The remarks from the Office of Science and Technology Policy director came during a conversation with the Consumer Technology Association one day after the release of the White House’s AI Action Plan.

When the Biden administration created a safety institute at the standards agency and then used it to run “x-risk evals, I think we kind of lost our way there,” he said. (“X-risk” is a shortened term for “existential risk” that’s associated with the idea that AI poses major threats to humanity.)

“To me, I think we need to go back to basics at NIST, and back to basics around what NIST exists for, and that is to promulgate best-in-class standards and do critical metrology or measurement science around AI models,” Kratsios said.

Kratsios’s comments about the body once known as the AI Safety Institute came a day after the White House released its anticipated AI Action Plan — which made dozens of recommendations to do things like deregulate and rid AI of “ideological bias” — as well as three executive orders that set parts of that plan into motion. The Thursday panel, moderated by CTA’s CEO and vice chair Gary Shapiro, was focused on those actions.

The discussion also followed the Trump administration’s move last month to rename the NIST-located safety institute to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, cutting “safety” from the name. That component was initially announced by the Biden administration in November 2023 at the UK AI Safety Summit and, over the next year, focused on working with industry, establishing testing agreements with companies, and conducting evaluations.

I get that he’s most likely just “following orders” from Thiel, and probably not coming up with any of this policy, but I still hate this guy so much. I have to give Thiel credit. Once again proving he sure knows how to craft a good public scapegoat for when things inevitably go horribly wrong.

  • orrk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    I find it interesting, so many proponents of Libertarianism don’t realize that the limits we put on these things they want to exist to stop people from creating neo-feudal fiefdoms.

    Yes, Ayn Rand IS a Libertarian, yes the end result of Libertarianism is a government that is too weak to oppose any organized violence.

    If a government is too weak to stop large scale organized violence you get warlords, of some form, in the modern case it’s whoever has the most wealth to found the largest private army.

    But hey, your not too far off the mark with the whole Nazi bit, after all the word Privatize was invented to describe what the Nazis did with state property.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      Yes, Ayn Rand IS a Libertarian,

      She didn’t call herself a libertarian and explicitly said she isn’t, libertarians don’t call her a libertarian and explicitly say she isn’t, only people not knowing what the hell they are talking about call her a libertarian.

      There’s absolutely no reason to call her a libertarian. No matter how you’d want that to accuse libertarianism of whatever bad.

      It’s actually funny, there is a bunch of ideologies, all different, and like all of them not mainstream and not left are bunched by idiots under libertarianism just like this. Rand isn’t libertarian (not even in history of her beliefs), Curtis Yarvin isn’t libertarian (despite history of his beliefs), Silicon Valley bros aren’t libertarian (despite them using the word sometimes to the confusion of everyone), and neither are Zelensky and Milei (I mean, there is some awareness of libertarianism in his approahes).

      I find it interesting, so many proponents of Libertarianism don’t realize that the limits we put on these things they want to exist to stop people from creating neo-feudal fiefdoms.

      Bullshit. You might also want to think who’s “we” and what externalia does giving that “we” an ability to “put limits on these things” possess.

      If a government is too weak to stop large scale organized violence you get warlords, of some form, in the modern case it’s whoever has the most wealth to found the largest private army.

      A government is large scale organized violence and warlords.

      But hey, your not too far off the mark with the whole Nazi bit, after all the word Privatize was invented to describe what the Nazis did with state property.

      That claim would require sources, I doubt you have any.

      • orrk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        She didn’t call herself a libertarian and explicitly said she isn’t

        And North Korea calls its self democratic. Yet we don’t call it a democracy. No, we define these categories by what they are/do/believe in/etc… and like it or not, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is 100% a component of libertarian ideology, Ayn Rand’s beliefs are very much a core component of Libertarianism, and i’m sorry to inform you that many on that list of yours ARE libertarians, such as Milei. In the same way the Marx&Hegel were a cornerstone of communism.

        But you are correct about Zelenskyy, he is not libertarian.

        Bullshit. You might also want to think who’s “we” and what externalia does giving that “we” an ability to “put limits on these things” possess.

        Standard Libertarian response that basically ignores the existence of anything outside the individual

        Also, from the person who you believe isn’t a Libertarian: The source of the government’s authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose. -Ayn Rand, Galt’s Speech.

        A government is large scale organized violence and warlords. Spoken just like Rand herself! “Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury—the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.” The Virtue of Selfishness “The Nature of Government,” The Virtue of Selfishness, again Ayn Rand.

        Lastly, on privatization: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fjep.20.3.187