"Helen has deep expertise in AI policy and global AI strategy research"
There is a funnel from academia to pluck individuals and propel them to policy level positions. None of the above's CVs remotely suggest deep expertise in anything but putting words together and being a "good soldier" for the Oxford-Rhodes thing.
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"Americans should not be haunted by the specter of an imminent Chinese surge in LLM development. Chinese AI teams are fighting—and often failing—to keep up with the blistering speed of new research and products emerging elsewhere. When it comes to LLMs, China trails years, not months, behind its international competitors."
AI is not limited to LLM. The entire article is "nothing to worry about, China is behind in LLMs" which does not seem to serve America's interest, rather China's, and possibly NVIDIA and friends.
Even Foreign Affairs is going down the tubes. Somewhat depressing.
It never ceases to amaze me to see how often what is necessary becomes a necessary evil.
Dialogue is a necessity for the correct development of knowledge. To engage in dialogue we have recourse to language and a vocabulary of discourse. As knowledge is gained, dialogues branch off and specialize. The system of thought inherent to the ~unique arrangement of the elements of these dialogues partition thought into acceptable (an opening) and unthinkable (a closing).
Throughout history you will find minds that navigated these intellectual currents by stepping away from their dominant belief system and gaining knowledge of the universality of meaning, and saw hidden (filtered) vistas previously unseen, and then step back into their home grounds to contribute to the development of the field, in a positive manner, adding new elements into vocabulary of the dialogue. They extend it, and create the possibility of synthesis in the future.
Equally, you will find that the further necessity of establishing schools, cults, churches, and institutions, which lend social prestige to its members and satellites, introduce incentives contrary to that of pure love of knowledge, and this attracts a certain type of people, beyond the already present danger of vanity and self regard.
What is to be done about it?
Helpfully suggest that tolerance of this necessary evil may be the remedy for your gripe.
The picture captioned "Driving down Novinsky bulvar, Moscow" does anyone know the automobile brand from the hood ornament? Search engines spat out Ford Victoria or Fairlane from the '50s (text not image search) but the wings don't quite match.
> The brain is the single existing example of general intelligence.
This is incorrect. It is not pedantic to point out that we have never interacted with a "brain" in isolation: the human brain is an organ of the human organism. The human being is the single existing example of general intelligence.
> let's look forward to what neuroscience looks like in the 2030's
This is very interesting science without question. Are there existing ethical and moral frameworks guiding the development of your field?
Communication has always been known to be a risky endevour with potential for various compromises, even for sovereigns. That telephony and now network communication infrastructure the world over is minimally at risk of, if not subject to, surveillance is understood.
Carrying a general purpose computer of substantial complexity that is equipped with state of the art sensors, optics, and components (including ai), which is then topped with yet another thick complex layer of software, which is subject to known and unknown access (by various parties), is not the same thing as a telephone (analog, digital, wired, or not).
Today, unless in a secured EM cage, there really aren't that many places where you can be certain you can have a private conversation, face to face. Visiting friends? Alexa and friends may be listening. Even the lousy TV sets :) Walk in the park? Your companion likely has a smartphone.
A healthy society requires the availability of private spaces and private interactions. When a citizenry becomes aware of pervasive surveillance it self censors. Self censorship prevents airing of views in an unemcumberred manner. When views are constrained, problems remain unaddressed.
Tyranny typically thrives in such insecure and non-optimal circumstances.
If I was an intelligent person, I would use a basic phone for making phone calls and not carry surveillance devices on my person or have them in my house. This way I would not have to worry about keeping up with agencies that operate above the law, are accountable to none, and operate with huge budgets to subvert the ethics and mores of capable people.
https://cset.georgetown.edu/staff/helen-toner/
https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/jenny-xiao
https://jeffreyjding.github.io/
Oxford and jaw-boning heavy, not an American in sight. How does someone like Helen end up being a director at OpenAI?
https://openai.com/blog/helen-toner-joins
"Helen has deep expertise in AI policy and global AI strategy research"
There is a funnel from academia to pluck individuals and propel them to policy level positions. None of the above's CVs remotely suggest deep expertise in anything but putting words together and being a "good soldier" for the Oxford-Rhodes thing.
-
"Americans should not be haunted by the specter of an imminent Chinese surge in LLM development. Chinese AI teams are fighting—and often failing—to keep up with the blistering speed of new research and products emerging elsewhere. When it comes to LLMs, China trails years, not months, behind its international competitors."
AI is not limited to LLM. The entire article is "nothing to worry about, China is behind in LLMs" which does not seem to serve America's interest, rather China's, and possibly NVIDIA and friends.
Even Foreign Affairs is going down the tubes. Somewhat depressing.