Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>Regulatory intervention usually lessens the liability exposure for industry. It replaces open-ended common-law liability -- where tort claims can be levied for whatever actual harms result from a firm's actions -- with a rules-compliance regime, where adhering to regulatory checklists absolves the firm of liability for subsequent consequences.

OK, so the fact that US senators are discussing harsher liability regimes therefore shows that your "regulatory capture" glove does not fit what is going on here.

>The thing we're actually debating here is pluralism vs. monopolism, and you appear to be arguing in favor of monopolism. And if you're proposing that a specific, real-world institution act as a central monopolist, evaluating the trustworthiness and competence of that specific institution, and the actual people who administer it, is not at all a "whole 'nother discussion", and is in fact a primary consideration in this one.

If you distrust the US government, you should be against any US company developing superintelligence. Heck, just a couple days ago, a bunch of users here on HN announced that we need to stop pretending the US is anything other than a police state. If the USG is untrustworthy, it can capriciously nationalize a US company on the verge of developing superintelligence.

So maybe the real solution is for non-US countries to stop providing key elements in the AI supply chain: https://pauseai.info/amsterdam-protest-2025-december

> OK, so the fact that US senators are discussing harsher liability regimes therefore shows that your "regulatory capture" glove does not fit what is going on here.

They're always discussing harsher liability regimes. The regulatory interventions are always positioned to the public as increasing accountability.

The only relevant question here is whether a preemption clause is present in any draft legislation that actually makes it to the floor in Congress.

>If you distrust the US government, you should be against any US company developing superintelligence.

Well, I'm not concerned with imaginary sci-fi stuff here, just actual AI developments. And the idea that anything that goes on in the US under anyone's purview is inherently and completely subverted by political incentives is of course nonsense; you'll note that I'm explicitly arguing against the introduction of pervasive political incentives into an industry that's so far only somewhat distorted by them.

> So maybe the real solution is for non-US countries to stop providing key elements in the AI supply chain

It's got me feeling like I'm living in Bizarro World, but at the moment, the sanest players in this market, and the ones whose actual behaviors and products are most consistent with a decentralized, individualist approach that aligns with real-world incentive structures most beneficially, are the Chinese AI labs.

To your point, the level of politicization and hype going on in the US, and the absolutely unhinged fantasist speculation driving the public narrative here, is unprecedented and much more frightening than any potential threat coming from AI itself.

If you acknowledged the threat of politicization and centralization, I don't know how you can argue for a regulatory takeover of the market by the very institution you think is becoming a "police state".

>They're always discussing harsher liability regimes. The regulatory interventions are always positioned to the public as increasing accountability.

These conspiracy theories are getting ever more elaborate. The liability regime thing was not from some big speech. It was from a Senate subcommittee hearing which did not attract all that much attention:

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-ai-preference-cascade-reac...

>Well, I'm not concerned with imaginary sci-fi stuff here, just actual AI developments.

The "actual AI developments" are that AI has been advancing faster than most everyone predicted, so expect that to continue: https://benjamintodd.substack.com/p/almost-every-ai-forecast...

>It's got me feeling like I'm living in Bizarro World, but at the moment, the sanest players in this market, and the ones whose actual behaviors and products are most consistent with a decentralized, individualist approach that aligns with real-world incentive structures most beneficially, are the Chinese AI labs.

Regarding open-weight models, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49606803

>If you acknowledged the threat of politicization and centralization, I don't know how you can argue for a regulatory takeover of the market by the very institution you think is becoming a "police state".

I don't think the US will become a police state. I think the takeover is kind of inevitable and I prefer it to happen sooner, on good terms, when the technology is weaker, rather than later, on ad-hoc terms, when the technology is stronger.

Do you have investments in the big US companies?

Pretty sure I have less than the average index fund investor since I tilt my portfolio very conservative.

> These conspiracy theories are getting ever more elaborate. The liability regime thing was not from some big speech. It was from a Senate subcommittee hearing which did not attract all that much attention:

It likely didn't attract much attention, because these sorts of hearings are largely performative. They're not actually a part of the legislative process per se. Again, the only relevant thing is what legislation is actually being proposed and how it is specifically structured.

> The "actual AI developments" are that AI has been advancing faster than most everyone predicted, so expect that to continue: https://benjamintodd.substack.com/p/almost-every-ai-forecast...

Right, but the discussion here applies to what's going on in real life, not speculative sci-fi fantasies that are largely disconnected from the reality of how either AI tech or economies actually work.

> I don't think the US will become a police state. I think the takeover is kind of inevitable and I prefer it to happen sooner, on good terms, when the technology is weaker, rather than later, on ad-hoc terms, when the technology is stronger.

Considering that the kind of "takeover" you're discussing would likely be in severe conflict with the US constitution, how do you reconcile believing that it's "inevitable" while holding that the US would still not become a police state?

> I prefer it to happen sooner, on good terms, when the technology is weaker, rather than later, on ad-hoc terms, when the technology is stronger

A priori political intervention based on unconstrained speculation about what might happen in the future. What could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps you should compare your speculative failure modalities of AI against the demonstrated failure modalities of politics, and re-evaluate where the greatest potential for danger lies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com