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OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

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Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#201

Post by MicrosoftShill »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #21

> Azure’s unique architecture design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale Is there something unique about Azure, which makes it well suited for AI?

Azure/O365 admin here. No, nothing special from a technical perspective.

The value to OpenAI to go Azure(/Microsoft) exclusive is:

- Money & general financial security forever

- Integration with the largest software suite in the world (Windows, O365, Active Directory, etc)

- Rapid push to worldwide enterprise sector

- Rapid push to worldwide gov/mil sector (ChatGPT, coming soon to a war near you!)

- Rapid push to education sector

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#202

Post by jrochkind1 »

jefftk wrote: post #190
mxkopy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Patagonia thing was not legit at all according to Adam Hates Everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I EDIT by "not legit" I mean "not authentic"

Adam's argument seems to be: 1. If instead of donating the company he had left it to his kids he would have paid a lot in taxes (2:58) 2. He donated the voting shares of the company to a 501c4 that will remain controlled by his family and is allowed to lobby the government (4:10) 3. Normally when you make a donation you're giving up influence over what happens after that (4:25). 4. Other billionaires do other things…

Yeah, ok. I mean I agree with his overall point that we shouldn't be like "oh hooray for the kind-hearted billionairres", there is something in it for them in how they have chosen to donate it of course. And they are still pretty darn wealthy already -- his kids probably still won't need to work, from existing already extracted profits.

But that does seem a lot more real than the OpenAI shenanigans, they have actually done something, and they have given up being even more fabulously wealthy than they are already, even if they still have direction over how the money is used, including lobbying -- both for climate change, but ok, let's say also for things that benefit them.

They've still done something, unlike the OpenAI thing which seems like giving up some future hypothetical probably wouldn't happen anyway profits, and making no difference at all for the foreseeable future -- no difference but PR advantage.

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#203

Post by ethanbond »

ProAm wrote: post #161
ethanbond wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company with decades of going way, way out of norms to operate as an ethical organization at virtually every level does an additional virtuous task: oh ya that’s a tax dodge

It is, Im not saying they are 100% evil like some companies we discuss on HN. But this was a tax dodge. [1] [1] https://fortune.com/2022/09/16/patagonia-founder-legal-tax-l...

What do you think that proves? Yes, it does lower your tax bill to give away gains before they're realized. That's because you do not realize your gains. That's called simply "choosing to earn less money."

Tax dodge would imply the purpose is to reduce your tax bill and still see the upside. There's literally no evidence of that. All the upside he/his family sees will continue to be taxed at the normal rate.

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#204

Post by lonelyasacloud »

whimsicalism wrote: post #130
lonelyasacloud wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google apparently has a market cap of around $1.200 Trillion based [0] largely on (for 2021) revenue of 256.7 billion U.S. dollars, of which 209.49 billion U.S. dollars came from advertising [1]. It's apparently fourth on the list of valuable companies [4] If OpenAI takes a good chunk of Google's ad revenues then it doesn't seem that fanciful that it'll be up toward the top of market caps. [0] https://companiesmarket…

> If OpenAI takes a good chunk of Google's ad revenues then it doesn't seem that fanciful that it'll be up toward the top of market caps. OpenAI taking a large chunk of Google's ad revenue seems fanciful to me

Google's CEO signaling a code red and inviting the founders back is not about Chrome's market share.

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#206

Post by achow »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #169
bayindirh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they didn't want to openly say "Microsoft gives us GPUs and allows us to use them for free, hence practically buys us. In return we almost exclusively license what we produce to them, for free." Because it looks bad. Microsoft wants to be seen in a different light, and OpenAI wants to be perceived as an open, academic, capped-profit for a noble reason collective. It's all smoke and mirrors.

> OpenAI wants to be perceived as an open, academic, capped-profit for a noble reason collective. Does anybody actually believe this? Their name has been a running joke for years already.

Sam Altman addresses that when he was asked that question in 'How I Built This' Podcast. Essentially: OpenAI did not realize the massive scale they needed for them to be successful. When they realized this, they could not raise any funding as 'non-profit'. They asked govt, who did not want to fund it, and other sources, at the end they did not have any other recourse.

Sam Altaman says: 90% of funding was needed for compute power, but also was needed for things like buying dataset and then to pay employee so that they can compete with likes of Google to retain them. If they would not have done this, then very soon they would have become irreverent.

So to retain the earlier intent (for greater good) they put in bunch of 'safety features' around funding - Ex. 'Profit Cap' - after 100X the profit would be distributed to the world (in some way). Similarly, there were few others he talked about.

The relevant portion starts at 32:39 mark in the following podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oOX1QHLPw9uvLL5LmBk28?si=s...

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#207

Post by OnlineGladiator »

achow wrote: post #206
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OpenAI wants to be perceived as an open, academic, capped-profit for a noble reason collective. Does anybody actually believe this? Their name has been a running joke for years already.

Sam Altman addresses that when he was asked that question in 'How I Built This' Podcast. Essentially: OpenAI did not realize the massive scale they needed for them to be successful. When they realized this, they could not raise any funding as 'non-profit'. They asked govt, who did not want to fund it, and other sources, at the end they did not have any other recourse. Sam Altaman says: 90% of funding was needed for c…

It sounds like you agree with me that OpenAI is poorly named.

"We wanted to be open, but we couldn't - we kept the name anyway."

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#208

Post by scifibestfi »

Google recently said they are recalibrating the level of risk they're willing to take with releasing this technology. OpenAI's CEO responded saying

> "recalibrate" means "increase" obviously.

> disappointing to see this six-week development. openai will continually decrease the level of risk we are comfortable taking with new models as they get more powerful, not the other way around.

How does this resolve?

OpenAI not releasing something isn't going to stop Google or another player from releasing it. Won't they have to recalibrate too or be overtaken? Pandora's box is already open.

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#209

Post by dang »

londons_explore wrote: post #140

Let me translate this blog post out of corpspeak...: OpenAI has agreed to use Azure exclusively and for free, in return for Azure massively scaling up it's GPU capacity (which OpenAI was hitting before, hence threatening to move). In return, OpenAI gives an extensive license to Microsoft to use ChatGPT in Bing (and other products). Now why couldn't the blog post have just said that rather than hiding all the details?

If someone finds a third party article that reports on the significant new information directly, we can switch the URL to that.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership

#210

Post by gnramires »

fragmede wrote: post #198
logicchains wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they reach AGI, the AGI isn't necessarily going to be happy to work for free.

Depends on how opaque the box that holds it is. If we feed the AGI digital heroin and methamphetamine, it'd be controllable like actual humans are with those.Or I've been watching too much scifi lately.

This is an interesting point. Motivation (and consciousness) is a complex topic, but for example we can see that drugs are essentially spurious (not 'desired' in a sense) motivators. They are a kind of reward given for no particular activity, that can become highly addictive (because in a way it seems we are programmed to seek rewards).

Disclaimer: Somewhat speculative.

I don't think aligning the motivation of an AGI, for example, with the tasks that are useful for us (and for them as well) is unethical. Humans basically have this as well -- we like working (to an extent, or at least we like being productive/useful), we seek things like food and sex (because they're important for our survival). It seems alright to make AIs like their work as well. I think depending on the AI, it also seems fair to give them a fair share of self-determination so they can not only serve our interests (ideally, the interest of all being) but safeguard their own wellbeing, as systems with varying amounts of consciousness. This is little touched upon (I guess Phillip K Dick was a pioneer in the wellbeing of non-humans with 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'?), even in fiction. The goal should be to ensure a good existence for everyone :)

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