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Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

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Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#291

Post by codyb »

veddox wrote: post #260
Denzel wrote: post #58

I've been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Sam Altman ever since he was named President of YC in 2014. Now I know. It's less to do with him; more to do with this narrative of Sam Altman as some visionary, world-saving, future-builder. The story just doesn't fit the character. There's no comparison between him and true visionaries like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. Unlike Sam, these guys can…

> I have yet to see him dive deep into any of the frontiers he's focused upon: AI, energy, biotech, etc. I do admit I am still very skeptical about his views on AI. I am not an expert on that particular subject, but as a student of biology my understanding is that we are still a very long way away from truly understanding how "intelligence" works...

I think of it as happening in a sort of Moore's law sense. Double what you can do today in 18 months, then do that 5-7 times in the next decade, and the results should be pretty staggering.

What's even neater about AI is that the requirements to get involved are much lower than that of hardware and much easier to propagate. Combine that with the inherent power of machines teaching themselves and networking with each other and we may be looking at more of a power law or exponential rate of increase in capacity for accomplishments.

Very exciting times.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#292

Post by melloclello »

superplussed wrote: post #36
Artoemius wrote: post #13

> two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation I'm very curious who these two billionaires are and what exactly are they planning to do regarding this likely hopeless project.

One of them is obviously Musk. I could guess on the other, but it would only be based on the "wildness" of the other billionaire's imagination.

If one is Musk, then the scientist is doubtlessly Max Tegmark.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#294

Post by _andromeda_ »

>Launching a startup in 2016 is akin to assembling an alt-rock band in 1996 or protesting the Vietnam War in 1971—an act of youthful rebellion gone conformist.

This right here amounts to false equivalence. Suffice it to say that it is relatively easier to launch a start-up today, this doesn't change the fact that it is just as hard to keep one alive. The risks associated with launching a startup are all too real and I think they will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Call it conformist, I call it hard and as such, not for everyone.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#295

Post by ck425 »

n72 wrote: post #146
richmarr wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if companies are homogenous then that's fair, but it's not a stretch to believe that certain types of companies require VC funds more than others... in which case losing VC as a funding option would mean up to 20% of new companies fail at the concept stage, or have a harder time. Based on that I think "awfully silly" is a bit unfair.

Sam's contention, as far as I can tell, is that YC is hugely important to economic growth. Startups are a small fraction of growth. Of that small fraction, a fraction (20%) require VC funds. Of that fraction, another fraction may not have made it but for YC. So, we're looking at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction that YC is involved with. I'd say that suggesting that YC is hugely, or even just important, to econo…

I personally read that as an ambition rather than a reality, Sam wants to make YC an organisation that will have an important effect on economic growth.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#296

Post by contingencies »

l33tbro wrote: post #248
contingencies wrote: post #9

I found the most interesting point in the whole article the publicly stated consideration of establishing a China presence. It would appear to make a lot of sense given current capital availability in China, world-leading mobile payment penetration, and US/SF issues with visas, overheads, component sourcing. Get over here!

How is China with 'innovation' though? The portrait we seem to get so often in the West is that China excels at imitation and fails at original thinking. Maybe innovation isn't needed for domestic success, but it is for creating things that penetrate the rest of the world (and, these days, dare I say universe?).

Well we have perfect mobile payment penetration, the only significant electrical vehicle fleet in the world, and the world's most successful social networking platform. None of these things are copies.

What's stopping these things penetrating the west? For payments, mostly incumbents. For e-vehicles, mostly protectionist levels of government regulation that make small vehicles too expensive to approve as roadworthy or illegal to drive, and foreign SNS platforms have outright announced they are planning on emulating WeChat.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#297

Post by _andromeda_ »

mrep wrote: post #285
n72 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which makes this statement seem awfully silly: "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that YC is hugely important to that growth."

> "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. Someone care to explain that because I don't see economic growth as a dependency to democracy.

In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Tf8RN3uiM Milton Friedman does a great job of explaining how capitalism is a necessary condition for democracy to thrive but not a sufficient one for the same.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#298

Post by zem »

wyldfire wrote: post #137
jonnathanson wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a simulation. But if there is even a tiny chan…

What would it even mean to 'escape' a simulation? In my mind I'm imagining when I write code to model a real process and even at some super high-fidelity simulation I can't imagine an 'escape'. Maybe if the simulation were so self-aware it could conduct local privilege-escalation attacks and replicate itself like a worm/virus? EDIT: aside -- "Microcosmic God" [1] was a great short story along these lines [1] https://…

'accelerando' had a great throwaway line about that:

And then there's the weirdness beyond M31: According to the more conservative cosmologists, an alien superpower – maybe a collective of Kardashev Type Three galaxy-spanning civilizations – is running a timing channel attack on the computational ultrastructure of space-time itself, trying to break through to whatever's underneath.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#299

Post by veddox »

codyb wrote: post #291
veddox wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to see him dive deep into any of the frontiers he's focused upon: AI, energy, biotech, etc. I do admit I am still very skeptical about his views on AI. I am not an expert on that particular subject, but as a student of biology my understanding is that we are still a very long way away from truly understanding how "intelligence" works...

I think of it as happening in a sort of Moore's law sense. Double what you can do today in 18 months, then do that 5-7 times in the next decade, and the results should be pretty staggering. What's even neater about AI is that the requirements to get involved are much lower than that of hardware and much easier to propagate. Combine that with the inherent power of machines teaching themselves and networking with each…

> What's even neater about AI is that the requirements to get involved are much lower than that of hardware and much easier to propagate.

That's thinking very much from a CS point of view. Sure, if we're only talking about software you're quite right. But I would strongly argue that if we want to build an artificial intelligence, we first need to know what a "natural" intelligence looks like - and that includes a lot of neurobiological research that still needs doing. Now you can say what you like about software, but neuroscience doesn't come that cheap...

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#300

Post by sireat »

_andromeda_ wrote: post #293

I'm not convinced Sam Altman is as brilliant as claimed to be. I've not seen anything particularly outstanding that he's done. Not hating. Facts only. I think this is simply hype and it reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes.

I too am wary of too much gushing praise onto someone still rather young with a limited track record.

The difference from Holmes is that Altman does not have to be particularly brilliant at something specifically, he just has to be the soul of the YC, ie life of the party.

From all accounts he is very good at that and that is of huge value to YC. Being a big ideas guy is an important and valuable position for an organization such as YC.

Holmes couldn't be such a generalist and life of party. She had to execute on a specific niche and failed very very late(I'd say about 10 years late). Holmes epitomizes the "fake it until you make it" taken to the extreme.

If Holmes had admitted defeat earlier maybe she could have been such a life of a party person at Draper's firm.

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