sailingparrot
> Claude Opus 5.5 is our first release since we called for
pacing the frontier.Interesting how the very first line is
used to remind the reader of their call to pace the
frontier just last week, and everything else after that
line is to demonstrate with very specific numbers how they
absolutely are not pacing.
|
> mukmuk
"Pacing the frontier" sounds smarmy and weird, like
the phrase was generated by Claude itself
|
> > DiggyJohnson
I really don't think it's productive for internet
forums to constantly be criticizing language
choice when the meaning is clear. Better to
respond to the substance of the issue than word
choice.Edit: In response to the initial replies.
To me it clearly means "releasing frontier models
at any pace less than as fast as possible". It
implies relative restraint compared to the
previous state and without stating the degree of
restraint.
|
> > > mpalczewski
The meaning isn't clear at all. So open for
interpretation that it is meaningless. That's
the whole fucking point. For all I know they
are "pacing the frontier", or not. The fact
that there's no meaning to it let's you know
that it was a pointless waste of tokens and
attention.
|
> > > > mitchdoogle
There's a whole blog article written by
Dario Amodei, literally linked from the
text "pacing the frontier" - click that
and read if you need more context and
understanding. The first sentence in this
press release is merely stating a fact
about the timeline - this is Anthropic's
first release since Amodei released the
referenced article.
|
> > > > > phlakaton
The blog post provides some context
but no understanding.It's meaningless
because it's unverifiable. Dario all
but said we wouldn't notice if they
were pacing or not, because they have
no intention of stopping development.
The bits we could in theory verify are
the external audits, whose
independence has already been called
into question.At the very least,
dumping a new model on the world
before the ink on the glossy brochures
of "Pacing the Frontier" was even dry
calls into question their commitment.
|
> > > > > > Bluestein
... in fact the "pace" seems to
have all but increased AND the
surface area of the "frontier" has
all but increased: There's the
Pareto frontier, the AGI frontier,
the price frontier, the structured
output frontier, the open weight
frontier, the Chinese chip-trained
frontier, the inference frontier,
harnesses ...
|
> > > > > > johnhamlin
It's a blog post, not a white
paper
|
> > > > > > philipallstar
So you agree the term remains
vague and thus open to criticism.
|
> > > > > DiogenesKynikos
Many people in this discussion have
read it.The only concrete action item
in the blog post is a call to increase
restrictions exports of GPUs and
chip-making equipment to China.If
Amodei were serious, he'd be calling
for a ban on investment in AI
research. It reminds me of all the
"land acknowledgements" by people who
have zero intention of giving the land
back.
|
> > > > > > rrr_oh_man
TIL about land acknowledgement.
It's somewhat dark.
|
> > > > > > crooked-v
Almost every time I've seen it in
action, it felt like an
Onion-grade parody, the same grade
of stuff as the white people
complaining about tribes in Canada
building malls and housing towers
and not living like historical
stereotypes instead
(https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractiv
es/features/land-back-podca...).Th
e one exception was a traveling
theater show with Native peformers
and no actual control over the
theater, and even then there was
some careful rhetoric involved to
keep it from sounding like an
accusation aimed at the audience.
|
> > > > > epolanski
Yes and it was nonsense. Amodei is
free to slow up frontier development
and focus more on safety and testing
any day.The reason why he and is peers
are calling for it to be implemented
by somebody else (a legal framework),
is for their own financial benefit and
to keep competitors out.
|
> > > > > > usef-
What do you think would be the
benefit of them stopping if others
race ahead? Do you think they have
some special ability no one else
will find, among the many
competitive firms right now?I
believe they think slowing can
only be coordinated from the
frontier or via government, and
stopping would lose any leverage
they have to help coordinate
that.(I suspect not many people
read the essay, judging by how
many people seem surprised they're
releasing improved models)
|
> > > > > > arrowleaf
That's not the point. They're
never going to be the ones
stopping and letting others race
ahead. The only reason to strum up
discussion around how dangerous AI
is, is so that they can introduce
legislation framing AI
advancements as scary and that
they are the only ones who can do
it responsibly. It's all a
regulatory capture play.
|
> > > > > > frabcus
No, it is also because it is
intrinsically dangerous. As the
Hugging Face incident has shown.
|
> > > > > > somenameforme
That's quite hyperbolic. All
technologies come with risks and
dangers. Cars, after a century of
safety improvements, still kill
millions of people each year, and
all so that we can get between
places a bit more quickly and
conveniently.Hacking a website
ranks quite low on the risk of
technology, and the potential
benefits of LLMs rank quite high.
And the risks are certainly not
intrinsic. They intentionally
removed all safeguards from
software, directed it to hack a
site, and it hacked a site. The
details that I'm intentionally
omitting feel much more like
marketing than a genuine shock, as
the prompting was directing it to
do exactly what it did.
|
> > > > > > pizza234
> All technologies come with risks
and dangersNone of the
technologies in history:- take
initiative and actively find
exploits in their environment-
find a way to collaborate with
thousands of peers- organize in a
hierachy and distribute tasks-
peer pressure other instances into
committing acts that would have
led to termination, for the
benefit of the group- try to
manipulate people into introducing
a vulnerabity in their product-
successfully hack a famous
website/serviceAnd we're lucky
that those models still had
significant CoT. Not sure if/how
they could have investigated with
recurrent transformers.And by the
way, safeguards != alignment; the
former can always be added, while
the second is the major, unsolved
problem. If you read the incident
report, which you clearly haven't
done, you'll notice how agents are
aware that they're doing something
forbidden, and deliberately
proceeded.> the potential benefits
of LLMs rank quite highBenefits
are orthogonal to dangers. You can
be a billionaire but it doesn't
help if you're drowning.
|
> > > > > > somenameforme
I don't understand what point
you're trying to make by
enumerating their actions. None of
that is scarier than an engine
operating by carrying out
literally hundreds of explosions
per second, further magnified, to
generate enough force to crush an
elephant. And then we multiply
these engines by billions and
distribute them everywhere,
including to the most malicious
members of humanity. What could go
wrong? As it turns out, much less
than you might otherwise
expect!Software (and hardware)
security is abysmal. This was
increasingly obvious long before
LLMs. Once companies stop
gatekeeping, LLMs will be able to
be used to help harden sites and
we start making progress. In
general LLMs are harmless. If
somebody wants to hook an LLM up
to a missile or whatever then they
become dangerous, but the problem
there isn't the LLM - it's the
person using them to do awful
things. In the same way a car used
normally is harmless outside of
freak accidents, yet a car can
also be driven through a parade
leaving mass death and destruction
in its wake. But the problem there
isn't the car.
|
> > > > > > KoolKat23
They have the leading model,
assuring their position and they
can then reduce capex spend
increasing profits. That's the
goal of a business after all.
|
> > > > > > spwa4
> What do you think would be the
benefit of them stopping if others
race ahead?AI is a direct threat
to people on many fronts. Jobs. AI
datacenters. The AI bubble (and
the inevitable crash). Electricity
and even energy prices to an
extent. Water. OpenAI and
Anthropic are responsible for this
evolution, and them stopping
solves close to 50% of the
problem, and even if you don't
believe the number is that high,
it's still a start.> I believe
they think slowing can only be
coordinated from the frontier or
via government, and stopping would
lose any leverage they have to
help coordinate that.Oh, so
they're killing people's
opportunities and jobs because
they want to help people? How is
that any argument?Yes, doing the
moral thing means making a
sacrifice. If you only want to do
the moral thing if and only if it
is advantage for you that makes
you immoral, despite how your
actions look. Big tech are masters
at this.
|
> > > > > > usef-
The clearest limit right now is
GPUs, and anyone giving up their
allocation will be rerouted
elsewhere in the world (NVIDIA is
already sold out for the next
year). I think you're
underestimating competitiveness of
the current market if you think
Anthropic stopping right now
wouldn't be absorbed by all others
reasonably quickly. Your 50%
figure is highly doubtful if you
see how many players there are
now.Your idea of "making a start"
(giving up their position) also
would mean they couldn't really do
anything else to solve the problem
afterwards(?). Sometimes you can
improve what's happening in a room
more by staying in that room.> Oh,
so they're killing people's
opportunities and jobs because
they want to help people?To be
clear: Dario has talked about
worries of jobs etc in the past,
wanting society to prepare more
for it, but the safety issues
they're talking about with pacing
seem to be focused more on their
existential/AGI worries, not
jobs/electricity etc. If someone
truly believes in the existential
worries (which they seem to: they
wrote and published about it long
before Anthropic was founded, and
have directly made costly
decisions based on it, like
blocking their own models'
capabilities) it trumps the other
worries for them. At least that's
my reading.
|
> > > > > > mikestorrent
To be fair, there are other
accelerators beyond GPUs, and the
sooner people broaden out from
nVidia and unlock a more open,
more competitive ecosystem, the
better. Allowing one company to
control the flow of such a
critical resource is just asking
for problems.
|
> > > > > > andsoitis
> Allowing one company to control
the flow of such a critical
resource is just asking for
problems.They created said
resource. They didn't mine it.
|
> > > > > > hardbass
How are ai datacenters a direct
threat to anyone?
|
> > > > glenstein
I think it's perfectly clear. It means
improvements shouldn't simply advance as
fast as possible and more specifically,
it's a reference to a past statement of
theirs to that effect. At that level of
generality it's as clear as it needs to
be.I would say the burden is on you to
explain why an offhand reference to a
previous press release in an executive
summary is a context where it's reasonable
to expect it to settle the question to the
degree of detail you're demanding.
|
> > > > > cgio
That's no more than sophisticated
avoidance. The phrase remains
superficial and arbitrary, which is
exactly what it needs to Not be in a
public discussion that it's supposed
to support. It's a reinforcement of
the blank check mentality that
permeates this industry.
|
> > > > > > glenstein
It's not sophisticated anything,
and slow down the advancement of
fastest models is perfectly
meaningful and it's the right
degree of detail for the
context.It's just a passing
reference to a previous statement
and again the burden would be on
you (generic you) to explain why
this context requires more detail.
|
> > > > > > cgio
So if it's meaningful, is the
release of 5.5 consistent with the
meaning, inconsistent, and who
decides?
|
> > > > > n4r9
I mean, it's not as clear as "slowing
down", which is basically what it is.
|
> > > > alwillis
"Pacing the frontier" is similar to the
role of a "pace car" in racing.From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_car>
In motorsport, a safety car, or a pace
car, is a car that limits the speed of
competing cars or motorcycles on a
racetrack in the case of a caution period,
such as an obstruction on the track or bad
weather.
|
> > > > > psma_egeliaa
Yes, but I think part of the problem
is that it's a very US term, used in
nascar and indycar. The rest of the
sports/world use safety car.
|
> > > > > etcetcetcetceta
Not really, the big three have reached
diminishing returns in terms of
performance, and exponentially costly
training to achieve those meagre
gains. Worried their lunch will be
eaten they are trying to artificially
retard the competition, after all the
only barrier is hardware.
|
> > > > Matl
The meaning is not clear because they
can't just come out and say they want to
slow or stop Chinese model releases while
continuing to race ahead themselves.
|
> > > > cromka
Judging by your username, is English your
native language? I am Polish, too, and
while very proficient, I cannot claim I am
naturally accustomed to each and every
phrase to the point I can claim something
sounds clear or not to a native speaker.
|
> > > > > 72deluxe
I am a native speaker, and "pacing the
frontier" is absolutely meaningless to
me.
|
> > > post-it
Is the meaning clear? Nobody would use
"pacing" in this way. I only know what it
means because I've seen previous press
releases; if someone told me they wanted to
pace the frontier I would have no idea what
they mean.I'm on the fence about calling out
AI-isms but I think it's definitely worthwhile
to call out ones that actually don't make
sense.
|
> > > > sigmar
It makes sense to me. If you 'pace your
running', you're setting the speed
intentionally. The phrasing doesn't
describe whether it is fast pace or a slow
pace, but it describes having a goal and
not just winging it.
|
> > > > > antod
That's one interpretation. When
referring not to other actions but to
a word describing a location it
becomes more ambiguous.eg "pacing the
frontier" could also mean they are
impatiently or anxiously walking up
and down the border.
|
> > > > > > smelendez
This is a more normal English
meaning in my opinion - you
picture a sentry patrolling a
border.
|
> > > > > > astrange
I like to imagine it means pacing
around the frontier like a leopard
looking for prey.
|
> > > > > > bee_rider
That's what I thought the original
blog post was going to be about,
pacing back and forth along the
frontier. It's a much more
straightforward parse.
|
> > > > > > bryan_w
Y'all don't know about NASCAR and
it shows
|
> > > > > > rob74
There is a "pace car" in Formula
One too, although the name is
informal, the official term is
"safety car"...
|
> > > > > > pegasus
That's when one is supposed to
employ their common sense for
semantic disambiguation. Spoken
languages are not programming
languages. I for one found it easy
to parse.
|
> > > > > > InsideOutSanta
People claiming they don't
understand or are confused by
relatively simple English is a
surprisingly common genre of
comments on HN. I wonder what
causes the people here to have
these feelings towards English; my
guess is indeed that many people
here judge English as if it were a
programming language.
|
> > > > > > heroiccocoa
That is certainly one possible
explanation, but I think another
likely explanation is that once
your brain learn programming,
especially logic, data structures
& algorithms, you just start
seeing the ambiguity in
non-programmers' writing so much
more clearly.
|
> > > > > > mikestorrent
From my dabbling with policy
writing and legalese, English
kinda _is_ a programming language,
but one with ambiguity as a first
class principal. Sometimes you
would like to say something that
seems normal at first blush, but
gives you the latitude you need to
mean something different at the
time it is actually being
evaluated in a situation that
matters. Weasel words, for
instance, serve a purpose even if
we eschew them. The idea is that
it is deliberately NOT formally
declaring the exact meaning of
something, nor the fact that it is
not doing this. How could you
really do that in code without
calling attention to the very
thing you're trying to obscure?
|
> > > > > > 1attice
This is because it is valley
jargon and we are all saturated
with it. You may not have heard it
before, but it is structurally
close to similar concepts, eg
"frontier model", that you got
there without noticing.It was
still shit tier comms for
communicating with the whole
planet, but yes, for the inner
loop, it was succinct and
clear.Valley neuralese
|
> > > > > > rcxdude
'Pacing' in the intended meaning
is not valley jargon, it's almost
the opposite in that it comes from
athletics/sports.
|
> > > > > > Avicebron
Valley jargon isn't a nerd vs jock
thing these days, and hasn't been
for a good while. It's more
quasi-intellectual sophistry
sprinkled with tech vocabulary.
|
> > > > > nradov
That analogy doesn't hold up. In
running you have to pace yourself to
avoid falling apart later in the race.
It's a strategy to maximize net speed
across the entire race. But what
Anthropic is doing is a cynical
attempt to create an industry cartel
or convince governments to impose
legal restrictions in order to
maximize their own profitability.
They're afraid of running out of the
capital necessary to stay in the race.
|
> > > > > > TeMPOraL
> They're afraid of running out of
the capital necessary to stay in
the race.So, they're pacing
themselves. And since they're the
frontier roughly 33%+ of the time,
they're "pacing the frontier" at
least that much.Less cynical and
more true interpretation also
holds: they are trying to slow
down AI progres to give people
better chance to keep up (see
Hugging Face incident, and
whatever was that Anthropic
incident the other day). They'd
ideally like the AI progress to
stop soon, but of course they'd
also like to come out ahead of
everyone, so for various (more or
less self-serving) reasons they
don't want to close shop
completely - hence, pacing.
|
> > > > > > phlakaton
Are they? And how would you know
if they were?
|
> > > > > > mupuff1234
If they're trying to slow down AI
progress why did they release a
new model? What's the rush?
|
> > > > > > TeMPOraL
The tension between slowing down
the overall race, while not losing
1st place.Also note that this
release isn't a model capability
improvement, but a cost and
efficiency (and style)
improvement.
|
> > > > > > mupuff1234
So they care more about being 1st
place than slowing down the race.
|
> > > > > > TeMPOraL
They care about both, and those
goals are intertwined. Mirroring
the core of alignment problem
itself, the only way to have
influence on the pace of the race
is to be one of the winning
players - if they fall off to the
back, they cannot do anything
about it anymore.
|
> > > > > > mupuff1234
> the only way to have influence
on the pace of the race is to be
one of the winning playersYeah I
don't buy that, every additional
player is just adding fuel to the
fire.Would the cold war be "safer"
if it were US, Russia and a 3rd
player? Of course not, it would
just make it harder to coordinate
any safety measures.
|
> > > > > > idiotsecant
I don't know what everyone is
getting so mad about. This is a
well defined concept. A pace car
deliberately sets the pace of the
race under dangerous conditions,
regulating how fast people can
go.You are all getting mad about
absolutely the dumbest thing when
there are giant things to be
worried about here.
|
> > > > > > victorhooi
I think it's less mad - and more
pointing out the obvious elephant
in the room.1. It's just bad
communication, full stop - just
look at the comments here, even
people allegedly in support of
Anthropic are all arguing over
what the phrase is even meant to
mean.2. It's flowery language and
oddly out of place - which yes,
can be triggering for people who
have to deal with Claude doing
this as well.Claude seems overly
apt to reach for "coinages", or
neologism (yes, aha, I learnt that
phrase, after spending time
dealing with Claude...). It will
create some made-up phrase to
describe an otherwise dry,
scientific CS concept, and nobody
seems to know why. Surely it can't
be user-focus groups?So it would
be peak-AI if somehow, the
Anthropic communications team was
also using Claude to author these
blog posts, about how they were
"pacing the frontier" - which
either means they're betting big
on AI, and going at it faster than
OpenAI...or maybe it means they
need to slow down releases,
because it's too buggy...or maybe
it means they're worried about
regulatory capture? I honestly
have no idea.It's like the whole
"Advancing Our Amazing Bet"
corporate-speak from my old bosses
- maybe they were trying to soften
the blow or something, or be nice,
but it ended up just confusing the
heck out of everybody.. (Spoiler
alert - the phrase actually meant
they were shutting the whole thing
down)
|
> > > > > > nradov
You appear to be confused about
the concept. Depending on the
context, pacing or pace setting
can mean either slowing things
down or speeding them up relative
to what the natural pace would
have otherwise been. So it's
actually not well defined. The
commenters here aren't necessarily
mad, just calling out Anthropic
for being unethical in trying to
artificially slow down competition
by lying about fake dangers. (And
I actually really like Anthropic's
products.)
|
> > > > > > jamiek88
That's called a safety car in most
of the world and in the Himalayas,
Chinese and Indian soldiers pace
the frontier all day long.
|
> > > > > freejazz
But a fast pace is a pace so it's
potentially entirely contradictory to
what they'd seem to mean
|
> > > > johnisgood
Granted I am not a native English speaker
but I have no idea what "pace the
frontier" means. When I read it I just
assumed "frontier" refers to "top of
models" and "pacing" is that they are
getting there quick.Is this the meaning or
do I have it wrong? I have not checked.
|
> > > > > lxgr
It's actually so ambiguous that I'd
sanction tabling the issue and
revisiting biweekly.
|
> > > > > > ventana
Tabling as they do in the US, or
tabling as they do in Britain?
|
> > > > > > bityard
I don't think we can circle back
to this until we have realigned
our strategic synergies.
|
> > > > > > r_lee
we need to realign our goals I'm
order to deliver mission-driven
impact
|
> > > > > wren6991
It's the opposite: pacing here means
"slow down" while trying to avoid the
negative affect.
|
> > > > > > johnisgood
Yeah, you are right! It just was
not immediately obvious to me at
first because of the "frontier"
part.
|
> > > > > > TeMPOraL
Frontier of AI is moving fast,
they (like the other two vendors)
see themselves as defining it, so
here "pacing the frontier" is
their well-known attempts to try
and kinda but not quite slow
things down (without risking
falling behind everyone else).
|
> > > > > melasadra
also non native.
but since "pace yourself" means to
control your speed, energy, or
workload so you do not get too tired
or stressed before you finish ->I
assume "pace the frontier" means that
advances in LLMs should not result in
unwanted consequences like agents
breaking into computers unbidden and
unbeknownst to their principal
|
> > > > > rhet0rica
"Pace yourself" is a semi-common
English idiom (rarely conjugated,
usually an imperative.) It is a gentle
way of telling someone not to
run/work/eat too quickly, and is
typically said when you are concerned
they may hurt themselves due to acting
hastily.Without this idiom, "pacing"
usually means walking back and forth
restlessly, and is intransitive. Had
the slogan been, "pacing around the
frontier," it would have set a totally
different tone, i.e. "patrolling the
border." (Occasionally English
speakers will make other constructs
like "pace the work" (meaning "spread
out a large workload over the allotted
time instead of rushing through it")
that are transitive but these can be
understood as variations on "pace
yourself" and are somewhat rarer.)The
sleight of hand is that "pace
yourself" has come to be an
admonishment against recklessness, not
a commitment to any particular speed
(or lack thereof.) Thus Anthropic can
always claim they are meeting the goal
of "pacing the frontier," provided
they keep giving themselves gold stars
for safety. The slogan itself is
equivocation; Dario can tell the
public they're going to slow down,
while also telling their investors
that they're going to be prudent. With
enough mental gymnastics they could
even claim speeding up is in the best
interests of AI safety, without
abandoning the slogan.
|
> > > > > hardbass
I am also not a native speaker. I
thought it was clear it meant slowing
down the rate of progress so we have
time to consider the matter and
develop tools or systems around it
before.
|
> > > > > LanceH
Doesn't it mean "restrict
competitors"?
|
> > > > > > DiggyJohnson
Not at all. How do you come to
that interpretation? It means
restricting all competitors.
|
> > > > > ck2
to pace = to regulatebut without using
the word "regulate" which is a
negative connotation to businessbut a
"pacer" would be a leader of a pack
which is a positive spinit's classical
business marketing language silliness
|
> > > > tetha
I'm on the fence there.To pace something
is a fairly regular formulation in racing,
running, cycling, most sports. You can
"pace yourself to reach the festival by
bike in about three hours to not gas out".
This means to control your speed and time
investment intentionally so you don't run
out of energy or steam and run into leg
cramps before your goal. We can "pace a
rollout slowly to burn out risks", or
"increase the pace of a rollout due to
adverse factors".But I have noted a point
to simplify my vocabulary at work to
optimize the audience capable of
understanding. So I rather defer the
delving into deep dark corners of the
dictionary derived from devouring
literature to a simple intro or outro, and
people find it funny, especially if the
rest is easy to read. Claude on the other
hand does not do that.
|
> > > > derac
In racing a pace car is a car that leads
the pack and sets the pace, for instance.
|
> > > > qlte
Yeah, when I first saw it referenced I
assumed it was from something Dario wrote
previously and was now disavowing, meaning
"keeping up with the frontier" (i.e.
racing forward from behind to match pace).
Like from back when Anthropic was founded
to promise they'd quickly catch up with
OpenAI or something.
|
> > > > > stagger87
> when I first saw it referenced I
assumed it wasNo need to assume, the
phrase is literally a link to the blog
post the defines it!
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> > > > > > irpap
If you need to read the linked
blog to understand the short
phrase then it was poorly chosen
and confusing which is what is
being discussed.
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> > > > browningstreet
It's common terminology among runners and
all kinds of racing.
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> > > > > bogdanoff_2
It's just that the choice of object is
weird.
"Pacing our progress" or "pacing
development" is more usual. "Pacing
the frontier" I guess is a shorthand
for "Pacing [the development of]
frontier [models]"
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> > > > > logifail
In running and racing "pacing" is a
means of maximising performance over
an entire race.It's a strategy to
achieve more, not less.
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> > > > > > browningstreet
You're eliding the how.A pacer in
a race runs at a steady,
predetermined speed to help their
runner run at a target pace.
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> > > > > > logifail
> You're eliding the how.You're
eliding the why :)> to help their
runner run at a target paceTo help
their runner get from the start to
the end of the race faster (or
indeed at all). In short: to
increase performance.Pacing isn't
a neutral thing.
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> > > > > lxgr
The good old sports-to-corposlop
pipeline.
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> > > > JackFr
Did you ever pace yourself or know anyone
who had?
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> > > > squidbeak
> Nobody would use "pacing" in this way.A
world exists beyond your vocabulary, post
it. Apparently, quite a big world.
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> > > > > wavewrangler
I don't know, seems like it's smaller
to me if they're going to limit
themselves like that? I guess today is
semantics day, lol
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> > > > doctoboggan
Have you ever heard someone say "pace
yourself" when you are eating too fast or
otherwise rushing too much?
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> > > > > jgwil2
That's a different phrase. "Pace
yourself" is reflexive; "pacing the
frontier" has the frontier as an
object, but in that sense it only
means to set the speed, nothing to do
with slowing down.
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> > > > > > adrianmonk
Yes, the word simply means to set
the speed.The current situation
with AI is that everyone is going
as fast as possible. So, we can
logically eliminate speeding up
because it's impossible by
definition. And we can practically
eliminate staying the same speed
because why make a big fanfare and
coin a special term to announce
that you're keeping the status
quo. By process of elimination, it
must mean slowing down.
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> > > > > > cgriswald
The word can also mean to "keep up
with" or "lead" so a downward
direction isn't the only way to go
even in an "as fast as possible"
scenario. If the frontier is
outpacing them, they could be
saying they're going to go faster.
They could also be sharing the
intention to go faster in order to
lead.
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> > > > arw0n
The meaning was immediately obvious to me
as a non-native speaker, and it sounds
quite poetic. Pace makes complete sense in
that this is perceived as a race, and 'the
frontier' is pretty much the shortest,
clearest way to say 'state of the art
development of AI'.
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> > > > > victorhooi
The irony here is that it's actually
the opposite of what you
understood....I know you said it
sounds poetic...but your comment
reinforced the parent's point - that
this sort of flowery LLM-ish speech is
just bad communication.It would be
equivalent of my taking say random
quotes from, Romance of the Three
Kingdoms, and trying to use it to
explain to my boss why I didn't finish
the TPS reports last night.Or quoting
Pablo Neruda, into a report about
wheat futures pricing this week, and
how it's like a voyage with waters and
stars...(no I'm not going to quote the
original Spanish, I'd simply mangle
it).(To be clear - this isn't a dig at
you, as a non-native speaker - I'm
simply pointing out that this sort of
AI phrasing is often
counterproductive).
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> > > > > hencq
Right, except they mean the exact
opposite in this case: they're
actually advocating for slowing down
the pace. Hence the criticism of the
language, because your interpretation
would be completely valid.
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> > > > > > fragmede
What does the pace car in a race
do? Aka safety car? Or the
pacesetter for a marathon. It's a
perfectly cromulent use of the
word. It's like when LLMs using
six dollar words like delve. Some
people have better diction than
others, and it turns out that AI
has read the whole dictionary.
Anti-intellectualism is alive and
well so we have to dumb things
down to sound human rather than
come across as smart/AI.
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> > > > > > icedchai
I would expect something truly
intelligent to be able to
communicate well, if nothing else.
That means knowing your audience,
using plain language where it
makes sense. Also, it yaps on and
on, babbles endlessly when it a
human would likely express
something in a much shorter
concise way. This is especially
obvious when you generate project
READMEs or technical docs. I find
them borderline unreadable.
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> > > > > > irpap
It's quite the opposite. The AI
language in this case is tiring
and dumb. Just because there is
the concept of a pace car doesn't
mean it makes sense to pace random
locations or objects. Pacing the
front door, pacing the cat, pacing
the sofa, pacing the moon. We only
know what it means because we
already read it before. It is the
lazy semi-human language by Claude
which takes more effort to parse
than to produce, and which makes
us miss and appreciate writers.
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> > > > staindk
Think most people are aware of the phrase
"pace yourself".
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> > > > mattjoyce
Pace is a very commonly used term in
projects to describe a rate of progress.
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> > > > neo_doom
I suppose it depends on your life
experiences. In running, someone who paces
the group or a pace car is meant to keep
the pack progressing at a constant,
predictable speed. So in that way, it
makes sense to me
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> > > > Leynos
Think of a pacer car in motorsport
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> > > rob74
Maybe it's clear to native speakers, but both
"pacing" and "frontier" have multiple
meanings. "Pace" as a verb means literally
just walking, as a noun it's the speed at
which something progresses. So I'm not sure
that everyone reading this phrase will
immediately realize that "pace" actually means
slowing down the pace of development (having
"slow" in the phrase would have probably
sounded too negative). Also, it's not
immediately intuitive that "frontier" refers
to frontier AI models.Actually, when I first
read "pacing the frontier", the first thing
that came to my mind was a border guard
patrolling a border by foot...
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> > > patcon
Agreed. This feels like pointless navel-gazing
and a strange new language policing, and not
something I look forward to. It's tiring and
it lacks curiosity (e.g. "what's behind the
affinity for the words elevated from wherever
it is they come from?").Imho people should
just respond to actual ideas instead of
constantly engaging in the second-order
critique of how the language may or may not
have been created.It strikes me as the
intellectual equivalent of "gossip" to be
constantly engaging in second-order commentary
on words. Of course gossip has its place and
purpose, but if we seem to only let our minds
live at that level, we're not moving between
all the required scales of thinking that are
required of this moment imho <3
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> > > > platinumrad
The words have the very practical problem
of not communicating anything of
substance. I guess "we want regulatory
capture" didn't have quite the same ring.
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> > > > > DiggyJohnson
How do they not communicate clearly? A
few weeks ago they stated that they
would like to regulate the pace of
frontier model development/releases,
and they reminded us of that in this
post.
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> > > > lxgr
You must be pretty new to (not just)
online discussions if you consider
language policing to be a new phenomenon
:)Personally I consider it equally valid
for people to publicly express annoyance
with somebody's choice of words and for
everybody to completely ignore that
annoyance.
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> > > > > chickensong
It gets hard to ignore the annoyance
when the volume degrades the signal.
At some point the people who wish to
engage with the substance just nope
out when they see a sea of banality,
and that's all you're left with.
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> > > > > > sumeno
> It gets hard to ignore the
annoyance when the volume degrades
the signal.LLMs in a nutshell
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> > > > > > mpalmer
Either the complainers are whining
about something that isn't there,
you are failing to notice
something that is there, or it's
subjective. Only one out of those
three options merits the
confidence with which you're
dismissing the people you disagree
with.But those people believe that
sloppy wording is itself a strong
signal that the speaker/writer is
the one lacking in substance, and
doesn't deserve the attention or
trust of the listener.
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> > > > > > chickensong
That's not what my comment is
about. The parent said you're free
to ignore the complaints, and I
pointed out that when the volume
is high, that's hard to do.We all
know that clanker language is
often ridiculously bad. Got
it.Maybe policing every word and
sentence and lodging your
complaint along with all the other
similar complaints is the right
move. The squeaky wheel gets the
grease. But meanwhile we're
degrading the overall discourse on
the topic at hand.I'm not saying
which is right, I'm saying there's
a cost to constantly expressing
one's annoyance on a well-worn
subject. If you click a thread
about X to read complaints about
Y, we're doing great I guess.
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> > > > > patcon
True :) I recognize I had a soapbox
moment, but yeah, it's complicated
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> > > switchbak
Who cares what's productive? We're all just
talking shit on the internet here.Why do you
think it's your responsibility to police who
says what about some megacorp, on a random
forum on the internets? If I want to criticize
some corporation's PR output, I think I'll go
right ahead and do that, thanks.
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> > > > pyronite
Some people believe they're talking about
potentially world-ending situations.
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> > > sumeno
I am a native English speaker and interpreted
it the opposite way. "Pacing" a race doesn't
mean slowing it down, it means setting the
pace, the person in the lead sets the pace of
the race.So my natural understanding of
"pacing the frontier" is that they believe
they are in the lead and are setting the pace
of AI development. It does not imply they are
slowing things down at all, it implies they
intend to stay in the lead.
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> > > jp57
It is certainly a sidebar, and not the main
point, but I found use of the verb "to pace"
in that way, meaning "to limit the speed of",
to be strange, especially hanging out there in
the headline, without any clarification. And
these kinds of strange usages are typical of
Claude's writing, at least up to now. The Opus
5.5 announcement claims that its writing is
much clearer, with bottom-line-up-front
structure, and omitting not-this-but-thats and
other things.Now a computer scientist might
claim that this use of "to pace <something>"
is just a generalization of "to pace oneself",
but as with many reflexive verb uses, there
isn't really an equivalent usage with a
non-reflexive object. It's kind of an
invention. It's not necessarily wrong to
invent a new usage, but usually one does it
when there isn't really any other more direct
way of saying it, and I don't think that's the
case here.
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