I find it very hard to understand the things these AI CEO's say.

He will probably get up there and say his companies products will destroy every citizen of their countries.

People will say it's marketing but I find Occam's Razor highly favors the theory "they are true believers in AGI/ASI"

This seems especially true for Anthropic employees.

Genuinely, what makes people not believe in coming AGI? I read quite a lot on hackernews but never encounter a strong post/comment against it, apart from the „what is marketing“ discussion. Maybe people don’t bother because everyone is in their trenches, tough I don’t understand how people do not see the AGI coming. What kind of doom, if any, will befall is something different of course. I don’t want to believe there will be AGI in the next 5 years, but it sure is hard not to!

I think it's because people have different ideas of AGI. Some only expect general intelligence, while others also require weird speculative ideas, such as rapid self-improvement.

Right now, what seems to be missing from general intelligence is mostly the ability to learn from experience and continue operating in a useful way well beyond context window size. That might already be technically feasible, but probably not in a cost-effective way.

What does AGI mean is probably the sticking point for most. I'm inclined to call it AGI if they can create something currently matching SOTA where there is no difference between training and inference time, i.e. it can continuously learn. Without the model collapsing.

I don’t believe AI progress is a linear line that ends in “AGI”. I think the current way we create LLMs will be improved, and improved, and improved. But an LLM at its core is a predictive chain, not general intelligence.

Well, we can’t even clearly define consciousness, so who’s to say complex large-input statistical computation isn’t it?

I have no idea. Anyone claiming to is hubristic.

“We can’t clearly define it so we should accept just about any definition of it” is certainly a position to take.

The burden of proof exists, it’s not hubristic to require it.

Yeah, on both parties. No one can prove that it is or is not large-input statistical analysis. Maybe you are suggesting that the burden is more on proving it IS. Even if that’s your case, and even if you’re right, that does not mean we can safely conclude it is not. It means we don’t know, and maybe one side of the argument is more likely… maybe.

Again, hubris to have an unshakeable firm belief one way or the other. None of us are omnipotent.

Wouldn’t Occam’s razor say that the people speaking are highly motivated to continue being paid? Relying on their fear of future outcomes seems to be misplaced to judge the honesty of their statements.

> continue being paid

What I mean by Occam's Razor:

There are many assumptions that need to be true to link "they say they're terrified of AI" to "they get paid more / longer", in both their own minds and everyone else's. It's a bit of 4D chess that could go their way, but also could go 100 different ways.

In contrast, linking "they say it" to "they believe it" is simple.

Justifying “they believe it” isn’t so simple, however.

Occam's razor is about minimizing the number of assumptions needed for a conclusion. In this case, "they believe it" is the same number of assumptions as "they get paid" - just one.

Saying "I'm terrified of my job" does not normally lead fo getting paid more. Those links are the extra assumptions.

An assumption is something that we can't know, yet assume is true for the sake of coming up with a theory. What we're assuming here is their intention.

The implication (or as you said, "the links"), that talking about how dangerous their product is leads to more money, is true regardless of their intention. They create hype, they get money, that's not an assumption, that's an observation.

The question is only if their intention was to make money, or are they speaking from the heart. That's the assumption we choose.

> They create hype, they get money, that's not an assumption, that's an observation.

Because we can't observe the counterfactual world, this actually is just an assumption.

Diving their intention also still requires many assumptions about their intermediate beliefs that I find dubious

> Because we can't observe the counterfactual world, this actually is just an assumption.

If you discard all empirical claims categorically due to "inability to observe the counterfactual world", your own reasoning falls apart. Why would you assume people mean what they say?

> Diving their intention also still requires many assumptions about their intermediate beliefs that I find dubious

You're assuming CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies are honest. I find that dubious.

> If you discard all empirical claims categorically due to "inability to observe the counterfactual world"

I don't.

There are a lot of counterfactuals we can observe empirically.

I'm just saying there is no empirical evidence to support the marketing strategy of "tell people our product is going to kill their families". I believe this is the first time it's been tried out.

No, this is not the first time. Scaremongering by frontier AI CEOs has been going on since ChatGPT came out, every time with a massive investment following.

OpenAI got $10 billion from Microsoft after Sam Altman claimed AI could lead to extinction of humanity.

Anthropic got similar multi-billion dollar funding from Amazon and Google after warning AI could develop biological weapons.

xAI got similarly massive funding after Elon Musk predicted a terminator-style future.

If you don't accept this as "empirical evidence", then there's nothing to discuss.

Occam’s razor doesn’t often explain not taking people for their worst and assuming a conspiracy theory

I think it goes beyond money now. A future where AI does not destroy the world means a world where the people who work at these companies are just like everyone else.

My product is so powerful, you all need to pay me more money to keep it safe for you.

Shocking publicity is good publicity. And "my product is so potent it will probably destroy you." I think I´ve heard it from drug dealers as well.

Why are we even discussing this here? Altman works in the alchemy sector, not the tech sector.

As long as a post isn't sbout politics– oh wait.

Smells of, "You can't handle my potions. They're too strong for you."[1]

1. https://genius.com/Justin-kuritzkes-potion-seller-annotated

It’s a great way to sign up young men for military duty too, sell it to them like it’s something exciting and awesome… and they can’t handle it.

He will probably tell them exactly what they want him to say. If he means it or not. That is hard to say.

When has anyone faced scrutiny over their lies to these politicians?

The founder of Loopt is now ruling the world.

The guy had a failed startup and somehow leveraged that into the situation today.

I imagine his time at ycombinator as Gríma Wormtongue whispering into theoden's(paulg's) ear

The private equity debt time bomb is here. Then there is the bond market.

And then guaranteed bust of AI bubble. 2000 billion dollars for a single company? That too when bottom of the boat has been drilled by open weight Chinese models that are cheaper and good enough but can even be deployed locally?

In face of all that - that kind of return is not realistic.

However - good gimmick scaring UN asking for a ban on Chinese models perhaps.

The UN is not a body that would be involved in banning models from a specific country, and even if they were China is one of 5 members with permanent veto power.

The permanent veto power is the worst part of the UN

Only way to justify those valuation is if they can achieve regulatory capture and outlaw competitors and open models.

Expect the fear mongering to escalate to a fever pitch.

The UN has no authority to ban anything but it's a good platform.

How's AI doing in Russia with all the sanctions and whatnot?

The AI industry in Russia is not doing well. Domestic AI models exist, but they aren't exactly high performers, and many of them are based on the open weight Chinese models - so there is very little reason to use them. IT power users run Western or Chinese models, often through proxies, VPNs or resellers.

AI is being adopted and used, but if there was ever a chance of Russia being an AI power, it died in 2022.

A few formerly-Russian IT companies had their "rainy day" HQs overseas, and leveraged them to slip the noose and leave Russia - brain draining what AI expertise was available in the country. See: Yandex -> Nebius.

They’re just using Claude: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/09/russia-weaponi...

They have access to all the same open models that the rest of the world does, so just fine I would think.

They also access American models via proxies. Same as China

If governments regulate AI and make it slow down, does that let one get out of data center contracts?

If OpenAI voids its spending commitment, the bubble has to pop. I know the market is irrational, but that would be the clearest top signal ever

Yes, except this way they can say it's not their fault nuh-uh mom said I don't have to pay you.

Right, that's what I'm thinking. These folk (ai operators) know they are overvalued, see the open model threats and the performance improvement on lower-end hardware. So, no need for all these data centers. The "force majure" or whatever that lets them exit those commitments. So all that accrual based revenue is gone.

Is ads in the AI gonna drive that revenue valuation? Are buyers going to lock in contracts when a new model in 120 days is ever better and cheaper?

The LARP proceeds unabated.

Here's a preview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGwz1s1E1aw

Can we put a ban on "technology" that we don't understand and fully control yet?

(I put "technology" in quotes because it is closer to alchemy.)

Apocalypse, doom, chaos, children, china, regulation, taxes, in that order

That's the whole presentation, saved you a couple of insufferable hours

Laughted out loud

Are we still pretending models aren't cyber capable, and will be an immense force for hacking? I expected this shit on reddit not here. You don't have to like Sam, and still not do this bullshit

The fearmongering is based in the notion that the LessWrong fanfic is coming true as we speak, not LLMs being used as tools for hacking.

Unfortunately focusing on the fanfic prevents everyone from focusing on the genuinely world-altering threat of cybersecurity becoming completely impossible for a while. But perhaps that’s the point, because you can be held liable for that, but not for the end of the world as there wouldn’t be any courts afterward.

It would be more believable if the AI companies success wasn't entirely dependent on regulatory capture

> Are we still pretending models aren't cyber capable

They can add 2 + 2 correctly in 10% of cases. So, no, they are not.

hope he wear two collared shirts.

Please tell me they are going to have independent computer scientists and security experts to ask questions that expose the doomerism/"rationalist" LessWrong bullshit. Please don't just let him spew talking points designed to make a deflating bubble look like a good thing.

Doubtful. Almost definitely going to be taking direction from "business" people with misaligned and ulterior motives, rather than asking questions of people with long careers, research, and history in the field.

Which is just... highly unfortunate.

A great marketing opportunity for Grifty McGriftface.

A friend him called Uncle Sam Alternative-man, thought it was accurate and clever

Why these bug eyed salamanders have any say at all for any of this is beyond me. He's a tech ceo who wants to make money, nothing more.

I thought you meant the UN at first and was about to agree. They should have no say about US tech.

He’s rich, in charge of a pretty significant company that has made history and continues to do so.

Who do you think designed central banks?

Bankers or politicians or the plebs?

These kind of meetings are to create common vocabulary/seed common frameworks across the world for problems all govts are seeing or expecting on the horizon.

HN would be better if it did not produce disparaging comments in every thread that has Sam Altman on it.

I get it. We dislike Sam. I got it 3? 4? years ago. Would be nice and more interesting if we could see past that at some point, given that he is a fairly important figure, doing important things, that would be cool to share interesting thoughts about.

How dare you

How very dare you.

> he is a fairly important figure, doing important things

Like Copyright Infrigement and propaganda.

Without reform, the Security Council is an absolute joke.

They exclude the global south from having a permanent seat at the table, and they need a veto reform.

No resolution when they captured Maduro. Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022 and vetoed any Security Council action.

171 days into the Gaza conflict, they passed Resolution 2728, by that time, over 10,000 people had already been killed, and Israel’s immediate response was to announce it would ignore the resolution entirely.

There were a lot of smaller-scale conflicts in the meantime, where the Security Council had a lot of meetings, but nothing ever happened.

Altman could tell them to go fuck themselves and that he is specifically developing tools to kill any person in that room, and the US would just veto the Council from taking any action that could save their own life.

That’s the kind of joke they have become.