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DennisPtoday at 1:21 AM1 replyview on HN

Since these are massive neural networks trained to imitate human behavior, I'm not convinced anthropomorphic descriptions of their behavior are inappropriate.

And that's even though I don't think they internally experience "feelings, desires, and wants." They do have goal-seeking behavior, because we trained them that way. Calling it a "want" just saves syllables.

None of this means human culpability should change. People in these companies know what risks they're taking.


Replies

reasonableklouttoday at 3:28 AM

For sure, Zvi has a good section on all the human failures at OpenAI in this incident here: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-off...

Dwarkesh responds a bit to anthropomorphization. I think it would be great if he talked more about the human factors behind this incident but pretty much he doesn't cover it because that's not what the Ajeya interview was about: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra?r=3i6mn2&selection=77...

I think the reality is that these human failures are going to keep happening until there is industry regulation. This is the most competitive industry we've ever seen and there is intense pressure to build as fast as possible. I'd hope that this incident is a big enough moment to push for it.