (and plenty of opposition) kept the doors open, but the same "national interest and security" BS was trotted out then, too.
Big difference this time is nobody needs Fable/Mythos to accomplish anything. There is no magic line here, only improved connective work with less intervention. But it stands to reason that this will cause a huge chilling effect on AI development in the U.S. if it stands and other labs will eventually bypass Fable/Mythos in capability.
To use a car analogy, the models are being built like engine improvements, sometimes going from V6 to V8, but other orgs might improve the car's wind resistance or fuel injection, which leads to a similar speed improvements. There is a lot of space for improvements all along the chain which is why this is such a pointless move.
Knowing this administration (and Anthropic's ham-fisted tactics) this ends in a week or less with some sort of "deal" and was all part of some high stakes negotiation. Possibly even beneficial to Anthropic, because where does it leave OpenAI once they settle on some sweetheart deal? The precedent is set.
Most nerds (like myself) outgrew this edgy mentality in highschool/college. Realistically this mentality just makes it impossible to see anything except through the darkest possible lens.
I think, in the long run, of course AI is a boon. But I’m not immortal, and right now it’s a threat to all our livelihoods. We should put ourselves first, and be selfish, while we’re still alive to be selfish.
Maybe there's some hope that if we stop here, we'll still need senior level developers to guide the models and step in where they (occasionally) fall short? Maybe Mythos/Fable was the first time where that was no longer really true?
I'd disagree. I saw plenty of really mediocre work from Fable, especially in various niche programing endeavors (graphics comes to mind). It doesn't strike me as the "end to all programmers" yet... though fast forward 10 years and it seems inevitable that all of our salaries will be halved, if not more.
The Claude.ai web prompt has an undismissable "Claude Fable 5 is current unavailable" notice.
I'm not saying it's 100% a stunt.
But...Anthropic really wants you to know about it.
If they tell you, it's a marketing stunt; if they don't, they're being deceptive.
- Anthropic is just doing this for marketing stunt
- AI is like NFT's
- circular deals
- the bubble will burst anytime soon
- the hype bro's are propping up the stock market so that they can exit quick like grifters
(I just made the last one up to force terminology they use)
This is really distracting because the main problem here is that AI is getting too powerful to be just handed out to normal people like us. If you still believe it is all hype, you are getting distracted from the real problem.
I'm guessing at some point this kind of rhetoric will die away and we focus on real problem
We need a Second Amendment for AI: the right to keep and bear strong AI shall not be infringed. This safety handwringing is going to solidify the state's monopolies over its subjec... err citizens.
The state is the farmer, and we are the cows.
It is already robustly protected by the first amendment.
If I had legal possession of the fable source repository, etc., and printed it on paper, it would be legal for me to possess and distribute, discuss, annotate, etc.
Mythos found 1000 zero days in a few weeks - if I had asked your thoughts on this a few years ago, I'm sure it would've been "that is a super-weapon".
Plus, scaling laws are impossible to deny: More compute = more intelligence.
AI is going to completely redefine the role of human cognitive ability - if you think this is about "state monopoly", you're really thinking too small.
No, my take would have been that a very strong new move had been made in a long-standing, classical arms race.
Since I rather like stable equilibria in areas like this, my thoughts would have been that white hats need to catch up immediately to reestablish the stalemate ... which was probably the course we were on, prior to today.
What’s your answer to it? There are other people who have thought of it and it’s not that simple.
Sure I can! *waves* Thank goodness we have the First Amendment [here in America] and I can just go to a library to find books with that info anyway.
See above where I frame this as a classical arms race and the equilibria (stalemate) between white/black hats is a very safe and stable place to be.
You and I don't get to choose who the white hats are and those actors could change dramatically as US administrations change, etc.
It's better to rapidly reestablish a new stalemate ... and I say that as someone who has spent the last six months rapidly triaging vulnerabilities and newly discovered attack surface in an attempt to safeguard the livelihoods of everyone who depends on my business.
You think this is a coincidence that it's happening shortly before Anthropic IPOs?
How many people in the US government (at senior levels) are currently on track to profiting massively from a huge Anthropic IPO? The answer is, most of them. Most of the most powerful CEOs, senators, congressmen, Trump's retinue, are invested in Anthropic through on vehicle or another.
I use AI all the time and Opus 4.8 can't even get the most basic shit right about a very popular videogame released a few years ago. It's not going to steal your baby and eat your wife.
You sound like you have AI psychosis honestly.
I think they truly believe what they say when they say it's a very dangerous piece of tech and from their wargamed scenarios they figured they really need to be first or shit properly hits the fan - and I agree. their need for money assuming scaling trend holds is transient if they're first.
What’s so funny is that same people are the ones that identify themselves as liberals as long as they can keep their privileged, highly paid jobs.
This again. For the umpteenth time, not everything is about jobs and money. There are at least a dozen other more valid reasons to be critical or skeptical of AI and the people who control them.
Maybe money and job security is all you think about when you think about AI, but I promise you the rest of the world has many other reasons.
> AI truly can lift millions out of abject poverty in the future.
Pray tell, how exactly will that happen, and what’s the time frame for that future?
There simply won't be jobs for them.
The risk is that all of these very incredibly smart and disgruntled people decide to do something about it. Elite overproduction, but instead as a result of enormous shift in supply side economics.
I don't worry about losing my job. I worry about becoming useless. If you know what I am saying..
Therefore, it is impossible to have a conversation with you about AI capabilities, because you are anchored on a ceiling that we've long since exceeded.
The incredibly smart ones are able to use AI to multiply their productivity. The ones having a bad time with it from vibe coding and vague prompting aren't that.
Four months of 50+% MoM growth. I couldn't have done that without the model giving me lots of time to do marketing. And build a complete feature set.
So yeah.
And the year is only halfway done.
I simply don't agree with the doomer takes. Might be wrong. I'm kinda stupid yet here I am.