This is widely presumed to reflect reality within a 1-2 degrees of separation from myself as well as from many of the people I speak to. Part of the problem is that there is always plausible deniability. Like the adage of how unwise it is to fire custodians just because you never see a mess and therefore you never actually see the custodians do anything, it may be "unwise" to lose the presence of these 300k/yr engineers just because they somehow actually keep things going smoothly.

> I constantly reiterate to people, whether they're reporting to me or not, that they need to speak up when there's a blocker.

This is presuming a particular/healthy culture where open communication is valued, appreciated, and not punished. This is not always the case, and an "objective description of a blocker" could result in some bruised egos where it transforms into blame upon some person or team for being or causing the blocker. People who experienced these cultures may be waiting for private conversations (such as 1-on-1s) that minimizes the risk, and they may be waiting to identify you (or whomever they are talking to) as a person who could make communicate the nature of the blockage in a politically favorable or neutral manner. All of this may be happening without the people involved consciously aware of this behavior of pushing out information through private conversations. And this maintains plausible deniability for ALL parties. The person who is blocked is never identified. The person who may have been the blocker is never identified. And hopefully everything gets fixed before anything is actually worth escalating.

Seeing this happen in real time is helping me understand how authoritarian regimes/institutions/movements rise to power.

I would argue it is already happening. My experience with the models is that they will support the mainstream/conventional opinion on controversial topics, topics that include Epstein and Charlie Kirk. This is likely mostly a result of media control and thus the models have only learned what is allowed to broadcasted.

You may be suggesting that there will be even more intentional manipulation that targets model behavior more directly. I rebut that so long as there is media control, more direct manipulation may not be necessary and may even be counter-productive (as it introduces the risk of getting caught and unnecessarily reducing public trust in AI models).

P.S. Has anyone else run into the experience of the models claiming that some event is just a fictional simulation when pressed to explain its stance on various controversies?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47253471

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

I wonder if Rainbolt (or other GeoGuessrs) gets regular requests for consultation, or maybe he should if he is not already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Rainbolt

This vortex of temptation appears to have many points of origin, such as cults like Scientology, or particular persons such as the casually described "gold diggers", or... whatever organization Epstein is a part of, etc.

I see the US trying to position itself so that it is no longer the world power/world police, or at least significantly reduce the magnitude of the role it plays as the world police. This will bring about a new world order and upend existing diplomatic relationships which will bring about chaos and uncertainty.

I disagree with kidnapping Maduro and posturing to annex Greenland on the grounds of national sovereignty; I actually like the rules-based world order (even if I am not so attached to the USD being the reserve currency).

The actions of the Trump administration clearly and perhaps even intentionally puts the US hegemony at great risk and thus also invites much chaos. This, I still humbly see the possible upside. The Trump administration is also accelerating the deterioration of the rules-based world order. This, I do not particularly support, though I see the possible counterargument that this is only accelerating what was game-theoretically inevitable anyways.

Smart, moral people have practically a compulsion to improve things, or at least call out idiocy.

I would also add the need for an actual reason to promote the PHB, and I would argue that one quantifiable way upper management can try to argue for a promotion of the PHB is how "hard they work" (regardless if they achieve results or not). Putting in many, many hours also help promote PHBs who will defer to authority.

It also helps explain the phenomenon where the manager class becomes soulless. Institutions that focus on preserving their own power rather than creating value will promote people (at least to middle management) who are willing to put their nose to the grindstone, sacrifice their health and relationship, producing nothing of value, all to walk on some concept of a career treadmill faster.

A more impactful change from firms might be to celebrate and reward community contributions of their own employees. This can establish a more productive culture than just money. If an engineering company is willing to donate money (yay!), perhaps consider making sure that employees are celebrated for contributions they make in a manner that is similar to how we currently celebrate monetary transactions.

For an example of the opposite, Google laid off their entire Python team, something that also made HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40171125

As the parent commenter has pointed out, pulling in client code can be very large. If the backend team owns the client code, they may not be properly incentivized to improve the product of the clients, sadly. And calling it the backend "team" might be overly simplistic. There may be additional layers to the the client code owned by other teams, such as different protocol implementation and definitions of those protocols, etc. Pushing for change can be viewed negatively, since it could leave a poor impression. E.g. if you improve someone else's code, that could make them look bad, and that would have negative consequences for you as you have violated (a variation of) Greene's first law of power: never outshine the master.

Since the code and the organization are so convoluted and complicated, it's a lose-lose proposition. If you mess up your optimization, you will get blamed. Even if you succeed, you may have reduced someone's reputation of someone you can't even identify in the bureaucracy, and thus have made an enemy of someone you can't even identify.

So long as you have a steady stream of cardboard (whether from packages shipped to your home or it ends up in your friendly neighbors' recycling), I anticipate that you could always make things, solo or with friends.

I've heard that one can use wheat paste as cardboard glue.

My hope is to have the combination of a cardboard "saw" and cardboard glue is to result in something like (nail-free) carpentry that kids can perform nearly entirely unsupervised.

Even making simple shapes that can go into dioramas and be props for roleplaying would already be great, I hope!

I also live nearby.

AI & crypto may end up in a similar bucket. It is a paradoxical enabler of both freedom and imprisonment. No one gets to build a technology a declare a problem solved. Alfred Nobel made nitroglycerin safe and thus paradoxically ended up being called the Merchant of Death.

Freedom is not free. It is an eternal struggle.

I am grateful for the builders who try to build something for freedom. I do not spurn them when their invention gets corrupted. It is now our job and the job of future generations to fight the corruption.