42 sats \ 6 replies \ @OT 17 Jun \ on: AI: “Existential Crisis” or Excuse for Cronyism? econ
It depends if AI is viewed as an analogy to the nuclear weapon. In WWII they were competitively racing towards creating the nuclear bomb. This wasn’t cronyism but survival.
Interested to hear from people more versed in Austrian economics about weapons technology far superior to what we have now. Should this be secretive or open source?
I'm really not sure how to answer your question. That's not really the way Austrians tend to frame this discussion, but that's largely because most Austrians are also anarchist libertarians who don't think the state should be developing these weapons in the first place.
That's more of a moral position than an economic one, though.
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Let me try to put it this way. How would individuals protect themselves from an adversary country wanting to conquer or control them? Like if the CCP had tech that could monitor and control the world through insect drones with bio weapons to kill anyone disobeying their orders.
You would need an equalizer or something superior to what I described. Would that be possible from private companies or would you need something bigger (like a state) with all their resources for protection.
Like if the US was a libertarian jurisdiction during WWII, the nazis would have found the nuclear bomb first leaving the US unable to defend itself.
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I personally have never seen a compelling case that in any scenario that's ever actually occurred the state was necessary. That makes me skeptical of these sorts of thought experiments. I think it's most likely that the scenario itself is unrealistic or that a state wouldn't help anyway.
Even if the Nazis had gotten the bomb, they weren't going to conquer America. I mean, America was much wealthier than Germany, and were the only ones with nukes, and it's not like America just easily conquered everything, thereafter.
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Well the US was kind of the first to NOT conquer/colonize. I don’t know if we can count on other states for a similar outcome.
The example does sound like a sci-if movie. But imagine Aboriginal Australians first meeting their European colonizers for the first time with ships, guns and all kinds of tools and materials. It would look like magic.
From here:
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I hear you, but it wasn’t for lack of a centralized state that the aborigines were conquered.
I think it’s more likely that something like you’re describing breaks containment and accidentally devastates humanity than that the CCP develops it and wields it in that way.
Of the options you listed, I think the most likely safeguard is the Big Tech companies. That’s where the real expertise is concentrated. I don’t have a particularly strong opinion about this though.
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I don’t have a strong opinion either since I just started learning about it.
He argues that the problem with start ups is that they aren’t particularly good at keeping secrets or vetting staff. This is something the state is actually good at.
It’s yet to be seen of course. It’s a really interesting article (although long) and he goes into some of those ridiculous amounts of money we hear about like Altman asking for like 6 trillion dollars.
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