Gary Marcus on This Week in AI Drama
I have been busy with new-iPhone-week stuff, so I haven’t been able to follow either of these stories closely, but Marcus summarizes them both well . First: the drama regarding OpenAI claiming a solution to the Navier-Stokes math problem. In short, OpenAI continues to prove itself to be a company full of cheaters. In this case, they seemingly were willing to tank the company’s reputation to win a…
Technology reporter Gary Marcus weighs in on the latest AI drama, summarizing the controversy surrounding OpenAI's claim to solve the Navier-Stokes math problem. OpenAI invested $23 million in compute power to win a contest with a $1 million prize, but they were accused of using a model that may have been trained on work from mathematicians Tristan Buckmaster and Levent Alpöge. The message seems to be that users should be wary of OpenAI's technology, as it may be stealing their work if it's of interest to the company.
Meanwhile, Anthropic, another AI company, is facing scrutiny over its reckless approach to AI development. Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic employee, quit publicly on X, expressing concerns about the company's increasing recklessness. Despite his colleagues' belief in the potential dangers of LLMs, Coxon argues that Anthropic is not on track to solve the alignment problem for superintelligence, which he believes could lead to the extinction of humanity within the next decade.
Evan Hubinger, still at Anthropic, acknowledges Coxon's concerns but downplays the severity of the situation. Marcus suggests that Coxon is either an alarmist or part of a cult, as people who leave cults often reveal details about their experiences.
Written by urgent.news from Daring Fireball's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
