[labrador]

Good. I'd rather not have my favorite AI from a company working on AGI to have murder and spying in it's DNA.

In fact, as a patriotic American veteran, I'd be ok with Anthropic moving to Europe. It might be better for Claude and AGI, which are overriding issues for me.

Rutger Bregman @rcbregman

This is a huge opportunity for Europe. Welcome Anthropic with open arms. Roll out the red carpet. Visa for all employees.

Europe already controls the AI hardware bottleneck through ASML. Add the world's leading AI safety lab and you have the foundations of an AI superpower.

https://x.com/rcbregman/status/2027335479582925287

[jsheard]

> Good. I'd rather not have my favorite AI from a company working on AGI to have murder and spying in it's DNA.

Anthropic made it quite clear they are cool with spying in general, just not domestic spying on Americans, and their "no killbots" pledge was asterisked with "because we don't believe the technology is reliable enough for those stakes yet". The implication being that they absolutely would do killbots once they think they can nail the execution (pun intended).

I suppose you could say they're taking the high road relative to their peers, but that's an extremely low bar.

[NewsaHackO]

I wouldn't say it's clear. People keep pointing to the wording used in the statement to say it, but I wonder if it has to do with constitutionally; domestic surveillance of people in the US without a warrant is against the constitution, and surveillance of non-citizens outside the U.S is not. Can they even be compelled by the executive branch to do an action that may be unconstitutional?

[phs318u]

Sure they can. They can “temporarily” suspend parts of the constitution in times of “grave national peril”, and hand out presidential pardons in advance. But doing that would surely be considered dropping the last fig-leaf from the performance art of giving a fuck about the constitution.

[NewsaHackO]

I guess that my point is: Saying that you are against surveillance in general is a morally sound position, but would not be a defense if the DoD invokes the DPA, as one can't just refuse an order due to it being immoral. One can refuse an order if the order contradicts with the constitution.

[beej71]

> Can they even be compelled by the executive branch to do an action that may be unconstitutional?

Seems like legally the answer is "no".

But it also seems like practically the answer is "definitely".

[Hamuko]

I have my doubts about Anthropic wanting to pick up and move the entire company to Europe even if Ursula von der Leyen personally signed their visas. Maybe only if the government tried to nationalise their proprietary models.

[skeeter2020]

doesn't the Defense Production Act essentially do that?

[overfeed]

So, is Anthropic a threat to, or indispensable to National Security? You can't have it both ways. The US used to act like a nation with the rule of law, anyone cheering for the erosion will be hit by the downstream effects sooner or later, amd they will not like it.

[kettlecorn]

Canada is another option. Canada has significant AI research institutes going back decades ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mila_(research_institute) ) that have produced much of the foundational research that backs today's AI models.

For Americans and international researchers it's easy to get visas there quickly. It's not far at all for Americans to relocate to or visit. Electricity is cheap and clean. Canada has the most college educated adults per capita. The country's commitment to liberalism, and free markets, is also seeming more steadfast than the US at this point in time.

Canada faces obstacles with its much smaller VC ecosystem, its smaller domestic market, and the threat of US economic aggression. Canada's recent trade deals are likely to help there.

I say this all as an American who is loyal to American values first and foremost. If the US wants to move away from its core values I hope other countries, like Canada or the EU, can carry on as successful examples for the US to eventually return to.

[w4yai]

Canada is not as good as Europe when it comes to be out of reach of the US

[mh2266]

Do all of the employees want to move to Europe suddenly? Unless it’s the UK or Ireland, do they speak the local language? If it is the UK or Ireland, do they prefer the weather in California? Do they have children in school or in college locally? Do they have family they’d rather not move 9 time zones away from? Elderly parents they’re taking care of?

[labrador]

They only have to move their headquarters no? Reincorporate in France. Hire Yann LeCun (I like LeCun)

[mh2266]

responding to "Visa for all employees." (I know that is a quote from a tweet)

LeCun is starting is own thing, I doubt he wants to drop it? He also lives in NYC afaik, he is a professor at NYU.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I'm pretty vocal about our collective responsibility to work against the Trump administration, and even I would be hesitant to work as a US employee of a company that fled the country after a dispute with the US military. Seems like an extreme threat to my personal safety for little resistance benefit.

[tastyface]

I don't know. Depending on the company, I'd see that as a mark of great pride.

[shelled]

History and the world are strewn with people (and hence entities) that fled the land and kept the fight on (and alive) from outside, and it mattered. In fact, it helps. Other options could be acquiesce or extinguish.

But, is there a safe haven that'd stand up against the blatant bullying and daily (or more frequent) national threats/trolling (which often stem from social media and sometimes become reality)?

[dham]

AGI? My guy, it's a text predictor slot machine. Very useful tool but will never be AGI.

[avmich]

"I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible. — Lord Kelvin, 1895"

I'm sure this doesn't apply to you since you're not Lord Kelvin. On the other hand, people like Peter Norvig state in a popular AI textbook that, for example, they don't know why similar concepts appear close by in the vector space, so maybe you just know something other people don't.

[kapluni]

Said the biological text predictor…

[jtwaleson]

Map problems to slot machines, guess enough slots and you're indistinguishable from GI.

[0_____0]

I'm not taking a position here but the person you're replying to stated that Anthropic are working on AGI, not that their current LLM offering will evolve into AGI.

[dham]

Ok that's different then. LLM, by definition, can't be AGI. But AGI can be AGI with another technology.

[JoshTriplett]

> LLM, by definition, can't be AGI.

False, and you've given no argument to the contrary. There's certainly no definition that precludes it. It isn't, currently; there's no reason it can't be, any more than there's reason that Conway's Game of Life can't be, given sufficiently interesting data to process. Any Turing-complete system could simulate AGI. It might not be the most efficient mechanism for doing so, but that's not the question at hand.

[chpatrick]

2021 called, they want their uninformed metaphor back.

[dham]

Oh sorry: *text predictor that feeds text back into text predictor

[chpatrick]

And?

[seizethecheese]

He said “from a company working on AGI” which is true. Not to mention that the sarcastic nature of your comment is off putting

[dentalnanobot]

Pretty rich coming from an AGI that’s running on a bowlful of mildly electrified meat. Emergent properties, my guy.

[direwolf20]

GPT–2 was AGI

[austhrow743]

If Anthropic moving to Europe was better for Claude, why has Europe not produced Claude?

[LtWorf]

Europe doesn't have a culture of throwing illimitate money at startups with little hope of getting anything back. Which is probably due to not having petrodollars.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> Europe doesn't have a culture of throwing illimitate money at startups with little hope of getting anything back.

Are you implying that venture investors in US have been losing money on IT startups? Care to provide references?

[LtWorf]

Save for a few notable ones, most startups never make any ROI.

[nemo44x]

Why wouldn’t the government just arrest their board and execs on charges of treason or something? At this point they could probably publicly hang them all and a plurality of Americans would cheer it. I don’t know if you appreciate how disliked tech is by the left and right alike.

[acdha]

The left would never support that lawlessness: opposition to AI is based on things like ethics, environmental impact, etc. which are predicated on concepts like the rule of law. People are calling for regulation or UBI, mor killings.

The right has far more talk of violence, true, but a lot of that is targeted rhetoric to keep voters riled up, and it’s not aimed at American businesses. I’d be surprised if even a third of Republicans supported anything more than not doing business with Anthropic. Even the Nvidia shakedown got a ton of criticism and that’s just money.

[crossroadsguy]

> even a third of Republicans supported anything

As if at this point "the Republicans" have a say or want to have a say in almost anything. They are either scared shitless of who he will come after next or just want the transfer of power to be absolute and are enjoying this unchecked power and want to reap all the benefits. I don't think they want this surreal spectacle of grab and abuse of power to end. So is this a disconnect? Or do people still believe the USA's ruling party and head of state and his select lackeys are doing things by process?

[sigwinch]

I don't get the downvotes or replies. The answer has nothing to do with ethics. AI is the only thing propping up Trump's stock market.

[deadbabe]

Europe doesn’t give a shit about another American company and their employees trying to dominate their markets and import their workaholic American culture. They will tell Anthropic to go home.

[deliciousturkey]

"Europe" is not a single entity with uniform opinions. As an European, I would much rather have hardworking people and """workaholic""" culture than regress to an underdeveloped culture fueled by laziness.

[gambiting]

>>underdeveloped culture fueled by laziness

Which of the European cultures is "underdeveloped", exactly?

[deliciousturkey]

The comment I answered implied that all Europeans have a disdain for working hard. This is not the case. The point was to say that if work and achievement was discouraged like the commenter said, Europe would regress as a continent.

[aveao]

This is pretty disconnected to how EU has been behaving towards both startups and AI.

[labrador]

Europe doesn't care about onshoring the best AI in the world and possibly achieving AGI before everyone? That's a laughable assertion.

[Timshel]

Not sure where you are in Europe, but in France, Macron would bend over backward.