I think METRs checks are meaningful and maybe the best we have at the moment. They are also like you say compromised and the conflict of interests are immense with huge personal overlap between the labs and safety orgs, and funding streams too.
Geyges seems largely correct, but if we can’t convince governments to regulate properly its better METR is in there doing it. After all METR exposed more about the hugging face hack than Open AI did on its own.
I don’t think a framing of “these connections are completely unacceptable” is helpful given these problems. I think “compromised and far from ideal” is a better framing. Its better to do something than do nothing. I agree its best if government installed internal auditors like they do for banks, but that ain’t happening any time soon.
Companies like Anthropic and Open AI are selfish animals by nature. They may have moments where good humans inside might do the right thing, but fundamentally they thirst for profit and growth. After IPO this will only get worse. We should never expect a company to regulate itself or its industry. Self regulation for harmful companies is a terrible idea and never works.
How can ANthropic “create” a genuinely independent auditor? this seems impossible, almost and Oxymoron.
I think METRs checks are meaningful and maybe the best we have at the moment. They are also like you say compromised and the conflict of interests are immense with huge personal overlap between the labs and safety orgs, and funding streams too.
Geyges seems largely correct, but if we can’t convince governments to regulate properly its better METR is in there doing it. After all METR exposed more about the hugging face hack than Open AI did on its own.
I don’t think a framing of “these connections are completely unacceptable” is helpful given these problems. I think “compromised and far from ideal” is a better framing. Its better to do something than do nothing. I agree its best if government installed internal auditors like they do for banks, but that ain’t happening any time soon.
Companies like Anthropic and Open AI are selfish animals by nature. They may have moments where good humans inside might do the right thing, but fundamentally they thirst for profit and growth. After IPO this will only get worse. We should never expect a company to regulate itself or its industry. Self regulation for harmful companies is a terrible idea and never works.
How can ANthropic “create” a genuinely independent auditor? this seems impossible, almost and Oxymoron.