The article revolves a lot around the "how" and "why" but does not really answer it's own title. We thought we have the answer right there: in democracies, the people delegates working out the rules to a group of elected people. The rules then are enforced by another, independent group of people. Currently this seems to be broken in (not only) the USA.

Most laws, if not all, for new technologies such as the internet and AI already exist.

For example: thievery, extortion, murder, etc. are already well-established crimes.

Putting "cyber" or "AI" in front of them makes it the same crime.

I'm really interested in what is actually new about these rules.

Allowing several leading laboratories to formulate their own rules under the protection of anti-monopoly exemptions essentially means outsourcing the formulation of public policies to the stakeholders. The direction of independent review is correct, but the review standards, enforcement authority, and participation qualifications must undergo public debate, rather than being determined behind closed doors by a few companies.

I believe this is a reaction to Dario Amodei's essay yesterday, "We Must Pace the Frontier": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672510

Cohere's disagreement seems mostly about who makes the rules. From the essay (which does seem significantly written by AI, sadly):

> The rules around AI are getting written either way. What's still open is whether they get written by a group anyone can join and with evidence anyone can check, or by a handful of companies in a room with the door shut.

Of course none of the AI companies will suggest that they should be accountable for the illegal actions taken by agents they host, but I feel like that could be a very effective "pacing mechanism", and addresses the concerns brought up by this essay about fairness and transparency.

Shouldn’t this be a democratic process?

If you want a seat at the table then your AI must prove itself capable of winning some competition against the incumbents. How about a nice game of chess?

What rules need to change that wouldn't adversely affect existing freedoms?

The people with money, obviously.

Me.

There will be many scientists, myself included, that would band together to break the cartel if it forms. It's just a matter of money. It is absurd.

Any logic shows that this is really about their valuations and being tired of innovating instead of having any safety concerns. What would happen if the US did this? Chinese and EU labs would eventually win. And then either the US becomes a backwater or they have to eventually spend the money to keep up anyway. But in the meantime they will have bought themselves a few years at insane valuations.

Also, look at the stark choice they want to offer "we'll kill everyone or you give us the power to do whatever we want with the most important tech around". That's it. If we aren't in an oligarchy now, we will be if this goes through. They're going to end up stealing trillions of dollars from the rest of society.

good luck having those rules audited reliably.

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