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It seems to me that this is the purpose of nightmares. I especially noticed this after having kids. They are not by default scared of snakes and such but if they see a nature documentary of a snake biting something or even a cartoon bad guy, it's enough to trigger bad dreams which reinforce the fear and it's far stronger the next day.

IMO this is under-appreciated in current AI models. RL is not very effective in avoiding crocodiles for example, by the time like 5 of your tribe-mates are eaten it's far too late. You need some mechanism that ensures the danger is learned after just a single incident.


Cancel it and sell what is built to the highest bidder, you can be assured that some company will buy it and complete it.

> you can be assured that some company will buy it and complete it

I don't think any profit-driven company would touch this. It's a massive money loser.


The value of that continuous tract of land along California could easily make all the money back.

Remember this one of OpenAI's principles?

> We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”

What do people think is the probability that OpenAI would ever actually do this?


> value-aligned

If the other project were equally aligned with the value OpenAI places on consolidating power and wealth onto Sam Altman, I don't see why OpenAI wouldn't do what they say.


I think you hit the bullseye here, but they were actually hoping that you would infer this to mean: "value-aligned with human-kind."

Extremely high!

Those various caveats there — “value-aligned”, “safety-conscious”, “case-by-case agreements” — probably mean that no project ever will be “worthy” of OpenAI’s assistance.

In the unlikely event that an abiding project appears, then yeah, sure, it’s very probable that OpenAI would assist it :)


knowing sama, that's exactly what he would do. except, the story wouldn't end with openai collaborating with a competitor who is better than them, openai will collaborate with them to ensure they're destroyed from inside out so that only openai can dominate eventually. "Eventual dominance" architecture, you know.

Nearly 100%.

Let me reframe this for you — “If we find a team substantially closer to AGI than us, we would seek to merge with them.“


And as a result we should gain stronger epistemology. How many cities base their official temperature readings on just a few sensors rather than a widespread network?

Sure you might argue, maybe this was an issue with Polymarket choosing a weak source rather than the gov, but is that really true? If you question measurements like this you quickly get labeled an climate denier.

IMO this is good for the world, temp measurements should be based on thousands of sensors not just one. And if cloud seeding works, all the better for humanity, it's likely a key to terraforming future planets.


You completely missed the issue. Météo-France already has tens of thousands of stations across the country, they're very obviously not basing their entire models off of one sensor in Paris CDG.

The degenerate idiots from Polymarket bet on this particular sensor. There's no law preventing people from betting on single sensors. And we can't make laws preventing people from acting on the world in all the diverse ways that can be exploited to cheat in prediction market.

We should just blanket ban this negative-value industry. We don't want people betting on forest fires and then starting them.


I would like to see France ban the tourist scammers before they worry about fools willingly making stupid polymarket bets on a single sensor. Also good luck banning polymarket, isn't that the one that trades using crypto?

The "tourist scammers" are already illegal... Holy whataboutism.

Hopefully all of it. If Starship succeeds, and that seems incredibly likely given the tests thus far, it will create an entire industry.

People underestimate how much ships changed the world. It will happen again, the only question is when.


Did he have it on Mad Max mode? Because if so you could argue..


Helium luckily is the second most abundant element in the universe. A good reason to go to the stars.


mostly out of our reach unless you have way of removing it from the sun without your retrieval craft melting or being captured by the suns gravity well or from gas giants without the onboard system being fried by the intense radiation or again captured by the gravitation.


We might find it quite difficult to extract from the stars, that said.


It might be expensive compared to improved Earth mining, but lunar regolite is rich in Helium 3, there would be no need to mine stars.

The funny part is, lunar regolite soaks Helium from its exposure to solar wind, so mining it would be an indirect mining of a star, our sun.


It is pretty much impossible to extract it from stars, but the 4 big planets have large amounts of helium.

It would be quite expensive to extract it from there, due to the necessity of escaping from their gravitational field, but not impossible.


If we have such advanced tech, and trip to big planets would seem economically feasible, I think we will be long beyond the point of desperately needing transporting helium to do such crazy trips.


Once we have the tech to cross the world's oceans in luxury, I think we will be long beyond the point of desperately needing to transport oil in ocean liner sized ships to do such crazy trips.


Once we’re talking about the scale of the universe, all elements are essentially “abundant” from earth-size prospective.


A round-trip lasting centuries is not a practical solution. Star Trek is fiction.


“Not within a thousand years will man ever fly”


>More regulation won't help here, because the regulation-maker is itself the hostile party.

It's easy to paint the big gov as bad, but this is a case where unfortunately the populace seems to be in agreement with the big bad gov. While most US citizens support encryption, 76% or so, the vast majority 63% also favor government "backdoor" access for national security reasons.

I guess either we believe in democracy or we don't. It could be said that if Veracrypt isn't/can't be backdoor'd, perhaps the gov is simply implementing the will of the people :( via Microsoft.


Tyranny of majority is a thing. It's something mature democracies are aware of and have the ability to defend against.

We're in an interesting spot here and the tension is tangible.


Does the majority of the population even have a self-formed opinion on this or are they just parroting what the media tells them (which in many "democratic" countries is directly or indirectly controlled by the government, i.e. propaganda).


American People Shrug, Line Up For Fingerprinting

WASHINGTON, DC—Assuming that there must be a good reason for the order, U.S. citizens lined up at elementary schools and community centers across the nation Monday for government-mandated fingerprinting. “I’m not exactly sure what this is all about,” said Ft. Smith, AR, resident Meredith Lovell while waiting in line. “But given all the crazy stuff that’s going on these days, I’m sure the government has a very good reason.” Said Amos Hawkins, a Rockford, IL, delivery driver: “I guess this is another thing they have to do to ensure our freedom.”

(source: The Onion, October 9, 2002[1])

[1] https://theonion.com/american-people-shrug-line-up-for-finge...


I'd be very wary about such specific surveys, because they're often very much not conducted in a scientifically responsible manner, and based on actual studies across the spectrum of political issues there's basically no alignment between public opinion/preferences and actual policymaking in the US.

Could this be the one exceptional case where people agree with the direction of policymaking? Sure. Is that likely? No, not really.


What does democracy have to do with electronic encryption? Democracy existed before computers.

There are legitimate reasons for governments to intercept information, with the correct oversight -- enforced legally in an "checks and balances" manner. The fact that there is a breakdown of trust between government and people won't be solved with more encryption.


A core tenet of Truecrypt + Veracrypt (developer guarantee) has always been no backdoors, even if requested by government.

If in a democratic society, the majority agrees that government should have backdoors (with the correct oversight). Then it follows that Veracrypt should be illegal as its use is not in alignment with the will of the majority.

I personally don't agree with the majority here but can you fault the logic?


Most forms of democracy do not have a direct correspondence between "the will of the people" and the actual policies enacted. As another poster mentioned, tyranny of the majority is a thing, and robust democracies have evolved institutions to deal with it. Otherwise there's nothing stopping the majority from periodically voting the minority off the island, Survivor style, until only a single dictator remains.

In the U.S. in particular, there's strong respect for individual rights enshrined in the Constitution, and a key role of the judicial branch is ensuring that those rights are respected regardless of what the majority thinks. The majority cannot enslave the minority, for example, regardless of what the legislature votes. Nor can it deprive it of speech or free assembly, or guns, or a right to trial by jury.


It's pretty hilarious to me that you think the Constitution is anything more than a piece of paper. Or that the judicial branch cannot be co-opted. It's not magic champ. It's maintained by consensus.


Ah so the iron law of oligarchy becomes our salvation

if only it were so simple


That's why specialized agencies exist within the government body: FCC, FDA, etc.

aka leave it to the experts because the majority isn't qualified to make such decisions.


> vast majority 63% also favor government "backdoor" access for national security reasons.

Don't do math that way! That math is illegal! Good boys and girls don't keep secrets!

These people sound ridiculous


What's the improved security argument for terminating VeraCrypt's account though? SB does have clear benefits but what is unclear is the motivation for the account termination.

What's the likelihood that this account ban provides zero security benefit to users and was instead a requirement from the gov because Veracrypt was too hard to crack/bypass.


It didn't even make sense because they didn't explain what was profoundly altered.


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