> not necessarily true

It's a possibility that is increased by their action. One leaves, a space is now open that will likely eventually be filled. And the chance of someone with equal/higher scruples filling it is very slim (unless you somehow know that the good amount of those who qualify and apply for the position have equal/higher scruples). That's just logic and math.

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hegelstoleit 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You missed the point.

> Just because someone else might be willing to do it isn't a reason to continue doing it.

Hence, someone filling the position after you leave isn't a reason to continue doing it, whereas the fact that it's an immoral thing to do is a reason to stop doing it.

Someone filling the position after you leave has no bearing on the reasons that are relevant to what you ought to do here. It's like deciding to not buy a ticket to see a movie because someone else is going to buy the ticket anyways even if you don't purchase the ticket. It has no relevance to whether you should watch the movie or not, just as someone else taking the job has no relevance to whether you ought to do the job.

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reasonableklout 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But organizations are made of humans. Jacob leaving might've moved some of his coworkers and his counterparts at OpenAI. And the same can be said for those who would fill positions at the frontier. Then finally there is a political component; his post went viral, 100K+ users appear to agree with it, and it is further fuel to the fire for regulation, which we already know most Americans want.

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skeledrew 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Others being moved to the point of also leaving would only worsen the effect. A viral post too can worsen the effect as it's now even less likely that someone with scruples who qualifies for the position(s) will apply. And those in it primarily for the money - and couldn't care less about the morals - will happily send in their CVs after becoming aware of the post.

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reasonableklout 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm utterly unconvinced. Others who are moved don't have to leave to effect change. And there's a very small pool of people on the planet who are at least as qualified as Jacob to work on pretraining at Anthropic. And when they'll join they'll have to ramp up. And you haven't addressed any of the positive effects of virality.

	▲	skeledrew 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, others don't have to leave. Will Jacob's leaving cause a perspective shift in anyone remaining there? Seriously doubt it. I don't see what a new person ramping up has to do with this. And I don't really see any positive effect of virality; this is a replay of the past (see Geoffrey Hinton and Timnit Gebru[0] for example) and nothing has come of it, beyond talk for maybe a couple days to a couple weeks. [0] https://ethicalaidepartures.fyi

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deaux 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right, I assume tomorrow you'll be applying for the next Nazi camp guard vacancy? After all, if you don't do it, someone with less scruples likely will.

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salawat 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The best way to get corporate America to listen is making RoI suffer. If you are the most qualified, everyone other than you is less qualified for the job, and likely to bring in more waste. It's the only language this stupid damn country understands. Just the loss of tribal knowledge, shifting of workload, and morale hits are likely to be far more devastating than anyone here probably wants to admit, because most here completely dismiss the role of irrational modes of thought in psychological self-regulation.

Disgust is a tremendously powerful thing.