Grok-2 Beta Release(x.ai)
x.ai
Grok-2 Beta Release
https://x.ai/blog/grok-2
355 comments
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
sounds like mr Musk is a conservative.
sounds like mr Musk is a conservative.
I would encourage everybody who thinks so to pursue basic political and philosophical education. Perhaps with a dash of history.
This definition is plainly wrong on so many levels that it's practically impossible to engage with. But I'll make that mistake and engage on two points.
First, it implies that conservative position has somehow consistent features across time and space. There is difference between conservative in Germany, USA and China. Not to mention conservative in early, mid and late 20th century.
Second, ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements. At very worst, we can accuse them of maintaining laws with discriminatory intents. But not of flaunting those same laws.
This definition is plainly wrong on so many levels that it's practically impossible to engage with. But I'll make that mistake and engage on two points.
First, it implies that conservative position has somehow consistent features across time and space. There is difference between conservative in Germany, USA and China. Not to mention conservative in early, mid and late 20th century.
Second, ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements. At very worst, we can accuse them of maintaining laws with discriminatory intents. But not of flaunting those same laws.
If you're in a charitable mood, the context on when, where and who originally made the statement will provide clues on which strain of conservatism the statement is referring to.
I found this about the origin and am not sure what to take from it:
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
So, the original author is an American living in Ohio, and made the comment in the year AD 2018 while critiquing an essay about the New Deal. I'm confident you can make a good-faith educated guess on which country and period they were characterizing.
> ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements
The Republican candidate for president in the USA is a convicted felon
The Republican candidate for president in the USA is a convicted felon
What does that have to do with the definition of Conservatism as political thought?
North American Conservatives (i.e. citizen of the United States) have done olympic-worthy gymnastics to align with the aforementioned felon's redefinition of conservatism belief in America, even while those beliefs actively contradict their religion and life-long belief systems, or even their own on going behaviors and decisions.
I say this as someone living in Pennsylvania, drowning in the hypocrisy and escalating hate this group of people has been spewing for the last ~8 years.
Therefore I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.
I say this as someone living in Pennsylvania, drowning in the hypocrisy and escalating hate this group of people has been spewing for the last ~8 years.
Therefore I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.
> I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.
You don't consider this a problem, that the word "conservatism" when discussed with an unknown recipient online (very possibly non-american) is constrained to the context of the past decade(s) in the United States?
Words have meaning, so if you're going to have a meaningful discussion about a word like "conservatism" or any type of -ism for that matter, I would think it benefits anyone engaging in that discussion to be aware of the different wings present in that word, whether that be across history or across present day geography.
You don't consider this a problem, that the word "conservatism" when discussed with an unknown recipient online (very possibly non-american) is constrained to the context of the past decade(s) in the United States?
Words have meaning, so if you're going to have a meaningful discussion about a word like "conservatism" or any type of -ism for that matter, I would think it benefits anyone engaging in that discussion to be aware of the different wings present in that word, whether that be across history or across present day geography.
hagbard_c(1)
According to the random Crooked Timber blog commenter who coined that viral aphorism in 2018, yes. But by what standard are that commenter’s musings to be considered expositive on modern conservative philosophy?
Empirical observation of the last 10 years? Cue No True Conservative, etc.
Observing the last 10 years, which political movement is most associated with the idea that inherent identity characteristics should dictate how you are treated under the law?
In those last ten years, Republicans have been utterly obsessed with "identity characteristics". From pushing back against gay marriage, abortion, civil rights... It's basically all they talk about in political rallies today. Not the economy or anything else, just how it is important to never talk about trans people, and how they should not exist.
In my observation, every time a prominent conservative breaks the law, all I hear from the right is how “he’s a good man,” “he learned his lesson,” “he was acting in good faith,” and so on — even if the crime is as egregious as homicide or pedophilia. The same generosity is never granted to someone not in the in-group: just look how Crystal Mason was treated when compared to the scores of Republicans who were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
In other words, identity politics to a T.
In other words, identity politics to a T.
The guys closing polling places in black neighbourhoods? The guys denying women and trans people healthcare?
Identity politics has always been a conservative project.
Identity politics has always been a conservative project.
My understanding is the earliest application of identity politics comes from thinkers like Fanon and Wollstonecraft, would you categorize them as being conservatives?
Again, you are ignoring the identity based systems they describe, that have been in place for centuries before either of them were born.
You know which ones I mean.
You know which ones I mean.
"In-group" doesn't necessarily mean identity characteristics. In today's (US) conservative party, it distinctly means "pledges personal allegiance to party leader."
As an example: The "conservative" judge who threw out 40 years of precedent on a technicality to prevent the American public from learning whether their former and potentially future president sold, gave away, or otherwise exposed national security secrets after he undoubtedly stole those documents.
There's a fundamental asymmetry in "the movement" on the left - which essentially rounds out to whatever annoying undergrad student showed up in your Twitter feed today - and the actual elected, governing leaders of the right, doing things like throwing out very strong criminal cases on matters of deep public importance.
As an example: The "conservative" judge who threw out 40 years of precedent on a technicality to prevent the American public from learning whether their former and potentially future president sold, gave away, or otherwise exposed national security secrets after he undoubtedly stole those documents.
There's a fundamental asymmetry in "the movement" on the left - which essentially rounds out to whatever annoying undergrad student showed up in your Twitter feed today - and the actual elected, governing leaders of the right, doing things like throwing out very strong criminal cases on matters of deep public importance.
It's probably a bad idea and it will likely backfire but nevertheless motivation matters and a lot of people are willing to cut some slack to that political movement because they're honestly convinced it was done in good faith to restore a balance and give some power to disenfranchised groups.
Sometimes a phenomenon exists for a long time before being encapsulated in a concise, thought-provoking, and often (though not always) amusing aphorism.
An excellent example would be Murphy's Law, and by extension many of the similar, often eponymous, laws.
See:
- List of Eponymous Laws: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws>
- Murphy's Law and other reasons why things go wrong! by Arthur Bloch: <https://archive.org/details/murphyslawotherr0000arth>
- Compilation of Murphy's (and similar) laws: <https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/>
Some of those are humourous, some are in fact quite serious though have a comedic element particularly out of context. Most speak to at least a colloquial truth.
What Whilhoit did was manage to buttonhole a hypocrisy of modern conservativism, perhaps over the past few decades, perhaps a century or so (Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread", further evidentiarially supported by SCOTUS in Grants Pass), perhaps by millennia (see the opening paragraphs of A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, describing the political situation in the late Roman Republic, quoted here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22208105>, and at greater length: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607042525/https://old.reddi...>). It's not so much a proved hypothesis as a phrasing which fits the understanding of many and expresses it concisely and memorably.
An excellent example would be Murphy's Law, and by extension many of the similar, often eponymous, laws.
See:
- List of Eponymous Laws: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws>
- Murphy's Law and other reasons why things go wrong! by Arthur Bloch: <https://archive.org/details/murphyslawotherr0000arth>
- Compilation of Murphy's (and similar) laws: <https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/>
Some of those are humourous, some are in fact quite serious though have a comedic element particularly out of context. Most speak to at least a colloquial truth.
What Whilhoit did was manage to buttonhole a hypocrisy of modern conservativism, perhaps over the past few decades, perhaps a century or so (Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread", further evidentiarially supported by SCOTUS in Grants Pass), perhaps by millennia (see the opening paragraphs of A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, describing the political situation in the late Roman Republic, quoted here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22208105>, and at greater length: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607042525/https://old.reddi...>). It's not so much a proved hypothesis as a phrasing which fits the understanding of many and expresses it concisely and memorably.
Offtopic: Wiki says about that quote attributed to political scientist Francis Wilhoit it is just from some random musician from Ohio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#:~:text=Con....
> However, it was actually a 2018 blog response by 59-year-old Ohio composer Frank Wilhoit, years after Francis Wilhoit's death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#:~:text=Con....
> However, it was actually a 2018 blog response by 59-year-old Ohio composer Frank Wilhoit, years after Francis Wilhoit's death."
This is unconstructive flamebait.
Quote's by Frank Wilhoit.
ribelo(1)
ein0p(1)
That's not any conservatism that I recognize. In fact, what is espoused there is exactly the progressive left (Herbert Harcuse's "repressive tolerance") mindset.
And while I will grant you that liberalism (not to be confused with leftism), is different then conservatism, both (classical) liberalism and conservatism strongly require equal treatment (procedural symmetry).
And while I will grant you that liberalism (not to be confused with leftism), is different then conservatism, both (classical) liberalism and conservatism strongly require equal treatment (procedural symmetry).
Didn't Trump himself say he would pardon the rioters that stormed the Capitol, if ever he was reelected ? Didn't he say that he would "lock up" all the "sick, evil" democrats after he is reelected ?
Modern american conservatism very well fits the quote from grandparent.
Also, surely you would know what "repressive tolerance" is, since you're quoting it ? You would also know that the author you cite, whose name you misspelled, was critiquing the concept ?
Modern american conservatism very well fits the quote from grandparent.
Also, surely you would know what "repressive tolerance" is, since you're quoting it ? You would also know that the author you cite, whose name you misspelled, was critiquing the concept ?
Yes, I fat-fingered his name, didn't I. It should be: "Herbert Marcuse".
And no, I have not seen a primary source where in context Trump said that he would "" "lock up" all the "sick, evil" democrats after he is reelected"". Do you have such a primary source? Years ago I was told that Trump said the white supremacists were "very fine people", so I looked at the transcript and he literally said the opposite.
And no, I have not seen a primary source where in context Trump said that he would "" "lock up" all the "sick, evil" democrats after he is reelected"". Do you have such a primary source? Years ago I was told that Trump said the white supremacists were "very fine people", so I looked at the transcript and he literally said the opposite.
He said those words in an interview with Glenn Beck. Here's a Guardian article reporting on it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/30/trump-interv...
I don't think he ever endorsed white supremacists, but I think I remember (wouldn't bet on it) an instance where a journalist asked him why some keep showing up at his rallies and why he does nothing about it. He then answered that he doesn't really know who they are, that he didn't know, etc. basically eluding the question. i.e. they're welcome but won't proclaim his support for them, one of the many dog whistles Republicans use nowadays.
I don't think he ever endorsed white supremacists, but I think I remember (wouldn't bet on it) an instance where a journalist asked him why some keep showing up at his rallies and why he does nothing about it. He then answered that he doesn't really know who they are, that he didn't know, etc. basically eluding the question. i.e. they're welcome but won't proclaim his support for them, one of the many dog whistles Republicans use nowadays.
I don't know what you read, but Trump is (or was) buddies with Fuentes: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/25/trump-white-nationa...
what a nasty vicious outgroup
This is not what conservatism is
It's not a complete definition but he is right that conservatism is completely incompatible with universalism.
This is a little confusing in the US and other Anglo countries because traditionally we have been fairly liberal so sometimes people confuse liberalism and conservatism.
This is a little confusing in the US and other Anglo countries because traditionally we have been fairly liberal so sometimes people confuse liberalism and conservatism.
In the Anglo countries, what is being “conserved” is the liberal universalist tradition of the Enlightenment, and what is being “progressed” is a power- and identity-centered postmodernism.
Don’t get this confused with conservative and progressive politicians, though, who are generally ignorant of the actual traditions and philosophies behind their respective movements, and are essentially just cutouts for competing media and financial corporate interests. The few holdouts on both sides have been successfully sidelined (Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul), and it looks like the military-industrial complex will have their war with Iran no matter what the results of the next few elections are.
(Sorry, I’ll go have my coffee now and see if I get a little less doomer.)
Don’t get this confused with conservative and progressive politicians, though, who are generally ignorant of the actual traditions and philosophies behind their respective movements, and are essentially just cutouts for competing media and financial corporate interests. The few holdouts on both sides have been successfully sidelined (Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul), and it looks like the military-industrial complex will have their war with Iran no matter what the results of the next few elections are.
(Sorry, I’ll go have my coffee now and see if I get a little less doomer.)
Actually I think you're overly optimistic.
You're going to need to provide a source for the definitions you're using for "conservatism", "liberalism" and "universalism".
Without those, your comment is difficult to make any sense of, since the way you're using those words seems to differ from any sort of standardized definition.
Without those, your comment is difficult to make any sense of, since the way you're using those words seems to differ from any sort of standardized definition.
I think we can both agree that for example liberalism and Islam are incompatible. So if you want to conserve liberalism you'll have to exclude Muslims. That's not universalist -> liberalism and universalism are incompatible.
Sounds like a made-up definition of Conservatism as 'that which I do not agree with'. It is not a very good definition, if you really want to find out what it is about you could read (or listen to) some of Roger Scruton's works. Here's an interview with Scruton to give some ideas of what it is about:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/roger-scruton-meaning...
You do not need to agree with him or his definition of Conservatism and there are other definitions of the term which are also applicable but none of those definitions have any resemblance to what you posed.
Musk is a centrist, not a conservative. He used to stand to the left of centre but has been moved to the right of centre by virtue of the left moving further left, thereby moving the centre to the left as well while Musk staid put.
Society needs conservatives just like it needs centrists and progressives and whatever other names you want to give to these philosophies and/or ideologies. A world made out of only progressives never gets anywhere since they will never find out what works well and what does not since their aim is to shape the future by means of societal change. A world made out of only progressives will eventually grow stale when the rate of change in the environment outpaces societies' capacity for change. Progressives can make good innovators but tend to be less able at keeping things running. Conservatives can be good at keeping things running but tend to be less inclined to innovation. These are broad brush strokes but the essence is sound, society tends to work best when there is a balance between conservatives and progressives.
You might notice some parallels: architects tend to be lousy builders, builders tend to be uninspired architects. Developers tend to be less gifted at UI design, UI designers tend to be sloppy developers. Copy editors tend to be unremarkable writers, writers tend to be less effective copy editors.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/roger-scruton-meaning...
You do not need to agree with him or his definition of Conservatism and there are other definitions of the term which are also applicable but none of those definitions have any resemblance to what you posed.
Musk is a centrist, not a conservative. He used to stand to the left of centre but has been moved to the right of centre by virtue of the left moving further left, thereby moving the centre to the left as well while Musk staid put.
Society needs conservatives just like it needs centrists and progressives and whatever other names you want to give to these philosophies and/or ideologies. A world made out of only progressives never gets anywhere since they will never find out what works well and what does not since their aim is to shape the future by means of societal change. A world made out of only progressives will eventually grow stale when the rate of change in the environment outpaces societies' capacity for change. Progressives can make good innovators but tend to be less able at keeping things running. Conservatives can be good at keeping things running but tend to be less inclined to innovation. These are broad brush strokes but the essence is sound, society tends to work best when there is a balance between conservatives and progressives.
You might notice some parallels: architects tend to be lousy builders, builders tend to be uninspired architects. Developers tend to be less gifted at UI design, UI designers tend to be sloppy developers. Copy editors tend to be unremarkable writers, writers tend to be less effective copy editors.
Pretty simple explanations for all of those:
- xAI opens sources models with a 6 month lag, look at Grok 1
- No one else stopped development, so why should he?
- He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?
- xAI opens sources models with a 6 month lag, look at Grok 1
- No one else stopped development, so why should he?
- He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?
> xAI opens sources models with a 6 month lag, look at Grok 1
That's what happened once, rather than a policy that we can expect to be applied. (Unless I missed some announcement?) Based on "we'll publish the algorithm" which ended up being a one-off partial snapshot, never updated afterwards, I wouldn't hold my breath for the models.
> He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?
There's a whole thing about having clear opt-in agreement about how your data will be used for EU citizens. Twitter didn't comply here with their hidden opt-out strategy.
That's what happened once, rather than a policy that we can expect to be applied. (Unless I missed some announcement?) Based on "we'll publish the algorithm" which ended up being a one-off partial snapshot, never updated afterwards, I wouldn't hold my breath for the models.
> He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?
There's a whole thing about having clear opt-in agreement about how your data will be used for EU citizens. Twitter didn't comply here with their hidden opt-out strategy.
> He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?
Because he doesn’t own the tweets. Can you imagine if posting a photo you took to Twitter meant it’s not your photo anymore? Totally ridiculous.
Because he doesn’t own the tweets. Can you imagine if posting a photo you took to Twitter meant it’s not your photo anymore? Totally ridiculous.
X terms of service:
You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content).
By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use. Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services.
— https://x.com/en/tos/previous/version_13
You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content).
By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use. Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services.
— https://x.com/en/tos/previous/version_13
Right: you retain ownership, and grant X certain rights to the content. Whether those rights include training AI on the data is legally and morally in dispute. X claims that right in its ToS, but a ToS isn’t law and may be legally invalid, and besides that the ToS system is famously broken in the US. Morally, I think it’s pretty clear that reasonable users did consent to their content being published as a tweet, and did not consent to X recreating the content as their own and taking credit for it.
When I signed up on Twitter in 2009 these ToS in no way implied using my tweets as training data. Nor they are worded explicitly that way now either.
Clearly does not include a provision to utilize Content for purposes of training an AI model.
In fact, they didn't include any purpose for their own use of the data and following GDPR thus cannot use the data at all. They did include purposes for other companies (syndication, broadcast, etc) which also doesn't include training of AI.
In fact, they didn't include any purpose for their own use of the data and following GDPR thus cannot use the data at all. They did include purposes for other companies (syndication, broadcast, etc) which also doesn't include training of AI.
GDPR only covers europeans. Also I doubt very much it applies to publicly accessible data.
Err, yeah clearly does:
“you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).“
Not sure how anyone could defend that an AI model is not covered by this idea - such a model is easily covered by “distribution methods”.
“you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).“
Not sure how anyone could defend that an AI model is not covered by this idea - such a model is easily covered by “distribution methods”.
Nope, the GDPR separates the action you perform on data from the purpose of such action. You need to collect consent for a purpose. X didn't state a purpose for why they would do any of these actions. Thus under EU laws their data collection is likely unlawful.
Adding a new purpose requires additional consent at least in the EU.
Adding a new purpose requires additional consent at least in the EU.
…still Twitter?
I was under the impression ( and assumption ) that majority of mainstream social medias, literally, own everything that you post and archive it
They don’t. Mainly for legal reasons. They don’t want to responsible for stupid/libelous things users post.
Doesn’t appear to be the case https://x.com/en/tos/previous/version_13
Whoever owns the tweets is completely irrelevant.
If it is within his right to use this data for training purposes, then that's it.
And he is, btw.
And those terms were in place since way before he took over Twitter, btw, btw.
If it is within his right to use this data for training purposes, then that's it.
And he is, btw.
And those terms were in place since way before he took over Twitter, btw, btw.
I cannot recall specifics but I thought this was very much a real thing with some sites? What you upload can be used by the publishing company.
IANAL disclaimer, but I believe social media companies very explicitly separate themselves from publishers for the purpose of not being responsible for what users post. They can't have it both ways.
> - No one else stopped development, so why should he?
I thought it was a moral imperative or some such thing to do AI right because it could "destroy humanity"?
Or was that just Musk and the rest of the special people in SV's way of aggrandizing themselves while trying to do something most of them have either no experience in or fail miserably at, which is raise an intelligence to be a responsible actor?
I thought it was a moral imperative or some such thing to do AI right because it could "destroy humanity"?
Or was that just Musk and the rest of the special people in SV's way of aggrandizing themselves while trying to do something most of them have either no experience in or fail miserably at, which is raise an intelligence to be a responsible actor?
Regarding the last question: because nobody gave them permission to use that data.
They tried to add a pre-checked mark to the settings, but at least in Europe, where we actually have consumer protection, that won't fly.
They tried to add a pre-checked mark to the settings, but at least in Europe, where we actually have consumer protection, that won't fly.
The data is sitting in northern Virginia in a data center. It's no longer in Europe's jurisdiction.
> OpenAI trained on tweets, but it also trained on tweets
Not only that - Grok is/was trained on ChatGPT output, which I suppose Musk felt was turnabout. When asked about its identity, the first Grok would respond like ChatGPT (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584922)
Not only that - Grok is/was trained on ChatGPT output, which I suppose Musk felt was turnabout. When asked about its identity, the first Grok would respond like ChatGPT (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584922)
Don't take this as a pro-Musk or anti-Musk comment. I just want to paraphrase his reasoning:
In a recent interview on Lex Fridman, he envisioned a future where humans augmented AI, through a brain to computer device like Neuralink would be able to keep up with pure AI.
Now one can immediately notice a hole in this reasoning: namely what guarantees that the AI that is use to augment humans is going to be benevolent and won't go rogue?
In a recent interview on Lex Fridman, he envisioned a future where humans augmented AI, through a brain to computer device like Neuralink would be able to keep up with pure AI.
Now one can immediately notice a hole in this reasoning: namely what guarantees that the AI that is use to augment humans is going to be benevolent and won't go rogue?
Nothing guarantees that. But in this augmentations scenario human brain is necessary, unlike in the many extinction scenarios with pure silicon AGI take off.
maybe that humans are controlling the creation process and can terminate it when the AI versions are going increasingly "rogue"?
Unfortunately, Grok is not even Open Output, nor is Mistral’s platform or DeepSeek’s. None of them can be used for work (mistral with a fancy commercial license, but you gotta jump through hoops)
Only Meta’s Llama can be used for work. The rest are just toys for personal use noobs who don’t read the fine print.
Only Meta’s Llama can be used for work. The rest are just toys for personal use noobs who don’t read the fine print.
Musk has publicly stated his goal for AI is alignment with Truth, where truth is defined as to what corresponds with reality, not necessarily with the current social consensus. Specifically in terms of reason, given a set of facts, being able to reason to a real place, not just to a socially given answer.
Which means essentially nothing. Most questions where alignment matter do not have a "true" answer, just a social consensus.
You don't need an "aligned" AI to tell you the distance between the Earth and the Moon. You need an "aligned" AI to tell you not to rape people even if you can get away with it, that's because the idea that rape is bad is not an objective truth based on the laws of nature, it is a "social consensus".
You don't need an "aligned" AI to tell you the distance between the Earth and the Moon. You need an "aligned" AI to tell you not to rape people even if you can get away with it, that's because the idea that rape is bad is not an objective truth based on the laws of nature, it is a "social consensus".
There is actually sound ethical reasoning for why rape is bad, that doesn't rely on social consensus.
Truth isn't one fundamental thing, truth is what works.
There are places in the world today that the social consensus is it's fine for a man to rape his wife. Social systems in these places don't work very well, and one can make a logical and well reasoned argument linking the social acceptance of rape to a myriad of other dysfunctions.
Truth isn't one fundamental thing, truth is what works.
There are places in the world today that the social consensus is it's fine for a man to rape his wife. Social systems in these places don't work very well, and one can make a logical and well reasoned argument linking the social acceptance of rape to a myriad of other dysfunctions.
Rape is present in many successful animals species, and many successful human civilizations tolerated or even encouraged rape in some circumstances. In the modern world, the dominant (which likes to call itself "most advanced") culture doesn't tolerate rape and we may argue that if the most successful humans came up with this idea, it works and it is the "truth". Not only I find the logic a little shaky, but are we that successful? The western population is crashing down and this is a problem, maybe rape can fix that, maybe rape "works".
Do I think rape is good? Absolutely not, because I follow the current social consensus on that one, not a "truth" that is muddy at best. And I also want AIs to do the same.
Do I think rape is good? Absolutely not, because I follow the current social consensus on that one, not a "truth" that is muddy at best. And I also want AIs to do the same.
So your moral compass isn't based on compassion or ethical reasoning, it's just based on social consensus?
So I guess you would have been fine with being a concentration camp guard, rounding up Jews and putting them in the oven because social consensus said it was the right thing to do?
Maybe you see the logic as shaky because you lack knowledge in logic and ethics...?
So I guess you would have been fine with being a concentration camp guard, rounding up Jews and putting them in the oven because social consensus said it was the right thing to do?
Maybe you see the logic as shaky because you lack knowledge in logic and ethics...?
Honestly, I don't know how I would have been as a concentration camp guard. In my mind, I wouldn't have accepted it, because thankfully, I am not in this situation. But if I really was in this situation, who knows, we tend to underestimate how easily influenced we are.
Ethics gives us more questions than answers. The trolley problem doesn't have a true answer for instance.
The human rights are a social consensus, it is even made explicit by being a signed declaration. It felt good to the people who wrote them, it also feels good to me, because I was born and live in a society that has these values. It is only truth because by social consensus, we decided it is. In logic that would be an axiom and aligning an AI would mean implementing social consensus as axioms.
There are some fundamental reasoning that can justify human rights. One can use game theory, or the idea that human rights promote free thinking and free thinking is what brings the most value out of people now that machines do better than slaves for menial labor. But these are, I think, not enough.
Ethics gives us more questions than answers. The trolley problem doesn't have a true answer for instance.
The human rights are a social consensus, it is even made explicit by being a signed declaration. It felt good to the people who wrote them, it also feels good to me, because I was born and live in a society that has these values. It is only truth because by social consensus, we decided it is. In logic that would be an axiom and aligning an AI would mean implementing social consensus as axioms.
There are some fundamental reasoning that can justify human rights. One can use game theory, or the idea that human rights promote free thinking and free thinking is what brings the most value out of people now that machines do better than slaves for menial labor. But these are, I think, not enough.
I think you got it in your last paragraph.
Absolutely NOT social consensus as axioms, as that will result in stagnation and tyranny.
Instead we must progress gradually one axiom at a time through reasoning and experimentation.
Truth is not what we decide it is, truth is what works. The universe decides what is true, not people.
Re your comment: "but these are, I think, not enough". I both agree and disagree depending on what you mean. Fundamentally this approach is enough, but practically we haven't developed our understanding enough to map out absolute truth. It's probably something we can only approach but never reach.
But in theory the right AI system could allow us to approach the faster
Absolutely NOT social consensus as axioms, as that will result in stagnation and tyranny.
Instead we must progress gradually one axiom at a time through reasoning and experimentation.
Truth is not what we decide it is, truth is what works. The universe decides what is true, not people.
Re your comment: "but these are, I think, not enough". I both agree and disagree depending on what you mean. Fundamentally this approach is enough, but practically we haven't developed our understanding enough to map out absolute truth. It's probably something we can only approach but never reach.
But in theory the right AI system could allow us to approach the faster
logical or well reasoned argument doesn't equal a casual or factual relationship. The well reasoned arguments on many issues change over time, just take the same issue and go back in time 100 or 50 years to find much less consensus and much weaker logical links. Elon shows pretty consistently that truth for him is mostly just what Elon deems truthful or useful.
So, your point is because we get better at logic and reasoning over time (better today than 100 years ago), that logic and reasoning aren't valid ways to progress towards truth?
If this isn't your point, what is? Just that you don't trust Elon?
If this isn't your point, what is? Just that you don't trust Elon?
Then surely he wouldn't be training on tweets.
I wonder what "Truth" is. If I say I want you to make a picture of a lion eating at a 5 star restaurant, is that Truth? Is it truth because it can't refuse an ask? That feels like it is uninhibited, but not Truth, or truth.
I entirely agree. I’m quite sure Musk has a very strong stance on ethics, but it would be great to hear about it more clearly, and ideally not just through words, but through actual actions.
> I’m quite sure Musk has a very strong stance on ethics
His whole history tells otherwise.
His whole history tells otherwise.
Profs?
If you mean “proof”, then lol. Off the top of my head:
- the pedo guy moment
- the hyperloop smoke and mirrors which are actually just his campaign against public transport
- the several union busting episodes
- the whole “Tesla is going to save the world” thing
- the multiple harassment cases
- the multiple instances of overwork, discrimination, and general lack of any consideration for his staff
- all the severance payments he failed to make after having fired a whole bunch of people
- the stupid ultimatum before one of the firing episodes, plus the utterly stupid “show your work” thing that came just after
- the multiple times he stiffed his creditors (either landlords, lawyers, contractors in general) or tried to do it
- the way he tried to force open Tesla factories in the middle of the COVID pandemic
- the multiple instances of pushing Russian propaganda verbatim (concerning.)
- most of the Neuralink saga
- the FSD vapourware that has been coming next year for a decade
- the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential
- the Media Matters lawsuit
Well, I could go on. He’d need to work quite hard to reverse his public image of massive arsehole at this point.
- the pedo guy moment
- the hyperloop smoke and mirrors which are actually just his campaign against public transport
- the several union busting episodes
- the whole “Tesla is going to save the world” thing
- the multiple harassment cases
- the multiple instances of overwork, discrimination, and general lack of any consideration for his staff
- all the severance payments he failed to make after having fired a whole bunch of people
- the stupid ultimatum before one of the firing episodes, plus the utterly stupid “show your work” thing that came just after
- the multiple times he stiffed his creditors (either landlords, lawyers, contractors in general) or tried to do it
- the way he tried to force open Tesla factories in the middle of the COVID pandemic
- the multiple instances of pushing Russian propaganda verbatim (concerning.)
- most of the Neuralink saga
- the FSD vapourware that has been coming next year for a decade
- the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential
- the Media Matters lawsuit
Well, I could go on. He’d need to work quite hard to reverse his public image of massive arsehole at this point.
I could push back on some of these but I mainly want to ask about this:
> the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential
In the cases I've seen, Tesla pulled data showing that the people "killed by their Tesla" were either not paying attention at all (contrary to Tesla's explicit warnings), or were driving without the automated features enabled after all despite initial media claims to the contrary. Is this what you consider "disparagement" or do you have more egregious examples?
> the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential
In the cases I've seen, Tesla pulled data showing that the people "killed by their Tesla" were either not paying attention at all (contrary to Tesla's explicit warnings), or were driving without the automated features enabled after all despite initial media claims to the contrary. Is this what you consider "disparagement" or do you have more egregious examples?
I did not particularly keep track, I do not dedicate my life to obsessively follow even massive dangerous idiots. There were at least 3 major ones.
That said, yes. What you said is evidence that he is mean-spirited and does not follow the rules he set himself. Of course, having an ethical behaviour sometimes means making hard choices. It is not about doing things that are understandable in context, it’s about doing the right thing, even if it is at a cost to you in the short term. He does not have any history of doing so.
These people are dead. Spitting on their graves because he is annoyed by their family is absolutely unethical. Particularly since their main failure was to believe the smoke and mirrors about FSD, which is itself another ethical clusterfuck.
If he had a beef, he could have sued for defamation, where he could have shown his data in an ethical and confidential manner. He knows the deal, he’s been in more than his fair share of defamation lawsuits, on either side.
That said, yes. What you said is evidence that he is mean-spirited and does not follow the rules he set himself. Of course, having an ethical behaviour sometimes means making hard choices. It is not about doing things that are understandable in context, it’s about doing the right thing, even if it is at a cost to you in the short term. He does not have any history of doing so.
These people are dead. Spitting on their graves because he is annoyed by their family is absolutely unethical. Particularly since their main failure was to believe the smoke and mirrors about FSD, which is itself another ethical clusterfuck.
If he had a beef, he could have sued for defamation, where he could have shown his data in an ethical and confidential manner. He knows the deal, he’s been in more than his fair share of defamation lawsuits, on either side.
I don't find it particularly mean-spirited to say "actually, our product didn't kill him, he wasn't using that feature." I don't even find it especially pejorative to note that the victim at that particular time was ignoring warnings and reading a newspaper; most of us do something foolish occasionally.
But that's just me. I doubt further debate on this would be productive.
But that's just me. I doubt further debate on this would be productive.
Add how he took a multibillion payout while laying off 14% ish of Tesla staff. He seems to use shareholder Tesla equity to bail out his other misadventures. To add insult to injury he laughed with Trump about firing unionizing workers.
Oh he likes to bully people with lawsuits. Amber Heard comes to mind (he bullied the studio behind Aquaman).
Oh he likes to bully people with lawsuits. Amber Heard comes to mind (he bullied the studio behind Aquaman).
The Solar City investor fraud, for which 4 of his cohorts settled in a lawsuit against.
His whole history proves that his moral principles go first, not money.
He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.
He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.
Try tweeting the word cisgender. That alone should be the end of all association about Musk and free speech.
A simple search of twitter for "cisgender" shows that the word is not banned
Searching for it is the only way you can find the word, because tweets containing the word are "reach-limited" (and appropriately labelled to the author, so they are discouraged from using that "slur" ever again).
worth pointing out that banned and visibility limited in certain scenarios are not the same thing, which might be causing some confusion in this thread.
> His whole history proves that his moral principles go first, not money.
Having moral principles is completely orthogonal to being ethical. Ayn Rand had lots of moral principles and she was still a reckless sociopath. One of his moral principles is that greed is good, and his actions certainly are consistent with this one.
He did lose a lot of money on Twitter, but you can hardly call that him following his moral principles, considering how things actually happened.
> He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.
Whose free speech is he defending? There is no evidence that he champions free speech, merely that he supports however agrees with him and edgelords. He is more than happy to harass, intimidate, bully, and be a general nuisance to those whose opinions he finds objectionable.
Having moral principles is completely orthogonal to being ethical. Ayn Rand had lots of moral principles and she was still a reckless sociopath. One of his moral principles is that greed is good, and his actions certainly are consistent with this one.
He did lose a lot of money on Twitter, but you can hardly call that him following his moral principles, considering how things actually happened.
> He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.
Whose free speech is he defending? There is no evidence that he champions free speech, merely that he supports however agrees with him and edgelords. He is more than happy to harass, intimidate, bully, and be a general nuisance to those whose opinions he finds objectionable.
I’m not a fan of Musk but it is so funny to see that many haters here.
Haha, good one!
A strong stance on ethics? Like his comments about unions and firing workers in the Twitter space with Trump yesterday?
Well... he does have a strong stance on ethics, just not a positive one
The one you disagree with but why do you think all people think the same way as you?
He wrongly accused a British of being a pedophille because he declined Elon's "help". That's the side of ethics you are standing for.
He tweeted "pedo guy" in response to the diver saying to "stick his submarine where it hurts". I don't see it as accusation as much as I don't see what the diver said as an order given to Musk. Both were just insulting each other.
Yes. The richest man, out of boredom and the me too disease, was insulting a guy rescuing kids in a tragedy.
I have met people who consider all meat eaters murderers.
You will find yourself called unethical around different groups.
Understanding what group you are in is important to keep in mind when judging others.
You will find yourself called unethical around different groups.
Understanding what group you are in is important to keep in mind when judging others.
Lol, a random person sharing their obvious opinion about ethics of eating meat is totally, undeniably different than one of the world's most powerful men legitimately and honestly accusing a rescue worker of being a pedophile.
No one is going to get investigated or have their careers ruined because a vegan called them a murder, obviously.
Unreal what sort of knots someone will tie themselves into to excuse this type of behavior.
No one is going to get investigated or have their careers ruined because a vegan called them a murder, obviously.
Unreal what sort of knots someone will tie themselves into to excuse this type of behavior.
Well, In India one can get killed for eating beef or supplying beef. And there will be millions who would celebrate the murder.
Your worldview seems limited to tweets and social media in first world.
Your worldview seems limited to tweets and social media in first world.
This isn't complicated.
If you say something false in a context where it is likely to actually harm someone, or with the goal of actually harming someone, you're an asshole.
Your level of assholeness rises in tandem with the expected harm of your falsehoods.
If you say something false in a context where it is likely to actually harm someone, or with the goal of actually harming someone, you're an asshole.
Your level of assholeness rises in tandem with the expected harm of your falsehoods.
I don’t understand why you’re playing dumb here.
He is primarially known specifically as someone who is incredibly impulsive, is unable to differentiate fact from fiction and not actually interested in chasing any kind of objective truth in so much as that is possible.
But multiple times per week now for a long time you can see him sharing and commenting on things that are provably wrong and I don’t mean in some kind of “it’s just a different opinion” kind of way.
There is never any kind of introspection, never any kind of “oh I was wrong” just proceeds to roll immediately into the next round of bullshit.
So, no… people don’t have any kind of assumption that he has “strong ethics”. Maybe you meant strong convictions? Because that he certainly does have.
He is primarially known specifically as someone who is incredibly impulsive, is unable to differentiate fact from fiction and not actually interested in chasing any kind of objective truth in so much as that is possible.
But multiple times per week now for a long time you can see him sharing and commenting on things that are provably wrong and I don’t mean in some kind of “it’s just a different opinion” kind of way.
There is never any kind of introspection, never any kind of “oh I was wrong” just proceeds to roll immediately into the next round of bullshit.
So, no… people don’t have any kind of assumption that he has “strong ethics”. Maybe you meant strong convictions? Because that he certainly does have.
"He is primarially known specifically as someone who is incredibly impulsive, is unable to differentiate fact from fiction and not actually interested in chasing any kind of objective truth"
I'm sure you could make a case that these descriptors apply to him, not a particularly strong case, but ... You think he's primarily known for these things?
I'm sure you could make a case that these descriptors apply to him, not a particularly strong case, but ... You think he's primarily known for these things?
I assume they will have a lot less "safety", i.e. the model will be more likely to actually do what you ask instead of finding a reason why "sorry Dave, I can't do that".
Since these "safety" features tend to also degrade the model, that's likely also helping them catch up in the benchmarks.
Since these "safety" features tend to also degrade the model, that's likely also helping them catch up in the benchmarks.
Sadly it's at the level of Claude and way worse than grok-1 or Lama without safety. It roleplays as nearly everything so I guess they know their target group.
I’m so confused by this comment. Are you not aware that Claude 3.5 Sonnet is currently considered the best model?
Yes, you are confused because we are talking about censorship.
It’s less censored than Claude but only slightly.
It’s weirdly the opposite of what you have in mind. It has no problems generating images of Trump and Elon in explicit situations or Elmo covering 9/11, but it “safety-censors” LGBT-related prompts to the point of generating a heterosexual couple when asked for a gay couple: https://x.com/karlmaxxer/status/1823753493783699901 Some got expected results for prompts with LGBT terms, but that generation is still very weird.
It's hilarious they put Claude 3.5 Sonnet in the far right corner while it scores the highest and beats most of Grok's numbers.
Yes, and I also noted how it beats Claude 3.5 Sonnet in Chatbot Arena by a bit of a margin.
This further feeds into my concern that the more advanced AI models we get, random enthusiasts at that site may no longer be able to rank them well, and tuning for Chatbot Arena might be a thing. One that is also exploited by GPT-4o. GPT-4o absolutely does not rank wildly ahead of Claude 3.5 Sonnet in a wide variety of benchmarks, yet it does in Chatbot Arena... People actually using Claude 3.5 Sonnet are also quite satisfied with its performance, often ranking it more helpful than GPT-4o when solving engineering problems, but at the expense of tighter usage limits.
Chatbot Arena was great when they were still fairly stupid, but these days, remember that everyday people are put against the task of ranking premium LLM's even solving some logic puzzles, trick questions and with a deep general knowledge far beyond that of singular humans. They can strike against traditional weaknesses like math, but then all of them suffer. So it's not an easy task at all and I'm not sure the site is very reliable anymore other than for smaller models.
This further feeds into my concern that the more advanced AI models we get, random enthusiasts at that site may no longer be able to rank them well, and tuning for Chatbot Arena might be a thing. One that is also exploited by GPT-4o. GPT-4o absolutely does not rank wildly ahead of Claude 3.5 Sonnet in a wide variety of benchmarks, yet it does in Chatbot Arena... People actually using Claude 3.5 Sonnet are also quite satisfied with its performance, often ranking it more helpful than GPT-4o when solving engineering problems, but at the expense of tighter usage limits.
Chatbot Arena was great when they were still fairly stupid, but these days, remember that everyday people are put against the task of ranking premium LLM's even solving some logic puzzles, trick questions and with a deep general knowledge far beyond that of singular humans. They can strike against traditional weaknesses like math, but then all of them suffer. So it's not an easy task at all and I'm not sure the site is very reliable anymore other than for smaller models.
There was a mini-uproar when GPT-4o-mini (an obviously "dumber" model) outscored claude-3.5-sonnet on Chatbot Arena, so much so that LMSYS released a subset of the battles: https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/gpt-4o-mini_battles
You can review for yourself and decide if it was justified (you can compare based on W/L/T responses and matchups). Generally, Claude still has more refusals (easy wins for the model that actually answers the request), often has worse formatting (arguable if this is better, but people like it more), and is less verbose (personally, I'd prefer the right answer with less words, but ChatArena users generally disagree).
If you look at the questions (and Chat Arena and Wildchat analyses), most people aren't using LLMs for math, reasoning, or even coding - if anything the arena usage is probably overly skewed to reasoning/trick questions due to the subset of people poking at the models.
Of course, different people value different things. I've almost exclusively been using 3.5 Sonnet since it came out because it's been the best code assistant and Artifacts are great, only falling back to GPT-4o for occasional Code Interpreter work (for tricky problems, Mistral's Codestral actually seems to be a good fallback, often being able to debug issues that neither of those models can, despite being a tiny model in comparison).
You can review for yourself and decide if it was justified (you can compare based on W/L/T responses and matchups). Generally, Claude still has more refusals (easy wins for the model that actually answers the request), often has worse formatting (arguable if this is better, but people like it more), and is less verbose (personally, I'd prefer the right answer with less words, but ChatArena users generally disagree).
If you look at the questions (and Chat Arena and Wildchat analyses), most people aren't using LLMs for math, reasoning, or even coding - if anything the arena usage is probably overly skewed to reasoning/trick questions due to the subset of people poking at the models.
Of course, different people value different things. I've almost exclusively been using 3.5 Sonnet since it came out because it's been the best code assistant and Artifacts are great, only falling back to GPT-4o for occasional Code Interpreter work (for tricky problems, Mistral's Codestral actually seems to be a good fallback, often being able to debug issues that neither of those models can, despite being a tiny model in comparison).
Is there yet standardized ways of objectively testing LLMs? The Chatbot Arena thing has always felt weird to me; basically ranking them based on vibes.
Short answer is no, because there is no 'standardized' use case.
One thing is sure - that current commonly used benchmarks are mostly polluted and worthless. So you have to go to niche ones.
For example the one I check for coding is Aider LLM leaderboard [1].
We maintain Kagi LLM Benchmarking Project [2] optimized for the use case of using LLMs in search.
[1] https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/
[2] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/llm-benchmark.html
One thing is sure - that current commonly used benchmarks are mostly polluted and worthless. So you have to go to niche ones.
For example the one I check for coding is Aider LLM leaderboard [1].
We maintain Kagi LLM Benchmarking Project [2] optimized for the use case of using LLMs in search.
[1] https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/
[2] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/llm-benchmark.html
Not really. There's a hundred benchmarks, but all of them suffer from the same issues. They're rated by other LLMs, and the tasks are often too simple and similar to each other. The hope is that just gathering enough of these benchmarks means you get a representative test suite, but in my view we're still pretty far off.
Use this https://livebench.ai
It's a better benchmark.
Your concerns are valid.
Two more things concerning Chatbot Arena:
- The prompts people use on have an incredible sample bias towards certain tasks and styles, and as such are unrepresentative of "overall performance" which is what people expect from a leaderboard.
- It is incredibly easy to game by a company, their employees or their fanboys if they would like to. No idea if anyone has done so, but it's trivial.
Just to give one example of the bias; advances in non-English performance don't even register on the leaderboard because almost everyone rating completions there is doing so in English. You could have a model that's a 100 in English and a 0 on every other language, and it would do better on the leaderboard than a model that's a 98 in every human language in the world.
Two more things concerning Chatbot Arena:
- The prompts people use on have an incredible sample bias towards certain tasks and styles, and as such are unrepresentative of "overall performance" which is what people expect from a leaderboard.
- It is incredibly easy to game by a company, their employees or their fanboys if they would like to. No idea if anyone has done so, but it's trivial.
Just to give one example of the bias; advances in non-English performance don't even register on the leaderboard because almost everyone rating completions there is doing so in English. You could have a model that's a 100 in English and a 0 on every other language, and it would do better on the leaderboard than a model that's a 98 in every human language in the world.
It uses FLUX.1 to generate images and it has been fun so far. Its good on writing, can generate very realistic photos, can create memes, and looks like hands problem is fixed now.
When I have time I will do my usual test "Realistic looking wizards bowling!" and see how it goes. So far I have had fairly disappointing results.
First try, so no cherry picking: https://fal.ai/models/fal-ai/flux-pro?share=43b11da2-e008-4d...
I guess for a wizard it does make sense for a spell-gone-wrong to have chopped off two of his fingers.
What's a realistic wizard? Given that wizards don't actually exist this might be a confusing request.
Have you tried putting in "photorealistic" instead of "realistic", assuming that's what you mean? I'm curious if that would get better results.
Have you tried putting in "photorealistic" instead of "realistic", assuming that's what you mean? I'm curious if that would get better results.
It's a wizard who doesn't have unreasonable expectations. Wizards definitely exist by the way, for many reasonable definitions of "wizard".
You know what’s also impressive besides this beta release? How Claude 3.5 Sonnet is still able to keep up so well. Grok-2 beat every other LLM except Claude. How did Anthropic achieve this?
It’s possible Claude is using the same model tuning that they used to create Golden Gate Claude to dynamically tune the 3.5 model to be better at whatever task it’s doing.
I don't really care. The model may be competitive, but my use cases require speed, local (semi-local) execution and reliability. Neither of these seem to be baked into whatever X produced now.
When they make the mini model available for download and quantizable. That's when I may be interested. But given the minimal improvement in the past several months, I'm inclined to believe that we have reached the plateau.
When they make the mini model available for download and quantizable. That's when I may be interested. But given the minimal improvement in the past several months, I'm inclined to believe that we have reached the plateau.
Do we have any info on this model's balance of censorship versus safety?
This is Musk after all, so I wouldn't be surprised if it strayed far from the norm.
This is Musk after all, so I wouldn't be surprised if it strayed far from the norm.
Censorship isn't safety.
"censorship versus safety"
Do you guys have any idea how sinister "safety" sounds in this context?
Do you guys have any idea how sinister "safety" sounds in this context?
For example, not telling people to eat glue just because Reddit suggests eating glue could be considered a safety measure...
Try asking it questions that are critical of Musk.
Why is this speculation your go-to first question here? Do some research yourself on the models instead of adding your own implicit bias. Are you saying the engineers at X are collaborating with Musk in a coupe for a secret censorship of their model vs others. Do you have evidence or is this your bias?
I don't think their bias was implicit. :)
Given how when grok first came out, and people started asking questions about trans people and it came back with very sensible takes (trans women are women etc), and Elon and all the techbros absolutely hated it, I'd guess steps have been taken to avoid a repeat of that
Watching the score on this go up and down as HN tries to work out if they agree with it is hilarious. I'm pretty sure its crossed 0 about four times now
make3(4)
Oh this is great, one more competitor with top model which will be available via API. I wonder what the pricing will be. OpenAI was slashing prices multiple times in the last year and a half I was using it.
I can't imagine anyone would want to build on top of their APIs after they completed destroyed the Twitter API and its whole ecosystem.
LLMs are pretty easy to switch, though.
From a black box perspective, LLMs are pretty simple, you put text or images in, (possibly structured) text comes out, maybe with some tool invocations.
If you use a good library for this, like Python's litellm for example, all it takes is changing one string in your code or config, as the library exposes most APIs of most providers under a simple, uniform interface.
You might need to modify your prompt and run some evals on whatever task your app is solving, but even large companies regularly deprecate old models and introduce vastly better ones, so you should have a pipeline for that anyway.
These models have very little "stickiness" or lock-in. If your app is a Twitter client and is built around the Twitter API, turning it into a Mastodon client built around the Mastodon API would take a lot of work. If your app uses Grok and is designed properly, switching over to a different model is so simple that it might be worth doing for half an hour during an outage.
From a black box perspective, LLMs are pretty simple, you put text or images in, (possibly structured) text comes out, maybe with some tool invocations.
If you use a good library for this, like Python's litellm for example, all it takes is changing one string in your code or config, as the library exposes most APIs of most providers under a simple, uniform interface.
You might need to modify your prompt and run some evals on whatever task your app is solving, but even large companies regularly deprecate old models and introduce vastly better ones, so you should have a pipeline for that anyway.
These models have very little "stickiness" or lock-in. If your app is a Twitter client and is built around the Twitter API, turning it into a Mastodon client built around the Mastodon API would take a lot of work. If your app uses Grok and is designed properly, switching over to a different model is so simple that it might be worth doing for half an hour during an outage.
Prompt to Output quality vary by a large amount between models IMO. The equivalent analogy would "lets switch programming language for this solved problem".
Sure, but to be consistent with the analogy, we're evoking the program from bash and it's been solved in several languages already.
Trying it isn't exactly locking you into anything
Trying it isn't exactly locking you into anything
The models are still of a level where for less common/benchmarked tasks, there's often only one model that's very good at it, and whichever is 2nd best is markedly worse, possibly to a degree where it's unusable for anything serious.
From my experience, the system prompt matters a lot, and so it's not as simple as just switching.
I assume it'll be a paid API so the "contract" is a lot more clear. Twitter never understood what to do with its API so pulling that particular rug makes sense.
But I too wouldn't use this. X is playing fast and loose with ... everything, so having a business rely on their product seems risky.
But I too wouldn't use this. X is playing fast and loose with ... everything, so having a business rely on their product seems risky.
The nice thing with LLMs is that the API is relatively simple - for the most basic case, it's string in, string out. While you may need to redesign your prompt a bit, I bet for many use cases, LLMs are reasonably interchangeable, and the integration work required for an API change should be minimal.
Or like with ORM's you can start using intermediary library which unifies access to AI engines like Langchain4j (for java) and hides API details.
Those who would build on top of the API might be considering a couple of past changes that are significant, but not necessarily a reason to think they'll be further pain in the future: the company ownership changed, and those who train LLMs all of a sudden want all the human-created text on the internet.
If they have the best model, everybody will use it.
With LLMs (and AGI) it's really that simple: the company with the best model wins regardless of all else.
With LLMs (and AGI) it's really that simple: the company with the best model wins regardless of all else.
Best in what sense? Intelligence, speed, cost?
Sometimes having a fast enough model at a low enough price makes you the obvious choice e.g. I know Claude is better than gpt-4o-mini but I use the latter for a lot more data processing because it's significantly cheaper and faster and the gains I'd get out of Claude seem somewhat marginal for my use case
Sometimes having a fast enough model at a low enough price makes you the obvious choice e.g. I know Claude is better than gpt-4o-mini but I use the latter for a lot more data processing because it's significantly cheaper and faster and the gains I'd get out of Claude seem somewhat marginal for my use case
> Best in what sense? Intelligence, speed, cost?
Best at product / market fit. And that space is very very wide. Does the GenAI serve as a feature in a larger product (like realtime “reasoning” on X or in Apple’s case in iOS)? Is it a standalone product that general public or enterprises use? Does it play in a niche area? Etc.
Best at product / market fit. And that space is very very wide. Does the GenAI serve as a feature in a larger product (like realtime “reasoning” on X or in Apple’s case in iOS)? Is it a standalone product that general public or enterprises use? Does it play in a niche area? Etc.
It isn't that simple at all.
It's going to be a combination of price, performance, quality, reliability, availability etc.
And since the prompts need to be optimised for each model there is a degree of vendor lock-in.
It's going to be a combination of price, performance, quality, reliability, availability etc.
And since the prompts need to be optimised for each model there is a degree of vendor lock-in.
I wasn't really talking about the marginal differences we see right now in August 2024.
I'm talking about the next huge step forward that only 1 company will achieve, because it simply has the most GPUs (in limited supply) + energy source first and keeps that advantage.
At some point this becomes a run-away self amplifying differentiator and it will make that company win regardless of all else.
My money is on xAI in 2025.
PS: the only reason prompts need to be optimized for each model is a symptom of models simply not being that good yet. This need will vanish in the near future as you get way better models. A recent hint of what I mean: mid-journey needed very elaborate prompt (and even loras) to get what you want. In flux that prompt can be much shorter (without loras) and it still gets closer to what you want. Same will happen with LLMs. Another example: with ChatGPT 4 you need to literally beg a model to only return what you ask for (for example JSON) or put it in a certain mode (JSON mode), in Claude Sonnet 3.5 it will simply just listen to what you ask for. So again: that's not "because every model needs model-specific fine-tuning" that's because previous models where simply not as good.
I'm talking about the next huge step forward that only 1 company will achieve, because it simply has the most GPUs (in limited supply) + energy source first and keeps that advantage.
At some point this becomes a run-away self amplifying differentiator and it will make that company win regardless of all else.
My money is on xAI in 2025.
PS: the only reason prompts need to be optimized for each model is a symptom of models simply not being that good yet. This need will vanish in the near future as you get way better models. A recent hint of what I mean: mid-journey needed very elaborate prompt (and even loras) to get what you want. In flux that prompt can be much shorter (without loras) and it still gets closer to what you want. Same will happen with LLMs. Another example: with ChatGPT 4 you need to literally beg a model to only return what you ask for (for example JSON) or put it in a certain mode (JSON mode), in Claude Sonnet 3.5 it will simply just listen to what you ask for. So again: that's not "because every model needs model-specific fine-tuning" that's because previous models where simply not as good.
Musk apparently lied about the DDOS that caused the X Trump stream failure.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24219121/donald-trump-elo...
If that's true it's not exactly the sort of behaviour you want from an API you're depending on.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24219121/donald-trump-elo...
If that's true it's not exactly the sort of behaviour you want from an API you're depending on.
This article is hearsay trash. It quotes an anonymous source saying "there was a “99 percent” chance Musk was lying about an attack.
Let’s review the evidence then shall we:
Evidence for DDOS:
- Elon said so
- the event in question very clearly had huge technical issues
Evidence Against DDOS:
- Elon said so
- People who worked at Twitter said it was bullshit
- every other spaces event that was run at the same time was unaffected.
- no other part of the website was impacted in any way whatsoever.
Evidence for DDOS:
- Elon said so
- the event in question very clearly had huge technical issues
Evidence Against DDOS:
- Elon said so
- People who worked at Twitter said it was bullshit
- every other spaces event that was run at the same time was unaffected.
- no other part of the website was impacted in any way whatsoever.
> People who worked at Twitter said it was bullshit
No, we have no idea from The Verge article whether the sources are even qualified to make such statements or if the statements are even true. In fact on the basis of the 99 percent speculative quote we can disregard the source quotes altogether. I'll say this, I work on far less significant software than X and we get DDOSed all the time.
> every other spaces event that was run at the same time was unaffected.
That's not true, I wasn't even able to load my feed during the initial part of the stream.
No, we have no idea from The Verge article whether the sources are even qualified to make such statements or if the statements are even true. In fact on the basis of the 99 percent speculative quote we can disregard the source quotes altogether. I'll say this, I work on far less significant software than X and we get DDOSed all the time.
> every other spaces event that was run at the same time was unaffected.
That's not true, I wasn't even able to load my feed during the initial part of the stream.
You seem to be invested in this topic in a weird and unhealthy way but there is nothing of value here in this comment.
You baselessly accuse journalists of straight up making things up and then go on to give some anecdotal evidence that conveniently nobody can disprove.
You baselessly accuse journalists of straight up making things up and then go on to give some anecdotal evidence that conveniently nobody can disprove.
- every other spaces event that was run at the same time was unaffected.
- no other part of the website was impacted in any way whatsoever.
Aren’t these last two an argument FOR a ddos attack? It seems reasonable to assume we’re there a ddos attack at that time it would be against the Elon/Trump stream explicitly.
Aren’t these last two an argument FOR a ddos attack? It seems reasonable to assume we’re there a ddos attack at that time it would be against the Elon/Trump stream explicitly.
I’d like to see an explanation of how that is even possible to get that level of targeting without knowing the connection details of either Elon or Trump. The rest of the attack surface is surely shared infrastructure with the rest of the website.
So no I think it was just a straight up technical failure on their end.
So no I think it was just a straight up technical failure on their end.
How did it clear up?
It quotes two sources, both who work at X.
The Verge has no political bias, has a good reputation and thus deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The Verge has no political bias, has a good reputation and thus deserve the benefit of the doubt.
"The Verge has no political bias". Okay, in the same way that wired has no political bias. They're so unbiased yet you know exactly the way an article is slanted towards given the topic and persons. Just like I know the slant given a reddit /r/all post or Fox News/msnbc article.
Verge editors most definitely are biased as are all humans. Journalists are not neutral. In this case someone made a "99 percent chance" speculative statement and the publication decided to print it as if it were fact and not just dismiss it as coming from someone who knew nothing.
We know nothing about the sources, and writers are not above making stuff up. I could just as easily spin it on them: there's a 99 percent chance they made up the sources.
We know nothing about the sources, and writers are not above making stuff up. I could just as easily spin it on them: there's a 99 percent chance they made up the sources.
I think you'd struggle to find a human on this planet that isn't biased one way or another when it comes to Musk
They titled the article: The Elon Musk / Donald Trump interview on X started with an immediate tech disaster
If they were actually neutral, they'd phrase it more like: with technical difficulties.
If they were actually neutral, they'd phrase it more like: with technical difficulties.
I would consider the widely-publicised event not starting for 40 minutes due to technical issues to be a "tech disaster."
Trump called it a disaster when the same thing happened DeSantis, so I don't see a particular bias in play with that particular phrase.
Trump is both partisan and biased and doesn't claim to be neutral. Of course he was trashing things to do with his political opponents (he was running against DeSantis in the primary at the time).
Thanks for the clarification. I should have never commented on anything even remotely political, my bad!
The Register weighed in with a Yeah, Right skeptical attitude:
They also threw shade on the numbers:
The Register has found no evidence of a denial of service attack directed at X. Check Point Software's live cyber threat map does not record unusual levels of activity at the time of writing. NetScout's real-time DDoS map recorded only small attacks on the US.
If a DDoS was indeed the reason for the delayed start of the event, it appears not to have impacted the rest of X's operations – there were plenty of posts commenting on the problems with the Space occupied by the interview. And Musk was tweeting from the very network said to be under attack.
They also threw shade on the numbers:
The interview commenced some 40 minutes after its advertised time. Live audience statistics reported 1.1 to 1.3 million attendees during the portions of the event The Register observed – although during the stream Trump claimed that the event had an audience of 60 million or more, exceeding targets of 25 million.This is the reason why we teach kids stories like little red riding hood because it’s just such a fundamental thing that when you lie about absolutely everything all the time people will just never trust you again even if you happen to be telling the truth one particular time.
And unfortunately both of these men are known for bullshitting more than anything else and have been now for a long time.
And unfortunately both of these men are known for bullshitting more than anything else and have been now for a long time.
Fully Working Spaces coming next year, he swears.
by the time Trump made that statement, there were 60 million views, which is a different metric than the active viewers.
Sure.
Was Trump a fool to count the people that took one look and changed channels, or a knowledgable and deliberate deceiver?
Was Trump a fool to count the people that took one look and changed channels, or a knowledgable and deliberate deceiver?
I mean, 99% percent chance of lying is the Bayesian prior with this person anyways.
I have seen sus-column-r on LMSYS a bunch of times. It seemed pretty good, though not as good as the best Google, Anthropic, or OpenAI models.
I'm surprised they managed to catch up. I guess there really is no moat.
I'm surprised they managed to catch up. I guess there really is no moat.
The moat is compute and Elon has enough money and connections to jump the queue with providers
Putting a new tool for developers behind an "enterprise API" gate is a sure way to kill it
"Our AI Tutors engage with our models across a variety of tasks that reflect real-world interactions with Grok. During each interaction, the AI Tutors are presented with two responses generated by Grok"
My guess is that they're using one of the third party AI training outfits for this and that they are paying through the nose.
This looks exactly like a training task I got to see on one of those platforms.
My guess is that they're using one of the third party AI training outfits for this and that they are paying through the nose.
This looks exactly like a training task I got to see on one of those platforms.
What are the big platforms for that?
So all models seem to converge to a similar level of performance - is this the end of the line for LLMs?
I’m hoping we’ll see an open release of this in 6 months or so, as we saw with Grok-1.
I’m not hugely optimistic, though.
I’m not hugely optimistic, though.
i think it might happen because its just the code and imo its not that valuable
the more valuable part is the dataset which probably requires a lot of people to hand-filter
and even more impossible is acquiring the training rig, which your average person can't even afford
the more valuable part is the dataset which probably requires a lot of people to hand-filter
and even more impossible is acquiring the training rig, which your average person can't even afford
If the X.AI team is able to build out a good enough model with access to real-time tweets, they could have an incredible product. I'd love to be ask about current events and get really strong results back based on tweets + community notes.
the results with grok-1 were unimpressive summaries based on the tweets, with a 10%-20% hallucinations (when enquiring about paris olympics specific events).
yet to see if this new model is able to do any better on that regard
yet to see if this new model is able to do any better on that regard
I was also not very impressed, but I still think they are positioned to have a great product if they can get past the accuracy issues.
If I am reading the table correctly they are claiming it is better than all models but 3.5-Sonnet
Is anyone with X premium able to confirm the vibe check -- Is the model actually good or another case of training on benchmarks?
Is anyone with X premium able to confirm the vibe check -- Is the model actually good or another case of training on benchmarks?
I don't think you are reading the table correctly. On LMSYS it's better than all models except the latest Gemini 1.5 Pro and GPT-4o. But there is a detailed benchmark table and different models win different benchmarks.
So results are mixed, but the real takeaway is this is a competitive model that is good enough to be worth using today. It puts xAI significantly above their previous position, and up near the top of the field with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. And their new H100 cluster should allow them to keep up with the next wave of releases, whenever that starts.
So results are mixed, but the real takeaway is this is a competitive model that is good enough to be worth using today. It puts xAI significantly above their previous position, and up near the top of the field with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. And their new H100 cluster should allow them to keep up with the next wave of releases, whenever that starts.
In the intro text they described it better than Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT-4 Turbo (which isn’t OpenAI’s current model.)
I don't personally see how an individual can judge this at this point unless it is a huge leap.
More importantly, if the model is not a huge leap at this point I just don't care if it is as good as the very limited models we already have because I am not impressed by any of these anymore.
Anything less than a 3.5 to 4 jump from here is just not going to vibe for me.
More importantly, if the model is not a huge leap at this point I just don't care if it is as good as the very limited models we already have because I am not impressed by any of these anymore.
Anything less than a 3.5 to 4 jump from here is just not going to vibe for me.
My favorite part of that table is how they put 3.5-Sonnet all the way to the right of the table making it harder to compare.
As with everything promised by Musk, I'll believe it when I see it and use it myself and compare it to Claude 3.5.
Right now I'm not really a believer in Grok and I doubt it will be worth using.
Right now I'm not really a believer in Grok and I doubt it will be worth using.
Interesting that they’re rolling this out to Twitter/X Premium users, it was previously the biggest differentiator between Premium+ haves and Premium have-nots.
Seems like a solid result & more competition is always better.
That said I’m still cheering for mistral and meta with their more open stance
That said I’m still cheering for mistral and meta with their more open stance
Twitter started irreversibly feeding users’ data into its “Grok” AI technology in May 2024, without ever informing them or asking for their consent.
https://noyb.eu/en/twitters-ai-plans-hit-9-more-gdpr-complai...
https://noyb.eu/en/twitters-ai-plans-hit-9-more-gdpr-complai...
What does irreversibly mean in this context? It seems like negative connotations are implied, but I feel like it's like irreversibly baking a cake.
Once the data is "compressed" into the model it cannot be easily removed without starting the training over.
So you mean like
"He used one of my eggs to irreversibly make a cake"
It's true, but it would be kind of amazing if it weren't
"He used one of my eggs to irreversibly make a cake"
It's true, but it would be kind of amazing if it weren't
Hmm, it's not that simple, is it? Let's say the AI is trained on the tweet "Ben Adams drove to Mexico yesterday but I still haven't heard from him."
From this knowledge, you can ask the AI "Who has driven to Mexico" and it might know that Ben Adams did, and reply with that.
HOWEVER it's also baked into the model and can't be surgically removed after a complaint. That's the irreversibility part. You can't undo isolated training. You need to provide it a new data set and train it all over again. They won't do that because it's too costly.
The problem with the above example is of course that it can also contain sensitive or private user details.
I've easily extracted the complete song lyrics to the letter from GPT-4 even if OpenAI try to put up guardrails against it due to the copyright issues. AI is really still in the wild west phase...
From this knowledge, you can ask the AI "Who has driven to Mexico" and it might know that Ben Adams did, and reply with that.
HOWEVER it's also baked into the model and can't be surgically removed after a complaint. That's the irreversibility part. You can't undo isolated training. You need to provide it a new data set and train it all over again. They won't do that because it's too costly.
The problem with the above example is of course that it can also contain sensitive or private user details.
I've easily extracted the complete song lyrics to the letter from GPT-4 even if OpenAI try to put up guardrails against it due to the copyright issues. AI is really still in the wild west phase...
The irreversibility is still important to highlight, as it is distinctively different from a similar consent issue with search: "Google indexed my website against my will, but I will just forbid them to include me in search results going forward".
It is irreversible similar to how a student reading a textbook from LibGen can remember and profit from that information forever. Kinda crazy how many in this community went from champions of freedom of knowledge to champions of megacorps owning and controlling of all of human creation in the span of like two years when it became clear other corporations could profit off that freedom too.
More like
"He used his eyes to irreversibly read this post"
"He used his eyes to irreversibly read this post"
If they use Twitter data does grok answer with a 280 character text?
Additional Twitter data is in my eyes mostly low quality content, that's nothing I would want in a AI model.
Additional Twitter data is in my eyes mostly low quality content, that's nothing I would want in a AI model.
> low quality content
How does it matter even if the quality is high or low? The point is user data was used without consent.
How does it matter even if the quality is high or low? The point is user data was used without consent.
Yes, but nothing new, other AI models used data that they don't own. Makes it not better, but I think thats the path.
> If they use Twitter data does grok answer with a 280 character text?
That may be considered a feature.
ChatGPT seems reasonably concise, Gemini's answers tend to be verbose (without adding meaningful content).
That may be considered a feature.
ChatGPT seems reasonably concise, Gemini's answers tend to be verbose (without adding meaningful content).
I've lead myself to believe that long responses are actually beneficial for the quality of the responses, as processing and producing tokens are the only time when LLMs get to "think".
In particular, requesting an analysis of the problem first before jumping to conclusions can be more effective than just asking for the final answer directly.
However, this analysis phase, or similar one, could just be done hidden in the background, but I don't think any are doing that yet. From the user point of view that would be just waiting, and from API point of view those tokens would also cost. Might just as well entertain the user with the text it processes in the meanwhile.
In particular, requesting an analysis of the problem first before jumping to conclusions can be more effective than just asking for the final answer directly.
However, this analysis phase, or similar one, could just be done hidden in the background, but I don't think any are doing that yet. From the user point of view that would be just waiting, and from API point of view those tokens would also cost. Might just as well entertain the user with the text it processes in the meanwhile.
My understanding is this used to be the case[1] but isn't really true any longer due to things like the "star" method for model training[2]. Empirically it absolutely (circa GPT3) used to be the case that if you prompted with "Explain all your reasoning step by step and then give the answer at the end" or similar it would give you a better answer for a complex question than if you said "Just give me the answer and nothing else" or similar, or asked for the answer first, and then circa gpt-4 answers started getting much longer even if you asked the model to be concise.
That doesn't seem to be the case any more and there has been speculation this is down to the star method being used for training newer models. I say speculation because I don't believe people have come out and said they are using star for training. OpenAI referred to Q* somewhere but they wouldn't be drawn on whether that * is this "star" and although google were involved in publishing the star paper they haven't said gemini uses it (I don't think).
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11903
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.14465
That doesn't seem to be the case any more and there has been speculation this is down to the star method being used for training newer models. I say speculation because I don't believe people have come out and said they are using star for training. OpenAI referred to Q* somewhere but they wouldn't be drawn on whether that * is this "star" and although google were involved in publishing the star paper they haven't said gemini uses it (I don't think).
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11903
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.14465
So did OpenAI, why is it only a problem when Twitter itself does it?
I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm pretty sure people have been angry about OpenAI doing the same thing for a while now.
Has it been proven that OpenAI used twitter for training? I know it knows about the popular tweets, but those are reported in many places, so could be ingested accidentally with other content.
(But regardless, many people raised an issue of OpenAI training from sources they shouldn't be allowed to access, so they're definitely a problem as well)
(But regardless, many people raised an issue of OpenAI training from sources they shouldn't be allowed to access, so they're definitely a problem as well)
Twitter bad, but it s not unlawful in their jurisdiction . Don't want it? dont use it
As someone from the EU, hearing this argument over and over from Americans is exhausting.
They provide a product in the EU, therefore they must either follow EU law or exit the EU market. Just like an EU company that provides a product in the US has to follow US law.
They provide a product in the EU, therefore they must either follow EU law or exit the EU market. Just like an EU company that provides a product in the US has to follow US law.
I am in the EU.
The line of 'following the law of another country' is grey area on the internet, given that it goes both ways:
EU online companies providing services to US users fail to provide the free speech guarantees that the US laws afford their citizens. That's because all EU countries have more strict laws limiting free speech. Should the EU companies break their own countries' law to satisfy the US audience?
The line of 'following the law of another country' is grey area on the internet, given that it goes both ways:
EU online companies providing services to US users fail to provide the free speech guarantees that the US laws afford their citizens. That's because all EU countries have more strict laws limiting free speech. Should the EU companies break their own countries' law to satisfy the US audience?
"EU online companies providing services to US users fail to provide the free speech guarantees that the US laws afford their citizens."
Exactly what is "free speech guarantees" in the context of a private business?
Exactly what is "free speech guarantees" in the context of a private business?
There are now states in the US which voted laws to regulate social media censorship. The US supreme court has declined ruling on them or taking them down based on companies' first amendment rights.
So it seems there are states where a europeans social medium should abide by rules that would most likely contradict european laws, right?
So it seems there are states where a europeans social medium should abide by rules that would most likely contradict european laws, right?
What are these state laws, can you give me an example?
> EU online companies providing services to US users fail to provide the free speech guarantees that the US laws afford their citizens. That's because all EU countries have more strict laws limiting free speech. Should the EU companies break their own countries' law to satisfy the US audience?
Could you sharpen up this claim? Like suppose I run a microblogging site but I delete libellous posts and incitements to violence in accordance with my local European law. Am I violating a US law by allowing Americans to use the site?
Could you sharpen up this claim? Like suppose I run a microblogging site but I delete libellous posts and incitements to violence in accordance with my local European law. Am I violating a US law by allowing Americans to use the site?
[deleted]
Can anyone tell me how much censorship grok has? I hate that many other LLMs have too much censorship.
there are abliterated versions on ollama that you can use, some are more censored than others
i didnt test any crazy promps on grok but the image generation won't let you do things like naked people for example
i didnt test any crazy promps on grok but the image generation won't let you do things like naked people for example
Pretty funny to read the comments from xAI's initial announcement now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696473
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696473
Well, it should be clear to anyone who reads HN that the comments here are not to be taken as the most sensible opinion in all cases. Cynical outlook is not uncommon in some contexts, especially when it comes to Elon Musk & X ... and the thread you linked to is a stellar example of that.
PS: I have X Premium and I'm quite liking Grok 2.
PS: I have X Premium and I'm quite liking Grok 2.
[deleted]
[flagged]
Seems the only impossible problems that can't be solved by AI are things that make metrics falsely look good to investors
Ironically X shouldn't care about those metrics, it's privately owned by the world's richest person...
It's privately owned, but by a number of parties all with a lot of money on the line. That person may have pulled together the investors, but it most definitely has investors that it needs to answer to in the medium term. In the long term, they have stated that re-floating is a goal.
The valuation of the company matters to the banks and VCs who own X.
And the primary way to evaluate the worth of a social network is user engagement metrics.
And the primary way to evaluate the worth of a social network is user engagement metrics.
Source, substantiation?
This is a good one, another one that blows my mind: when I use the "I'm not interested in this topic" button and refresh the page, it shows that very same post at the top of my feed?!
I had to resort to configuring "muted words" to actually fix the problem.
Its very weird to me that such basic things seem so bugged on a platform that popular, but other much much more complex things (mass video streaming, Grok itself) work totally fine?!
I had to resort to configuring "muted words" to actually fix the problem.
Its very weird to me that such basic things seem so bugged on a platform that popular, but other much much more complex things (mass video streaming, Grok itself) work totally fine?!
Idk. Ask it if you should close your account and see if it gives an honest answer.
ramon156(1)
nsonha(2)
We need an alt-right version of AI like we need a pumpkin spice sushiccino. No thanks but no thanks.
Can you explain the difference between "alt-right" and "right"?
When github release?
Realistically? Never. Grok-1 weights were released because it was quite bad compared to open source and closed models. Now that they have a competitive model, they won't give it away.
> Now that they have a competitive model, they won't give it away.
Lamma 3.1 is competitive.
Lamma 3.1 is competitive.
X is not Meta.
Guys come on, you cant keep releasing software in the US, and then do a staggered launch where months later things are available to users in England, Denmark etc. There should be no reason for it. Im sure whatever dumb EU regulations can be dealt with easily in the software, these staggered releases ( such as chagpt having no Memory etc MONTHS down the line for EU users ) its just a hindrance to progress. Its starting to feel like we live on an island in the middle of nowhere.
I'm pretty glad the EU a least tries to protect it's citizens from company experiments, who only care about profit and not others well-being.
What is it protecting us from, realistically? It's just a powerplay by the world's most incompeteny private club (brussels)
>most incompeteny private club
Is that based on any facts or just the typical EU myths like the cucumber regulation?
Is that based on any facts or just the typical EU myths like the cucumber regulation?
EU is not just brussels. Can you point to some particular point at which brussels has shown competence in the past 20 years?
Safest countries in the world: Check.
Countries with the highest average standard of living: Check.
Countris consistently socring among, or as, highest in citizen happiness indices: Check.
Stable Economy: Check.
Successfully implemented measures to combat a global pandemic: Check.
Slowly but surely fading out dependency on russian fossile fuels: Check.
Best privacy protection laws in the world: Check.
Shall I go on?
Countries with the highest average standard of living: Check.
Countris consistently socring among, or as, highest in citizen happiness indices: Check.
Stable Economy: Check.
Successfully implemented measures to combat a global pandemic: Check.
Slowly but surely fading out dependency on russian fossile fuels: Check.
Best privacy protection laws in the world: Check.
Shall I go on?
>Safest countries in the world: Check.
The safest countries in the world are in East Asia; there's no country in Western Europe where you can leave your wallet on the table in a major city and not worry about it being stolen.
>Stable Economy: Check.
It's stable in the sense that for most of western Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) GDP per capita now is no higher than it was 10 years ago. One of the few places in the world where people's material standard of living is no longer improving every year.
The safest countries in the world are in East Asia; there's no country in Western Europe where you can leave your wallet on the table in a major city and not worry about it being stolen.
>Stable Economy: Check.
It's stable in the sense that for most of western Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) GDP per capita now is no higher than it was 10 years ago. One of the few places in the world where people's material standard of living is no longer improving every year.
Those are individual countries doing great (some not so great, some economies bankrupted etc, but still)
I asked about the brussels bubble. Only the privacy laws are relevant. I can't say that it made a dent to our overall privacy, since our tech is US based and we have no idea where our data really are.
I asked about the brussels bubble. Only the privacy laws are relevant. I can't say that it made a dent to our overall privacy, since our tech is US based and we have no idea where our data really are.
> Those are individual countries doing great
These countries are doing great because they are part of the EU. If anyone disagrees, well, it's not like we lack experimental data:
https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almo....
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/brexit/
https://www.politico.eu/article/political-gridlock-northern-...
These countries are doing great because they are part of the EU. If anyone disagrees, well, it's not like we lack experimental data:
https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almo....
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/brexit/
https://www.politico.eu/article/political-gridlock-northern-...
Typically, those stats usually showcase countries which are NOT in the EU: Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland. And anyway, European countries were like that before the EU.
> countries which are NOT in the EU: Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland.
Denmark is a member state since 1973, when it was still called the European Economic Community
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Constitutional_monarch...
Denmark, together with Greenland but not the Faroe Islands, became a member of what is now the European Union, but negotiated certain opt-outs, such as retaining its own currency, the krone.
And Iceland is part of the European Economic Area (EEA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Iceland joined the European Economic Area in 1994, after which the economy was greatly diversified and liberalised.
And no, this list showcases mostly countries that are in fact EU members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
Denmark is a member state since 1973, when it was still called the European Economic Community
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Constitutional_monarch...
Denmark, together with Greenland but not the Faroe Islands, became a member of what is now the European Union, but negotiated certain opt-outs, such as retaining its own currency, the krone.
And Iceland is part of the European Economic Area (EEA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Iceland joined the European Economic Area in 1994, after which the economy was greatly diversified and liberalised.
And no, this list showcases mostly countries that are in fact EU members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
well its protecting us from data mining. Which is good. But I disagree with the clunky implementation.
The EU itself wants to data mine everything, just look at chat control.
That's the same kind of protection Apple is praised for.
Not perfect but better than open EU citizens to global data mining.
Not perfect but better than open EU citizens to global data mining.
Who praises Apple for this??? It's completely unacceptable for a self-described "free liberal democracy".
I've just realised people are upset because I called the EU regulations dumb. I want to clarify, they are an excellent idea, I truly mean it, but I think it should be OPT IN. Its more important for me to have access to cool tech then it is to have privacy, atm , in this stage of my life. I guess my problem is the implementation.
Cookie popups on every website, its completely idiotic. Ofcourse I end up wasting hours of my life clicking on them randomly. There should just be an OPT IN for the cookie popup, or OPT OUT. Either on a EU portal or something.
Infact I find it fascinating noone is coming up with a better implementation of privacy concerns in the EU. This whole US not releaseing software incase they get sued, and thinking its fine for the whole EU population to go around clicking popups every 2 seconds is a total failure that needs to be fixed.
Again the idea is good, but the implementation needs to be fixed.
Cookie popups on every website, its completely idiotic. Ofcourse I end up wasting hours of my life clicking on them randomly. There should just be an OPT IN for the cookie popup, or OPT OUT. Either on a EU portal or something.
Infact I find it fascinating noone is coming up with a better implementation of privacy concerns in the EU. This whole US not releaseing software incase they get sued, and thinking its fine for the whole EU population to go around clicking popups every 2 seconds is a total failure that needs to be fixed.
Again the idea is good, but the implementation needs to be fixed.
>Cookie popups on every website, its completely idiotic.
That's not because of the EU, that's because the website owner try to annoy you to blame the EU.
If they stop tracking no pop up is needed.
>Its more important for me to have access to cool tech
It's hardly possible to only give your own data without exposing third parties who may be not to keen of sharing their data.
FB already showed that. I bet WhatsApp already has my phone number without my consent because some relative of mine uploaded his contacts.
That's not because of the EU, that's because the website owner try to annoy you to blame the EU.
If they stop tracking no pop up is needed.
>Its more important for me to have access to cool tech
It's hardly possible to only give your own data without exposing third parties who may be not to keen of sharing their data.
FB already showed that. I bet WhatsApp already has my phone number without my consent because some relative of mine uploaded his contacts.
This is how we encourage migration to the US. Early access to software and video streaming, superior Amazon experience, and much fewer cookie warnings (though we still have a lot).
You'll have to say goodbye to BBC iPlayer though.
You'll have to say goodbye to BBC iPlayer though.
Well it’s working on me I’m starting to consider it. Tbf I should have moved to SV decade ago
It's utterly hilarious to think that people will move to America in its current state for... early access to TV shows, and fewer cookie warnings?
I mean they probably dont like many small differences, the recent notion that they can arrested for what can be considered thought crimes in a sense... or a number of other odd things ( note I am an immigrant and I have little understanding of politics anyway ).
Im just saying the regulatory landscape seems to be changing in many ways and there are many reasons why people would consider emigrating, not just the fact they have to wait months for tech access in a rapidly changing technical landscape.
Im just saying the regulatory landscape seems to be changing in many ways and there are many reasons why people would consider emigrating, not just the fact they have to wait months for tech access in a rapidly changing technical landscape.
the eu is on a regulation binge, there's not much that can be done
also be careful, you might be arrested for these comments in a few years time (lol)
also be careful, you might be arrested for these comments in a few years time (lol)
What is the company’s ethical position though? It officially stemmed from Mr Musk’s objection that OpenAI was not open-source, but it too is not open-source. It followed Mr Musk’s letter to stop all AI development on frontier models, but it is a frontier model. It followed complaints that OpenAI trained on tweets, but it also trained on tweets.
Companies like Meta, Mistral, or DeepSeek, address those complaints better, and all now play in the big league.