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The Contradictions of Sam Altman

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Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#201

Post by simonh »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #100
simonh wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an awful lot of judgement, engineering and technique that goes into a really well thought out product. It’s often deeply underestimated, and culture makes a huge difference in execution. Bing/Sydney came out after ChatGPT, based on exactly the same tech, but was hot garbage.

Bing/Sydney is better than ChatGPT. It had serious bugs in beta testing

It’s a dramatically worse chat bot, but being able to search the internet does give it an additional useful capability, while limiting it to five interactions papers over its psychotic tendencies.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#202

Post by koboll »

ftxbro wrote: post #31
m3kw9 wrote: post #8

OpenAI getting rich now everyone wants a piece and everyone fighting over it like a billion dollar inheretence fight. In a round about way, if GPT5 is nearly as advertised, watch the govt swoop in under national security guise

They've already swooped in. I mean the conspiracy argument would be that the $10B isn't a normal investment. It's a special government project investment facilitated by OpenAI board member and former clandestine CIA operative and cybersecurity executive Will Hurd through his role on the board of trustees of In-Q-Tel the investment arm of the CIA. It's funneled through Microsoft instead of through Google in part becau…

Wait holy shit this is at least partially true though? https://openai.com/blog/will-hurd-joins

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#203

Post by yafbum »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

I agree that it's the government's role but I think you can look a bit beyond the law itself, which is often hard to get right, especially in very fresh new domains. Some nice behaviors can be induced by mere fear of government intervention and fear of future laws, and I think we're seeing some of that now.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#204

Post by zmmmmm »

mimd wrote: post #186

He's begging for regulatory capture. "I can destroy the world but I won't. My competitor's will, so regulate them." A shrewd plan considering he's not offering something beyond what another company with a large nvidia cluster could offer.

> A shrewd plan considering he's not offering something beyond what another company with a large nvidia cluster could offer

So why does Bard seem inferior to GPT-4?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#205

Post by [deleted] »

ftxbro wrote: post #27
antirez wrote: post #7

I believe you can't, at the same time, accuse OpenAI of benefitting of ideas mostly invented elsewhere, and also claim that they are in a predominant position. It does not make any sense, and they are not naturally positioned for a monopoly. Just other companies have to move their asses.

> I believe you can't, at the same time, accuse OpenAI of benefitting of ideas mostly invented elsewhere, and also claim that they are in a predominant position. There used to be a team at Google called Google Brain and they all left to go to OpenAI after the employee protests against taking military AI contracts in 2018. Now Microsoft has those contracts and funneled $10B to OpenAI from the CIA. OK that's a little b…

[deleted]

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#206

Post by okareaman »

This is a very fluid and chaotic situation so I'd be more concerned if he said one thing and stuck to it

When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir? - John Maynard Keynes

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do I contradict myself? / Very well then, I contradict myself. / (I am large, I contain multitudes) - Walt Whitman's “Song of Myself”

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#207

Post by YawningAngel »

clarkmoody wrote: post #193
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

The third way is to build AI technology that empowers the individual against state and corporate power alike. Democracy got us here. It cannot get us out.

Given that we don't have such AI technology at present, would it not be prudent for us to assume that it may not be available imminently and plan for how we can address the problem without it?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#208

Post by Quekid5 »

clarkmoody wrote: post #193
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

The third way is to build AI technology that empowers the individual against state and corporate power alike. Democracy got us here. It cannot get us out.

Who do you imagine has the majority of compute power?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#209

Post by Quekid5 »

dantheman wrote: post #178
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

In general governments have done far more harm to individuals than anyone in the market. The job of the government is to protect your individual rights not the collective interest.

I refer you to Thomas Midgley Jr.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#210

Post by pell »

dragonelite wrote: post #139
victor106 wrote: post #126

> OpenAI and Microsoft also created a joint safety board, which includes Mr. Altman and Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, that has the power to roll back Microsoft and OpenAI product releases if they are deemed too dangerous. what a joke. find me one instance where the ceo of a company picked public interest/safety over profits when there was no regulatory oversight?

Do people really think AI will go haywire like in the Hollywood movies?

I don't think we're close to a situation where they send us into a Matrix. But I can see a scenario where they are connected to more and more running systems of varying degree of importance to human populations such as electrical grids, water systems, factories, etc. If they're essentially given executive powers within these systems I do see a huge potential for catastrophic outcomes. And this is way before any actual AGI. The simple "black box" AI does not need to know what it's doing to cause real-world consequences.
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