Great article! I do think AI 2027 has a lot of "and this tech just magically gets 10x better" but it's still a fun read, you just have to somewhat suspend your disbelief. The part where the president just liquidates all the other AI companies to empower Open"brain" is really funny though. If the AI can negotiate peace between 2 superpowers, surely it can negotiate Google etc. being acquired, no? That part feels really bad faith/investor bait.
AI will probably end up being a pretty nice tool but nothing too revolutionary. Some jobs are gonna get lost but more will get created. IF AI does end up being as revolutionary as what is said, then it inherently becomes impossible to predict. Just like the singularity.
You don't discuss AI 2027's rationale for their "only one AI company" -- which makes sense because the site doesn't really have one.
But their whole scenario seems to fall apart if indeed there are many competing AI vendors of roughly comparable quality. That indeed is more and more the case.
So my question: Do you know of any deep dive into their claim / assumption that there will only be one? And/or any analysis of how the outcomes change if there are many?
I don't think there's any reason for assuming they're the only (important) AI vendor. They are just assuming they are much better than everyone else.
At the end of the story as the AI becomes a major national security thing, they assume that the government will shut down their competitors by fiat and force them to sell their assets, though. That could happen. Otherwise they will continue to have serious competition.
Interesting post, I generally agree with the flaws you pointed out, especially in the begging (I don't belive we're close to independent agents). However some of your takes are very unconvincing:
1) You claim claim openBrain is just straightforwardly OpenAI. Then when something in the scenario doesn't align with that reading, instead of admitting it weakens your argument you treat it as a flaw in the scenario: eg "but OpenAI didn't invent constitutional AI!". This comes off as cartoonishly bad-faith.
2) "It isn’t really meant to be read, or taken seriously, by anyone who isn’t already a believer of some kind. It is fundamentally an internal dispute that can safely be made public because very few people will actually read it."
What? How does this square with you saying this is intended to be an investment pitch or to sway bureaucrats? Or the fact that the authors did a publicity tour for it and constantly said it's intended to influence public opinion.
re: 1), OpenBrain is so clearly based on OpenAI from the name alone that I think that's straightforward! Erasing competitors from the story for simplicity sort of makes sense, and maybe describing the accomplishments of competitors as the accomplishments of OpenAI makes sense to keep the story going, but this "just happens" to function as attributing something a competitor accomplished to OpenAI.
2) I think you're right and this thought could be better-developed.
In fact, I think I agree enough to take that second passage out, because it's the fastest way to fix it and I don't think the point it is making is very important. Thank you.
Great article! I do think AI 2027 has a lot of "and this tech just magically gets 10x better" but it's still a fun read, you just have to somewhat suspend your disbelief. The part where the president just liquidates all the other AI companies to empower Open"brain" is really funny though. If the AI can negotiate peace between 2 superpowers, surely it can negotiate Google etc. being acquired, no? That part feels really bad faith/investor bait.
AI will probably end up being a pretty nice tool but nothing too revolutionary. Some jobs are gonna get lost but more will get created. IF AI does end up being as revolutionary as what is said, then it inherently becomes impossible to predict. Just like the singularity.
You don't discuss AI 2027's rationale for their "only one AI company" -- which makes sense because the site doesn't really have one.
But their whole scenario seems to fall apart if indeed there are many competing AI vendors of roughly comparable quality. That indeed is more and more the case.
So my question: Do you know of any deep dive into their claim / assumption that there will only be one? And/or any analysis of how the outcomes change if there are many?
I don't think there's any reason for assuming they're the only (important) AI vendor. They are just assuming they are much better than everyone else.
At the end of the story as the AI becomes a major national security thing, they assume that the government will shut down their competitors by fiat and force them to sell their assets, though. That could happen. Otherwise they will continue to have serious competition.
Excellent piece. Thank you for close reading of this marketing literature so we don't have to.
Interesting post, I generally agree with the flaws you pointed out, especially in the begging (I don't belive we're close to independent agents). However some of your takes are very unconvincing:
1) You claim claim openBrain is just straightforwardly OpenAI. Then when something in the scenario doesn't align with that reading, instead of admitting it weakens your argument you treat it as a flaw in the scenario: eg "but OpenAI didn't invent constitutional AI!". This comes off as cartoonishly bad-faith.
2) "It isn’t really meant to be read, or taken seriously, by anyone who isn’t already a believer of some kind. It is fundamentally an internal dispute that can safely be made public because very few people will actually read it."
What? How does this square with you saying this is intended to be an investment pitch or to sway bureaucrats? Or the fact that the authors did a publicity tour for it and constantly said it's intended to influence public opinion.
re: 1), OpenBrain is so clearly based on OpenAI from the name alone that I think that's straightforward! Erasing competitors from the story for simplicity sort of makes sense, and maybe describing the accomplishments of competitors as the accomplishments of OpenAI makes sense to keep the story going, but this "just happens" to function as attributing something a competitor accomplished to OpenAI.
2) I think you're right and this thought could be better-developed.
In fact, I think I agree enough to take that second passage out, because it's the fastest way to fix it and I don't think the point it is making is very important. Thank you.