I think the "everything company" vision has become apparent for a while now. Doesn't even have to be sinister - I think Anthropic simply believes on one else can be trusted with this power. Another point of leverage they have is that they can keep their internal models for themselves.
Also the general public might find the implications of AGI so distasteful even if everything goes well that we might stall out or get the Butlerian Jihad before we can cure cancer. Artists and Software Engineers, now also Mathematicians, already have existential crises, but the public still thinks AI is fake. I can't imagine the backlash when the realize what's coming even in the good ending.
Found this announcement interesting since allegedly OpenAI is retiring their Terra tier. I think for everyday work, two models with various thinking efforts seem enough, plus some frontier level model like Fable or Astra to coordinate.
At introduction, Terra was a good mid-tier model. Terra [high] was on the pareto frontier of DeepSWE's score over cost, if only ever so slightly.
When I had Sol orchestrate Luna and Terra as implementation agents, Sol was a lot happier with what Terra produced and would find far fewer issues than what was implemented by Luna.
But a few weeks after introduction, OpenAI slashed Luna's cost by 80% and Terra's only by 20%. Only then did it become uneconomical to run Terra and its reason to exist stopped.
It's funny how quickly tech employees turn MAGA when it comes to qualified immigration. Bad zero-sum intuitions about work abound across all strata of society, it seems.
I have no problem with someone getting a green card, citizenship, TPS, etc in the US. I think there should be a lot faster routes for that. Let the software devs come in and become citizens or permanent residents, I don't care about that.
What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment. That means they'll accept lower wages and worse working conditions as they can't simply quit and switch jobs. The entire thing is designed to suppress wages in general.
If you look at it in a vacuum sure. When the same administration is actually floating the idea of making the program more coercive by making it so you can be deported immediately after losing your job I think it’s pretty reasonable to recognize the coercive nature of the program isn’t their concern.
Exactly. My entire problem with H1-B is the coercive nature of it. That is the thing that is ultimately designed to suppress wages.
There's a bunch of levers you could pull to stop it from being such a huge negative, faster paths to citizenship, looser requirements for switching jobs, higher minimum salaries. All these things would improve conditions for the H1-B applicant.
Put another way I don’t think this policy is a good way to address the issues you’re talking about because it’s just moving jobs out of the U.S. altogether.
Jobs that Americans weren't getting because it was cheaper to hire an H1-B indentured servant instead. The current administration will no doubt find a way to make everything worse, but they didn't start with a good program to begin with.
Well I’m not sure you will find many people who feel the program is perfect as-is but the natural interpretation of what you said in context seemed to be that we should at least temper our criticism.
> What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company
They're free to change companies if the new company sponsors them. It may reset the timeline for applying for a green card, depending on the location and job type of the new job. Generally, if it's the same type of job in the same city, it doesn't reset.
People (including Indians) do it all the time.
Going to a country for employment and having your legal status tied to a company is pretty standard across the world. Do you know counterexamples?
In Japan, your work visa belongs to you. You’re free to quit your job immediately upon getting your visa. It’s mandatory to notify immigration of changes to your employment status within 2 weeks but they’re not deporting you just because you switched jobs.
I used to work as a contractor in the earlier stages of my career, that meant that sometimes jobs only lasted 3 months.
> They're free to change companies if the new company sponsors them.
That's a much smaller pool of companies. The company already has to be participating in the H1-B program in order to sponsor someone.
> Do you know counterexamples?
Most of them happen under the likes of the EU where citizens of member nations have the freedom to migrate.
But even in the US, we have the green card (as you note) which you can get without doing H1-B. Getting a green card means your legal status isn't tied to employment.
> Most of them happen under the likes of the EU where citizens of member nations have the freedom to migrate.
Yes, but this isn't the same. As a US citizen, I don't have that freedom in the EU, correct?
> But even in the US, we have the green card (as you note) which you can get without doing H1-B. Getting a green card means your legal status isn't tied to employment.
True, but we're talking about employment visas. What the US has is likely standard in most countries when you don't have permanent residence.
Not to mention that many (most?) countries have a much more difficult path obtaining permanent residency compared to the US. You want to live there? Get an employment visa and stay on that visa forever.
> Yes, but this isn't the same. As a US citizen, I don't have that freedom in the EU, correct?
If you are from Cuba, you don't have access to the H1-B program. All nations have restrictions one which nations can and can't participate in their immigration and to what extent.
So yes, it is the same, the US just isn't a part of the EU. The relationship between EU nations is much closer to the relationship (pre-trump) between the US and Canada.
> True, but we're talking about employment visas.
No, actually what you specifically asked for was
> Going to a country for employment and having your legal status tied to a company is pretty standard across the world. Do you know counterexamples?
A green card is not a visa, but it is a mechanism to go to a country for employment without having you legal status tied to a specific company.
> If you are from Cuba, you don't have access to the H1-B program. All nations have restrictions one which nations can and can't participate in their immigration and to what extent.
Yes, but the restrictions on which countries' citizens can be part of the H-1B program is tiny compared to the list of countries that cannot participate in the EU program you're mentioning. With the US, it's practically a rounding error (or was, at least pre-Trump).
> No, actually what you specifically asked for was
>> Going to a country for employment and having your legal status tied to a company is pretty standard across the world. Do you know counterexamples?
Yes, I said "Going to a country for employment". If you have a green card, you are not going to the US for employment. You are in the US, or going to the US to receive the green card. Getting employment is incidental.
By counterexamples, I meant other countries where you get in via an employment visa and don't have your presence tied to the employer.
TN visa is much more restrictive than H1B. Only for citizens of two countries, and only for certain professions. I know Canadians who have no hope of getting a TN visa (wrong profession), but have come on H1B.
I guess I wasn't being clear. The original comment I was responding to was:
> What I do care about is the fact that H-1B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment.
I am merely pointing out that most countries lock employment visas to the employer. It's fine not to like it, but I'm highlighting that this is pretty normal - the US is not an outlier.
Its time to have a politics which puts the workers needs at its center. I can confidently say that the current system harms both workers and immigrants.
I'm not a yank but it seems to me the actual argument here is that H1Bs suppress the wages of locals, either directly by hiring foreigners which are less price-sensitive in terms of wages compared to locals or indirectly by moving jobs overseas, thus eliminating the jobs altogether.
You can be pro-immigrant while also being pro-not-fucking-people-over, for example by forcing companies to have a baseline "minimum wage" for H1Bs that match what a local would be paid (or higher!) for the role. It doesn't have to be a "let in a gazillion people or 0", you can choose a middle value.
This is the fallacy of inventing a hypocrite by combining individual opinions from multiple people.
Not one single tech person I know in person has ever been "pro immigration" or "anti immigration". They all want reasonable immigration, and part of that has always meant not harming the livelihoods of existing citizens. That's the subjective part.
Edit: This is also a good example of the problem where we assume a person's opinion when they are not loud/explicit about a topic. E.g. a tech person might not have loud opinions on H1Bs, or they might loudly denounce e.g. Trump's immigrant detention centers, and you might falsely then slot that person into a blunt binary like "pro immigration". Then, when their lives are negatively affected by H1B policy, they speak against it, and you then think of them as a hypocrite even though they did nothing hypocritical.
I've seen the whole "nobody is illegal" be quite a popular sentiment in recent years and that (when talking about the US) that as long as they're ok people, they should be let in, seemingly oblivious to the incredibly strict US visa requirements for people from Europe etc.
I'm sure this is at least partly a case of the loud minority, but it's hard to tell sometimes
Or you know, you could take issue with specific concerns of specific implementations. Driven mostly by corporate greed and cynicism, over a great many decades. Also in an industry that you’re in and know something about.
You’re still allowed to have opinions, even if the situation does directly affect you. In fact, that sounds like exactly the situation you ought to weigh in on. Immigration or otherwise.
If you live in a nation, you do have some say in the policies that directly affect your livelihood. This is the whole reason we have nations.
One need not (always) invoke racism or xenophobia to explain why folks might take issue with high levels of immigration.
It’s so politically charged now that people’s brains just turn off and everyone calls each other Nazis. But it is a discussion that does require nuance, especially as things like aging populations are really changing things immensely.
> It's so politically charged now that people's brains just turn off and everyone calls each other Nazis.
What's worse is when people's brains just turn off and they defend and support an actual trillionaire Nazi with immense political power and an international propaganda platform.
You're replying to someone who is on the record defending Musk's Nazi salute by calling people names and attacking anyone who recognizes it for what it is or points out how it aligns with everything else Musk has said and done.
Set showdead=true and read his posting history. If he didn't want people reading his full-throated defense of Musk's Nazi salute and his attacks on anyone who disagrees, he shouldn't have posted them. Nevertheless, he'll attack you for merely reading it, as if you're the weirdo for reading what he intentionally posted, rather than him for posting it publicly.
Ask him to post a video of himself performing that Nazi salute and he flips out and calls you names. So he plainly understands what it means: he thinks it's defensible when a trillionaire oligarch does it on international television, and feels obligated to defend it himself, but would never perform that exact same Nazi salute himself -- and becomes irrational and hostile when asked to explain why not.
By "calling people names," I mean his own words:
Political: "social justice warriors," "in an echo chamber," "literally fascism," "a bit fascist," "silencing the opposition," and "censoring others."
Mental-health smears: "lost their mind," "consistently hostile," "frustrated," "so upset," "getting angry," "unhealthy," "unhinged," "What is wrong with you?" and "Maybe they can get you the help you need."
Dishonesty and stupidity: "are you pretending to be stupid here?", "your 'act'," "projecting," "lying and spreading lies," and "I'm here in good faith (unlike you)."
Personal attacks: "emotionally attached," "unable to take criticism," "convinced that no matter what, you're right," "used to always having your way," "reevaluate your life choices," "I find your conduct pretty embarrassing here," "You need to self-reflect," and "You need to cool down."
That's his argument technique: replace evidence with ideological labels, personal attacks, tone-policing, reality-reversal, and amateur psychiatric diagnoses. Precisely the nuance-free, brain-off political name-calling you rightly warned against.
> Nevertheless, he'll attack you for merely reading it, as if you're the weirdo for reading what he intentionally posted, rather than him for posting it publicly.
"I have gone out of my way to be reasonable with you and argue with you in good faith, and you keep bringing insults and accusations and keep implying that I'm a Nazi or something.
Think about it, you're so upset over the fact that I don't consider a colored block drag and drop interface/system a real programming language that's used in the real world that you're doing all this and constantly attacking me and getting angry over my very reasonable arguments
It's unhealthy and you should maybe ask one of those friends if what you're doing is reasonable or not. Maybe they can get you the help you need."
only someone who is seriously disturbed would do this for days on end over something so silly as a programming language
I have never called anyone names because they read my post history, I've in fact put links so people can go read everything I've written at their pleasure, which you called something like "boot licking comments that don't deserve to be linked"
and for example "are you pretending to be stupid here?" was me repeating what you said to me, same with "your act". why are you upset that I used the exact words you threw at me?
and really, "unable to take criticism", "convinced that no matter what, you're right", "You need to cool down" and etc. are personal attacks?
why are you so obsessed with me that you find the need to follow me around HN and post this stuff under my replies?
it is your opinion that that was a Nazi salute. I do not believe Elon is a Nazi who praises Hitler, otherwise why wouldn't everyone have cut ties with him?
there are millions and millions of people who also believe he is not a Nazi, are you going to go after every single one of them too?
why would I post any videos of myself on youtube? why would i do anything you ask me to? are you gonna do whatever I ask you to do?
you really have this idea that you're somehow entitled to make people do whatever you want because of your beliefs
which I think is funny because I thought that's exactly what you're against
> So thank you sir, you have given me exactly what I wanted and predicted and expected from you.
and like you quoted me, this very much applies: "convinced that no matter what, you're right". you quite literally are following me around because you feel like you have the right to make me believe what you believe.
> because you call people names for disagreeing with you when you're wrong
no, that was you who said that I was a boot licker and all kinds of stuff when I had said literally nothing against you. I then proceeded to simply counter your accusations and was very reasonable with you while you kept on accusing me of things and telling me that I needed to make a video of myself doing a "Nazi salute" because Mr God himself Don Hopkins told me to do so
it is of my belief that based on all the evidence, Elon is not a Nazi and does not hate the Jews, and that the salute that he did was an awkward salute because he is well known for his awkward and weird behavior both on stage and online.
thus, there is no reason for me to do whatever you're forcing me to do, because you're stuck in your beliefs and you're trying to force them onto me because you can't accept the fact that others think otherwise and have their own opinions and views.
and here you are, I believe 3+ days in and you're still following me around because you're seemingly obsessed with me (otherwise why would you be doing this?)
This fallacy gets pointed to constantly, but it's not actually part of most arguments. I.e. it's a strawman. Bad immigration policy can and does negatively affect opportunities and salaries. Immigration in general does not necessarily do so, and an argument to that effect would be an example of the Lump of Labor fallacy, but that is not the argument being made.
I'm responding to the argument made in general, yes, if you read the post I was responding to.
> Bad immigration policy can and does negatively affect opportunities and salaries.
It is true by definition that some immigration policies are worse than others — for example, a policy of no immigration at all (which is a kind of immigration policy) would be very bad for opportunities and salaries.
Even disregarding his incredible antisocial disorder which does real harm to our entire society, what does the most extreme individual have to do with statistics? That's the opposite of a good example.
Its not an extreme example, you can google or ask chatgpt for more example of foreigners who founded the biggest companies and created trillions of dollar of value.
For ex Microsoft was a failing company and losing market share under white american Steve Ballmer, reaching $230 bln market cap.
It took an Indian ceo to make microsoft a two trillion dollar company, there countless examples like these. I am not even talking about how fundamental research by foreigners gets converted into billions of dollars of gdp and market value (and jobs ofc).
The argument that foreigners “steal” jobs is fundamentally flawed and is coming from ignorance/bigotry
"Middle America hates immigrants because they are racists. I don't want H1-Bs because companies use them as cheaper labor, undercutting my value."
Absolute peak "lost in the political sauce". Most people aren't aware that Bernie Sanders has historically been very anti-immigration, before just becoming an old guy who echos whatever the current young people vibe is.
Was he “let’s put some limits on the number of H1Bs” anti immigration or was he “let’s deport 100 million people and shoot some innocent citizens in the face while doing it” anti immigration?
I know this sounds like a cop out, but Bernie isn't Ghandi just because he thinks socialism is cool. The immigrants who got shot were "fascist riot inciters" and it all just vanishes into the news media abyss.
Same thing how the left media does full lifetime bios on deported immigrants while the right media only reports on the gangsters and rapists who get deported.
Oh we know. What I also know is: I can be friends with someone who disagrees with me about whether Bernie Sanders policies are good for America. I cannot be friends with a person who is an apologist for ICE wearing masks, driving unmarked cars, illegally detaining American citizens, and killing innocent people with zero accountability. Have a nice day.
The AI driven mode collapse of human thought advances. I am no skeptic or anti-AI, but this is definitely a concern I share. You even notice it in normal mundane tasks like programming, never mind the AI generated prose that we at least have become somewhat allergic to.
It wouldn't be so bad if you could just sit it out and say "Oh well, once the labs get bored with marketable domain X, humans will remigrate and re-apply creativity to it", but by then the damage might have been done and a field destroyed as an occupation. I don't know what to do about it, but I appreciate calling out the cynical tone-deafness of the AI companies here.
There's something worth flagging here – mitochondria aren't just the powerhouse of the cell, they're load-bearing to the entire ecosystem. And honestly? I should have surfaced this earlier.
I think the personal drama aside, the moral of the story is: If you are working on an interesting breakthrough in any domain amenable to AI-supported solutions, make sure to keep it secret, lest a more well-resourced party (in particular the leading AI firms) will try to front-run you on the results by throwing millions of compute at it.
I guess (pure) mathematics will eventually be left alone, since own its own it is not economically valuable and OpenAI and Anthropic will eventually not need it any more for publicity, leaving the normal researcher alone to pick up AI-supported crumbs again.
But this also doesn't bode well for other domains. I think these are the clear signs of power concentration in the hands of the AI labs. All future progress will go through them, and if it doesn't, it's only because they graciously let you and decided not to scoop you first.
I agree with everything you said and I wondered... Isn't this just the next level of the concentration of discovery in universities and science labs?
Centuries ago, going perhaps only as far as 19th century, much of science was done as a hobby by people who had the smarts and the time (which was a luxury).
Over time, the cost to do science increased gradually. What required just a few hours of free time started requiring many hours. Then money to make small machines. Then big machines... Then it became out of reach for almost any private individual.
Now it's out of reach for anyone who doesn't have data centers full of GPUs, even major universities depending on the field.
reply