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.

It combines the elegance of LinkedIn-speak with the humbleness of desk-bound people who speak in military metaphor.

IDK I think Anthropic is plenty smarmy and weird itself. Sounds like they wrote it.

It's interesting to compare Anthropic's language with what's coming out of the US military lately. They explicitly refer to China as the "pacing threat", meaning that there is a risk of China achieving superior military capabilities and thus we need to press forward with an arms race (including militarized LLMs) as fast as possible.

https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/264106...

You're right to call that out

fwiw, it makes total sense to me.

if you are in a long race, you don't run all out teh entire time. you pace yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacing_strategies_in_track_and...

That couldn't be more exactly what they are doing here.

Sounds like "flatten the curve" and "the hammer and the dance", both coined well before AI.

"While I was pacing the frontier, I discovered some load-bearing fence posts that I should have surfaced earlier."

I feel like because something about "pacing" a kind of noun like "the frontier", doesn't actually make literal sense, right? You could say "Pace the speed of advancement of the frontier [of most sophiticated AI]", and that's perfectly sensible, but of course that's not as catchy.

It is clear what it means anyway, that's true, it means the left out words, more or less.

And I still find reading these grammatically weird but super catchy slogan-like statements to be really annoying and taxing. People _did_ write and talk like this before LLMs of course -- the LLMs learned it from somewhere -- and it was annoying and taxing to me before too. But the LLMs really specialize in it, and it's everywhere now.

Of course, the more LLM slop we read -- and so much of what we read on the internet and social media of any kind is this now -- the more humans are going to start writing/talking like LLMs. What you read affects how you write of course.

> “Pacing the frontier” sounds smarmy and weird, like the phrase was generated by Claude itself

Claude says it sounds fine. And Claude is now the judge of the English language style, not you.

"Pacing the frontier" sounds more like everyone announcing "we've hit a plateau"

What specifically is smarmy and weird? Sounds like your own hot take with zero analysis.

They’re limiting frontier model development speed. Others are too. Pacing is the only word here to criticize, and I think it’s fine given the limiting of speed but also increased oversight. I’m not saying they’re fully doing this, but the term is fine.

Do you have a better proposed phrase?

Quite the load-bearing phrase!

Agreed when I first heard the phrase it sounded odd. Maybe they thought it subtly conveyed they would be setting the pace... But again this is something AI would come up with in its awkwardly post hoc sort of way.

Though tbf corporate-speak and AI-slop are both insufferable in similar ways...

Anthropic is a religious cult that worships Claude, so maybe they're imitating Claudese.