We really should be slowing down and looking at the effects of AI. It has too much potential to fuck everything up to not think about it a bit, especially if recursive self-improvement is on the horizon.

IMO, the notion that AI systems are intelligent in any meaningful capacity is venture capitalist marketing. AI systems are especially capable of pooping out convincing bullshit. Otherwise, these systems are not particularly more dangerous than other machines. In particular, the notion that we are even converging towards AGI is marketing. The focus of criticism should be on the concrete applications of these machines. IMO, statistical learning theory has excellent theoretical backing and lots of practical applications, and the mathematics is honest (if complicated) about the limitations of the field. The statistical learning community is still working on developing the theoretical backbone for LLM systems at scale.

IMO, the main issue is that capitalists are wrecking our environment, stealing all our private information, and stealing our tax dollars to build systems that are then used to kill, oppress, harass, demean, and propagandize the working class. Again, AI technologies are especially capable at helping the worst monsters in all of history achieve these goals. But it's not because of "intelligence". It's because of what they are using these systems to do to us.

I.e., we should absolutely scale down AI system deployment to a sustainable level, and we should burn anyone who uses AI systems for oppression ... but people who are organically interested in statistical learning systems should at least be allowed to continue research into the mathematics of "AI" (preferably under a different title, because people who end up using AI do not need nor want intelligent systems, just useful ones!) as long as they're not doing anything with the technology to oppress people.

We really should be slowing down and looking at the effects of AI. It has too much potential to fuck everything up to not think about it a bit, especially if recursive self-improvement is on the horizon.

This is Anthropic's entire marketing strategy: get people thinking that LLMs can do more than they actually can through fear. This is what they constantly do and have done for at least the last two years. They also tend to stretch or bury the truth in their "studies" with these goals in mind.

Fear, especially of the unknown, is very powerful. If you fear it the way they want you to, that feeling will convince you that the LLMs are going to take over any day now, and once enough people think that, it pumps Anthropic's valuation.

I do agree that we should slow down, but not necessarily because of any recursion (they claim they can already do this with "agents", another term they stole to make LLMs seem more capable). I think we should stop because it's a huge bubble, and the more we pump into it the louder the pop will be. Not only that, but is a monumental waste of resouces, all to generate half-baked slop most of the time.