At the same time, recent public reporting on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos-class models suggests that the most capable systems may be rolled out through limited-access programs or premium channels rather than broadly and evenly.

Throughout history, who could afford access to the best technology of the time often shaped who got to govern. In ancient Greece, hoplites were ordinary free citizens who funded their own gear, tying military service to civic participation. Similarly, colonial American militias embedded armed service into everyday community life. By contrast, the prohibitive cost of armor, warhorses and military training in late medieval Europe placed military power firmly in the hands of the wealthy few - leading to democratic traditions in Athens and the early United States, while reinforcing autocratic rule across medieval Europe.

So IMHO it is an important question whether AI becomes an equalizer, or a tool that widens the gap between those who have access and those who do not.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48484306

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

But given the advances that China has had in EVs, drones, solar, batteries, wind turbines, AI, nuclear energy, smartphones and other advanced industries IMHO it doesn't make sense for them to start a war right now. Better to keep growing their industry and exports and take over Taiwan sometime later.

The unfortunate true is IAC is coming to most countries in the world, no matter how much the Hacker News audience hates it...

For 5K one can get a desktop PC with RTX 5090, that has 3x more compute, but 4x less VRAM - so depending on the workload may be a better option.

So the fact that in the past new technologies have created new jobs is not a guarantee that AI will create new jobs.

On top of that have a look what happened say during the industrial revolution in Britain. You'd have a village with 2000 workers producing clothes or materials to make clothes. A rich guy opens a factory in that village that employees 200 people and produces more than the whole village before that. 90% are unemployed, the 10% that work in factory have far worse working conditions. Studying graves from that time shows the height of people went down during the industrial revolution - as the conditions in the factories were far worse than what they had before. Hence the luddite movement - but as the reach people owned the mass media, the luddites were portrayed as crazy. Eventually, many years later, new better jobs did appear.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47218604

Points: 12

# Comments: 41

Zurek’s Decoherence and Quantum Darwinism is thought-provoking, but it’s still speculation without broad buy-in from researchers. We might need ASI to crack these mysteries — our brains weren’t built for this kind of problem.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43360228

Points: 10

# Comments: 3