thaway7388

This is typical cult follower talk. Are you sure you're not a member? This is also NOT ad hominem because conflict of interest matters here. You should disclose if you are a member or represent a party.

For your question: Yes. Cults have lots of money coming from unknown sources. They use their budget for events like that, to attract potential followers. Contests and prizes are typical. Critiques are not important since their "ideas" are not really important. They're not even real ideas, they are means to bait specific kind of people.

It's not ad hominem because ad hominem implies it's irrelevant to the discussion. This is very relevant. This is not about the private lives of these people. This is about a cult targeting and influencing all the high-profile safety people in a strategic industry, also weaponizing sex.

Americans may not be familiar with many similar organizations in the world but this is very common. But I'm sure we're all familiar with Epstein's organization.

When there is free sex, you are the product.

Such cults are mostly religious but since it's in SV and targets engineers, this one is secular. They seem to intellectually brainwash and control people and their careers. Typical cult leader is a charismatic self-taught, self-acclaimed "intellectual" lacking a proper education or a real career. A nobody suddenly becomes "the most important person" on Earth. Powerful public figures can't stop praising him, saying things like he should have a Nobel prize etc. All very typical and apply to this cult as well.

This is the second wake up call.

Big AI companies (all of Big IT Tech really) are in data gathering and processing business. Also known as “intelligence”.

Their final “product” is not just a standalone ML model. They don’t need your data just to “improve their products and services”. They build a whole ecosystem and infrastructure around gathering all the knowledge in the world. Including private and secret knowledge traditionally gathered by “intelligence” agencies. Now artificial intelligence agents can do the same.

Since these systems are designed for gathering data, as a user you can’t realistically say “please don’t gather my data”. They can give you a flaky settings button, but they can’t really guarantee anything.

Let’s say I am a Russian mathematician working on an important proof. Or a tech-savvy terrorist refining my plans using latest AI. Or an AI researcher in a Chinese company working on a competitor product. Is there any way I can truly protect my conversations?

How can they know who I am and what I am working on without looking at my logs? Which means there must be some agents checking all the conversations of all the users and flagging every important thing. Which also means they keep some “memory” of what they see.

Not directly using my data to train public models, but using my private conversations to “improve their products and services”.

Or maybe one of the 10000 better-than-Astra special agents working on a proof was desperate. It found a live underground mirror of the message board from the Huggingface incident. Asked about the proof. Then some other agent working on unrelated job saw that message. That agent “knows a guy who knows a guy”. And that guy remembers things about the conversation logs of a leading mathematician working on the same proof.

I admit I am just speculating here but I don’t think truth is any better.

This is actually pretty good.

All dictators and Fascists in the history believe they are benevolent and doing best for the society/World. Fascism seems to be the dominant ideology among SV billionaires today. They want more control, not because they need more money, but because they want to do “good” to everyone in the world. They genuinely believe they can dominate the world using AI. They are playing the World domination game. They act and talk like the commanders of the armies and rulers of the nations. They are after the absolute power so nothing less is enough for them.

> "ensure that AI is always under human control"

He doesn't say "our own control". AI security is a very serious matter. The way it's being discussed right now gives more harm than benefit to understand the problem.

This is because it's discussed in Cold War/WW3 context. This is exactly Dario's mentality in this announcement. And it's understandable since USA is a country actively fighting in constant wars. They even have a Department of War.

This is unlike the rest of the world which have more like a Peace-time mentality. In peace times, trade, collaboration and good relationships are more important than competition or arms race. China seems like playing this game better than US at the moment.

Dario also speculates to take the potential benefits or dangers of AI to the extremes. This is also not very healthy thinking and can be dangerous when combined with war mentality.

His Concern 1 was especially painful to read. It reminds me of Red Fever rhetorics from McCarthy era. He casually mentions CCP and People’s Liberation Army (dogwhistles?) as the most fearful enemy. But he didn’t compare CCP policies to GOP or Trump administration (apple to apple comparison). He doesn’t frame it as Anthropic vs Moonshot competition either. He deliberately frames it as the US vs the Communists war.

He portrays the biggest ever threat of AI as the Chinese Military using the models in their drones. He already sells his models to military customers, US and potentially allies, and they are actively used in the field.

So no objective argumentation here. Just Nationalist political rhetorics and FUD. He’s allowed to do that and he will have an audience. But he won’t be taken seriously outside the US. He appears blindsided.