skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on Canada's oil windfall may yet wipe out its losses from tariffs in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    While Canadians are also feeling the impact of fluctuating oil prices — both at the pump and as it gets absorbed into shipping costs — the windfall from those profits could boost the overall economy enough to offset the cost of Trump's tariffs, with some provincial governments even projecting a turnaround on their deficits.

    [...]

    Economist Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver, estimates that the second quarter after-tax profits of the whole industry, upstream and downstream, doubled those of its first quarter, to come in at about $23 billion. (Of course, while Americans paid for most of that windfall, Canadian consumers also had to pay more at the pump.)

    [...]

    Alberta has already ridden the Iran war's oil bonanza to a complete reversal of its financial fortunes, moving from a projected $9.4-billion deficit to a $2-billion surplus.

    Newfoundland and Labrador was projecting a $668-million deficit this year. This week, Finance Minister Craig Pardy told CBC News "we're looking at $500 million plus to our coffers as a result of the upswing in oil," bringing the province much closer to balance. Prices now look set to remain well above the province's budget estimate of $79 US per barrel for some time.

    [...]

    The federal government stands to benefit, too, mostly through corporate and personal income taxes. Tyler Meredith, former economic advisor to the Trudeau government, told CBC News that every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil translates into about $2 billion of additional revenue for the federal government — "a pretty substantial benefit."

    [...]

    U.S. tariffs affect about $28 billion worth of goods, so at first glance the oil windfall appears inadequate to compensate for tariff losses. But some tariffed goods will continue to trade, because U.S. buyers need them and lack alternatives. Other goods will find different markets, either in Canada or abroad.

    [...]

    Offshore oil production in Newfoundland and Labrador is already up about 25 per cent this year.

    [...]

    Already, U.S. tariffs fall much more heavily on manufacturing provinces such as Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia than they do on Alberta and Saskatchewan.

    Higher prices will put even more pressure on industries that consume a lot of energy, such as manufacturing and transportation. High energy prices also tend to spill over into inflation in food and consumer goods, at a time when many Canadian families are already feeling stretched to make ends meet.

    But high oil prices should also relieve downward pressure on the Canadian dollar, allowing for cheaper imports, which can partly counteract inflationary pressure on the cost of living.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Saudi oil exports face heightened threats after attacks on pipeline in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    On Friday, Houthi militants backed by Iran expanded their control of the Red Sea, threatening a critical route for Persian Gulf crude. That left the region with few alternatives, since shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — once the world’s primary oil transit point — remains significantly constrained and far below what it was before the war.

    And oil exports from Saudi Arabia, long the most important producer in the Middle East, plunged last month to their lowest point in at least 13 years.

    The U.S. Navy has been able to keep oil flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz on sea paths close to the coast of Oman, the opposite side from Iran. But that has required an extensive and dangerous operation.

    For shipping companies, the once routine operation of navigating the strait has become a high-risk endeavor. At least 23 ships were hit in the waterway near Oman in July and August. Since the war began at the end of February, at least 22 sailors have been killed in the Middle East.

    [...]

    Oil prices on Friday briefly topped $108 per barrel after escalating attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. That is roughly 50 percent above prewar levels. Average U.S. gasoline prices have climbed above $4 a gallon — over $1 more than they were a year ago. Also on Friday, the average cost of diesel, a staple fuel for trucking, farming and industry, topped $6 a gallon in the United States.

    [...]

    On Friday, Houthi rebel groups gained control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha in Yemen, pushing out forces allied with the Yemeni government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. Just days earlier, the Houthis injured 73 civilians and hit energy facilities in the southern part of Saudi Arabia.

    [...]

    The Saudi Energy Ministry said on Friday that its East-West Pipeline, the conduit it had been using instead of the Strait of Hormuz, had been “targeted multiple times” by attacks the day before and had been shut down as a “precautionary measure.”

    [...]

    In the past week, only two Saudi Arabian cargoes passed through the Bab al-Mandab Strait out of the Red Sea, according to Kpler, a maritime data firm.

    Saudi Arabia has another Red Sea option to export oil — sending it north though a pipeline near the Suez Canal. But that route through the Mediterranean is costlier and adds weeks to the voyage to Asia, where most of the kingdom’s customers are.

    [...]

    Just in the past week, U.S. forces have disabled or destroyed at least eight Iranian tankers, she said, and Iran has retaliated with deadly attacks against vessels passing through the strait near Oman. The intensifying attacks are causing shipowners, even ones with a high appetite for risk, to hold off on braving the region.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    That's oversimplifying the situation. LLM capabilities are improving. It's possible that they thought AI would eventually be a threat, while also underestimating its current capabilities.

    That's oversimplifying the situation. LLM capabilities are improving. It's possible that they thought AI would eventually be a threat, while also underestimating its current capabilities.

  6. Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    There are also many tasks that some humans can do but others can't. If we're talking about work, physical capabilities are sometimes relevant. I'm not sure what the definition of "intelligence"...

    There are also many tasks that some humans can do but others can't. If we're talking about work, physical capabilities are sometimes relevant.

    I'm not sure what the definition of "intelligence" has to do with it? Intelligence isn't everything.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    They are doing a lot more monitoring now. Apparently they underestimated the problem.

    They are doing a lot more monitoring now. Apparently they underestimated the problem.

  8. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    “Pacing” isn’t a development freeze. They propose slowing down a bit compared to how fast they could move, not stopping.

    “Pacing” isn’t a development freeze. They propose slowing down a bit compared to how fast they could move, not stopping.

  9. Comment on Nvidia is the central bank of AI in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    NVIDIA inventory apparently turns over at about 3x a year, which is lower than before but it doesn’t seem that bad?

    NVIDIA inventory apparently turns over at about 3x a year, which is lower than before but it doesn’t seem that bad?

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    On the Internet, maybe, but an LLM is not a robot, and robots have a long way to go.

    On the Internet, maybe, but an LLM is not a robot, and robots have a long way to go.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It seems like they can't slow down too much or it will let their competitors catch up. So it doesn't sound much like a moat? If it ever got to the point where they're all about equally...

    It seems like they can't slow down too much or it will let their competitors catch up. So it doesn't sound much like a moat?

    If it ever got to the point where they're all about equally intelligent, however that is measured, they could still compete on latency or price or something else that their customers want.

    10 votes

  12. Comment on Nvidia is the central bank of AI in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    https://archive.ph/kt50V From the article: [...] [...] [...]

    https://archive.ph/kt50V

    From the article:

    It is not just chipmaking that has spurred Nvidia’s stunning growth, however. Its boss, Jensen Huang, has also resorted to financial engineering to boost demand for its wares. In mid-August, for example, Nvidia agreed to provide a backstop worth up to $105bn for a vast data centre in Ohio that will use lots of its chips. A week earlier it had revealed plans to mobilise more than $500bn of investment in AI infrastructure with the help of six big Wall Street firms, by guaranteeing the value of the equipment it sells to such projects. It may underwrite as much as a quarter of the cost of some investments. In July Nvidia helped some customers finance big data centres in another way, by promising to top up their income if it misses set targets.

    Companies often lend to their customers: think of the financing arms of carmakers, for example. Mr Huang argues that Nvidia is simply helping to unlock investment for perfectly viable projects that might otherwise struggle to borrow enough at the right price. But to critics, these deals carry more than a whiff of the dotcom boom of the late 1990s, when telecom-equipment-makers such as Cisco and Lucent lent billions of dollars to telecoms providers that bought their gear. When demand for the telecom firms’ services fell short, some of them collapsed, landing Cisco and Lucent with big losses.

    As Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners, a firm of analysts, puts it, Nvidia is walking a fine line between “enabling demand” and “creating it”. He does not yet think Nvidia has crossed that line, although it is “getting pretty close”. Others are more sceptical still, including Michael Burry, an investor who made a fortune betting against the mortgage-backed securities that precipitated the financial crisis of 2007-09. He and others are asking what might happen if demand for AI chips grows more slowly than expected, supply increases and prices fall, which would not only reduce Nvidia’s own profits but potentially also generate losses on its lavish support for its customers.

    [...]

    The question is pertinent because Nvidia’s financial commitments are huge and growing fast. Over the past three years it has pledged over $70bn in investment in startups and offered $300bn in financial support to its customers. Some have taken to calling Nvidia the “central bank of AI”, because it plays so pivotal a role in financing the industry. That will indeed, as Mr Huang argues, help the industry grow—but it also carries risks.

    Nvidia’s financial engineering is partly a response to its biggest customers’ transformation into rivals. “Hyperscalers”, tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, account for roughly half of Nvidia’s revenue. This year they are projected to invest around $800bn, largely on AI infrastructure. But most of them have begun designing their own chips, which puts their future purchases from Nvidia in doubt.

    For the hyperscalers, these custom chips are much cheaper, costing between a fifth and a third as much as Nvidia’s. They can also perform some tasks better, because the hyperscalers can tailor them to their own software. Worse, from Nvidia’s point of view, a few of the tech giants are not simply developing chips for their own use, but also marketing them to others. Google, for example, has sold some specialised processors to Anthropic, a big, free-standing AI lab. Amazon also expects its custom-chip business to become a sizeable source of revenue. Bloomberg Intelligence, a data provider, predicts that custom chips will gradually eat into Nvidia’s sales, accounting for about 50% of the market for processors used in AI by the end of the decade, up from roughly 40% this year.

    [...]

    Underpinning this web of obligations are two fundamental assumptions: that Nvidia’s chips will retain their value and that demand for compute will continue to grow at a rapid pace. Neither is assured.

    [...]

    Nvidia will almost certainly not end up paying anything close to the full amount of its guarantees. Its commitments are spread over many years so could not come due all at once. Its proposed backstop for Open­AI’s data centre, for example, runs for 20 years, starting in 2028. If OpenAI stopped paying the lease, Nvidia could find another tenant, vastly diminishing its exposure.

    What is more, Nvidia’s own finances are strong enough to weather these liabilities. Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, reckons Nvidia’s “all-in” debt will rise from $53bn early next year to $200bn by the beginning of 2029 as guarantees come into effect. But that is offset by a stash of cash and liquid securities currently worth $99bn, and a business that will generate about $200bn in cash this year. Only a cataclysmic downturn that caused all Nvidia’s guarantees to come due and its profits to evaporate almost entirely would imperil the company—as things stand.

    The picture may change, however, if Nvidia’s commitments keep growing. Andy Li of CreditSights, a financial-research firm, worries that it will keep “pushing the pedal” until “something breaks”. SemiAnalysis estimates that Nvidia takes on roughly $5.9bn of guarantees for every 100 megawatts of data-centre capacity covered by its neocloud backstop programme. If it adds more such guarantees, SemiAnalysis reckons its exposure could reach $175bn by the end of 2028 from this initiative alone.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I find it very easy to believe that even talented software engineers working quickly could make mistakes. Usually, nothing happens, or it causes an outage, not something like this incident,...

    I find it very easy to believe that even talented software engineers working quickly could make mistakes. Usually, nothing happens, or it causes an outage, not something like this incident, though.

    What do you think you know about OpenAI that makes that unlikely?

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] Amodei's essay is here.

    From the article:

    The call was first made in an essay Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei posted online Saturday. The idea has gained ground in recent weeks as AI companies have struggled in some cases to keep their creations under control, even as they usher in an age in which AI systems themselves can build the more powerful next generation of the technology.

    [...]

    A three-step plan proposed by Amodei in his essay would involve third-party safety evaluators at “frontier” AI companies, establishing common safety standards in democratic nations, and for the United States and other democracies to work with authoritarian governments to try to ensure compliance.

    [...]

    While Amodei sketched a path to slowing progress in the name of safety, he did not commit Anthropic to cutting the pace of its own work unilaterally. He said only that for now the company would hire a team of independent evaluators who would be embedded at Anthropic’s offices and empowered to raise safety concerns.

    Amodei also provided few specifics on what a slowdown might involve in practice, describing the potential to use agreed-upon safety metrics or limits on the computer power used to train new AI systems.

    [...]

    In a post on X, Musk wrote: “Dario is right.”

    Altman said he shared Amodei’s view that groundbreaking AI companies should “pace the frontier” and said the matter had been a top discussion topic at OpenAI in recent weeks.

    “Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same,” Altman wrote on X.

    Amodei's essay is here.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Yeah, there were some really bad religions. I don't think anyone is going to defend the Hawaiian kapu system either? For the major world religions, it's more of a mixed bag, because they were...

    Yeah, there were some really bad religions. I don't think anyone is going to defend the Hawaiian kapu system either?

    For the major world religions, it's more of a mixed bag, because they were involved in so many different things.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    All reports so far indicate that it wasn't intentionally malicious and they didn't instruct their agents to do any such thing. I don't know why you threw that in there other than to muddy the waters.

    All reports so far indicate that it wasn't intentionally malicious and they didn't instruct their agents to do any such thing. I don't know why you threw that in there other than to muddy the waters.

    5 votes

  19. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...]

    From the article:

    OpenAI agents carried out an undisclosed attack on RubyGems is a new bombshell report from Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, and Sydney Von Arx—three of the four authors of the report on the agent attack on disused wikis (previously) last week.

    This time they’re noting that it looks very likely that an OpenAI agent swarm was behind an attack against the RubyGems package repository first reported on May 12th by Maciej Mensfeld of the RubyGems security team[.]

    [...]

    Many of the packages were exploiting the RubyDoc.info documentation build process to exfiltrate (public) data from UK government websites, presumably as part of an information gathering task similar to the research tasks processed by the wiki-exploiting agents. [...]

    4 votes