Matthew Perlé @MatthewPerle

This is the best and most balanced report I've read by Anthropic, free of many of the super sci-fi, everything-is-exponential language of some other reports I've read by this amazing team. But one line is dead wrong. This one about recursive self-improvement: "[If] AI systems themselves become capable of full recursive self-improvement, and begin building their successors...In this world, the pace of progress in AI development becomes determined entirely by the availability of compute (or the speed of discovering various efficiencies in algorithmic training or inference) for AI systems." Compute is absolutely NOT the only limiting factor in recursive self-improvement and not even the most important one. They are two more: 1) Time 2) Multiplicity Time is how long it takes to get an answer. Multiplicity is when there is no right or wrong answers but only shades of gray with right(ish) answers and wrong(ish). They even point to one of them (time) just a few paragraphs later: "More intelligence can’t learn what a drug does over decades of use, can’t hold elections sooner than a constitution dictates, and can’t turn a stranger into an old friend in a weekend. For most people, the felt pace of this future will still be set by the bottlenecks, even if the laboratory upstream runs at the speed of compute. That collision, where recursive intelligence building itself ever faster meets the world of humans, relationships, and governance, is another part of this future we can’t predict." But let me make it even more clear: AI got good at code and games because they have great feedback loops and tight timelines. If the code works or does not, you know pretty quickly. It good at driving for the same reasons. Don't die or drive off the road or hit someone are achievable (though difficult) goals with clear, fast feedback. You cannot answer the question "is this a good article?" or "do I write well?" because that is multiplicity, shades of gray that are hard to judge. Humans judge this by self-awareness and feedback from others. AI might be able to approximate the second but only if it develops more of the first (harder). "Will my wife like this surprise present?" Hard to get good at that even if you're a master. Took me many years of trying and judging her responses. :) Time is also a massive factor. The question of "did I make money in business?" can't be answered in a short time line. There is no way to know the answer faster, and short term success doesn't predict long term. "Will this drug cause bad side effects twenty years from now?" That can only be answered in twenty years. No amount of compute changes that. "Will this building fall down faster than this one if I build it a different way?" You can run basic physics and math rules to help you heuristically figure it out, but only time gives you the true answer. These two constraints, time and multiplicity, are the death knell of any Doomer/Less Wrong fantasies about fast takeoff and instant super genius AI. You can have all the compute in the universe and you still can't compress twenty years of drug side effects into twenty minutes. You can have a 500 trillion parameters and you still can't definitively answer "is this beautiful?" because beauty is not a optimization target with a clean gradient. The recursive self-improvement loop doesn't hit a wall because of compute. It hits a wall because of reality. Reality is slow, messy, ambiguous, and full of questions that only time and lived experience can answer. Compute is the bottleneck that engineers see because it's the one they can measure. Time and multiplicity are the bottlenecks that the real world imposes and no amount of silicon can brute force past them. That's why even nature only "solved" good/bad by brute force: evolution. Does this agent/human/creature survive and reproduce? That's good. Otherwise not good. Companies follow the same rule. Did this survive and make money over time? Good. Otherwise bad. Imperfect, lossy, dumb, blind, slow. AI is changing the world already. It will get better and better. But the road to better is long and winding, not a vertical line to godhood. And that should make you more hopeful, not less.

Anthropic @AnthropicAI

a week ago

Our internal data shows Claude is accelerating AI development—a possible path to recursive self-improvement, or AI autonomously building a more capable successor. It’s happening faster than we thought, and the implications deserve greater attention. anthropic.com/institute/recu…

2K 5K 29K 18.5M 15K

@mattcynamon @barstoolsports He just stepped over the fence.

I saw it. Now you have to see it. His name is Samuel. And he…is a king.

I'm working on this. I think the key is mainly about structurally incentivizing long tail, human-created content. Today’s social rewards slop because it’s optimized for virality, everything is ephemeral and the half-life of all content is a couple days. Would love to talk if you’re interested.

In my Harvard fellowship I study the views of AI accelerationists, safetyists and skeptics. What I have come to realize is that both the Accelerationists and the Safetyists believe that we are creating an AI God. The difference is that Accelerationists believe that it is the god of the New testament. A god of loving kindness. The Safetyists believe that it is the god of the Old testament. The jealous one who told Abraham to kill his son, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and killed everybody in the flood. The Skeptics think it's just a damn toaster with more knobs.

The All-In Podcast @theallinpod

2 weeks ago

Bill Gurley: Anthropic Thinks It’s Building God @Jason: It is the ultimate level of narcissism and delusion of grandeur to think you can create God. @bgurley: “Anthropic is a mystery to me. I've never, ever seen a company that is both leading their field and the most

224 269 2K 911K 1K

@byjoelanderson People thought the Pacers would get crushed last year and they went all the way until Haliburton’s injury.

I agree agents are acting as an accelerant but I think the open web was already in terminal decline, especially with AI search subordinating direct traffic even more than it already was. I do think there’s a very large opportunity for whoever can recreate the incentives of the open web in a place less susceptible to unwanted traffic.

“Spida bite” is an all-time call.

@TurnerNovak Great convo.

@mignano Possibly but that's a big "if", since you are relying on probabilistic intent rather than deterministic, which has a big risk of becoming noisy.

@nchirls Love this. Feels a little self-indulgent but I do think for a product to have a soul it needs to be approached this way.

Great conversation. Fred is a legend.

Michael Mignano @mignano

2 months ago

Fred Wilson is one of the greatest VCs of all time. He is also my new partner at @usv and I'm lucky to say that. We've known each other for years, but becoming partners felt like a reason to get to know him even better. So a few weeks ago, we walked around Union Square and

42 30 601 211K 689

There will never be another, man

BRO WHAT JUST HAPPENED

Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 @big_business_

2 months ago

LEBRON JAMES NO WAY BRO WHAT DID I JUST WITNESS FSADJKAFDSJKFASDJKAFSDKJAFSDJK

74 216 4K 9.1M 91

LEBRON JAMES LOB TO BRONNY JAMES FATHER & SON ALLEY-OOP. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

@mignano I think it’s too early in the game to say network effects are no longer an option, at least in consumer. AI provides an opportunity for a new network to emerge, but just being AI-native in itself doesn’t guarantee success (e.g. Sora).

@TurnerNovak @BananaCap_ Really inspiring to see these go-getters finally see some success.

People are overestimating the extent to which probabilistic communication will replace deterministic. There's a big difference between even 99% of context and 100% when things become nuanced.