justing.net

No Government in the Cloud

By Justin G. on 25MAY04SUN

I had a reaction to one part of Robin Sloan’s Energy Suck post from 25APR19. Multiple companies are building massive data centers around the country, which Robin is objecting to. Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with Robin generally, but I think a better argument could be found. Another possibility is that I got sidetracked by this one aspect and didn’t read his post very carefully.

This is a summary of hand written notes on 25APR21. The notes below stem from a provisional exploration of my reaction to one of Robin’s points. Robin’s post was the spark, so the connection is at times not necessarily direct to his post.

Summary

1. Robin says: “A bunch of companies are racing to acquire exactly the same thing.” The alternatives, monopoly or national control, are likely a worse outcome.
2. This duplicative inefficiency is actually a good thing: robust products come from proper competition, and durable computing infrastructure is built.
3. The profits are being invested instead of just going back to shareholders or staying in VC coffers.¹
4. Suppose these companies succeed. Private firms with human level, or higher, artificial intelligences will be able to run whole governments in these data centers with LLMs.

Resonant Phrases

1. Clear writing is essential for good communication with LLMs. They are not capable of guessing “what you meant” if you yourself do not know what you mean.
2. Some government functions will be turned over to the LLMs in the data center.
3. The existence of artificial super intelligences controlled by commercial firms does make traditional/legacy government sound dubious. Otoh, this is not a concrete specific ASI, it’s some poorly defined imaginary tech in the future.

Open Loops

1. AIs in data centers will be (are now?) able to execute lawmaking and governance. This seems like a bad idea. Where do we draw the line?
2. The “behind closed doors” negotiation and lawmaking must be legible somewhere in written form. I’m sure this sausage making is messy, but it can’t be magical. How is it done? You can’t train a model to do it without the record.

W-25-APR-p21

To Reply: Sorry Robin, don't (at) me.