Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What OpenAI really wants

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 190 posts

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#31

Post by cushpush »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #26
swyx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe Europe needs to lighten up a little on the credentialism. (i am not at all saying this is exclusive to europe tho)

Definitely, but it is not our only problem. We don't get those lucrative internships and neither do we get the boatloads of startup capital. It's all caused by the same risk averse mentality, though.

The "risk averse" mentality is insightful to me, attempting to comprehend what cultural differences my (European issue) parents engage the world with

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#32

Post by kaycebasques »

> “In order to take advantage of the transformer, you needed to scale it up,” says Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora, who sits on OpenAI’s board of directors.

Ah, OK. So Quora is probably an input data source for OpenAI. Hadn't seen that connection before.

Edit, yes, they explicitly say it a little further down:

> To build it, they drew on a collection of 7,000 unpublished books, many in the genres of romance, fantasy, and adventure, and refined it on Quora questions and answers, as well as thousands of passages taken from middle school and high school exams.

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#34

Post by troupo »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #26
swyx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe Europe needs to lighten up a little on the credentialism. (i am not at all saying this is exclusive to europe tho)

Definitely, but it is not our only problem. We don't get those lucrative internships and neither do we get the boatloads of startup capital. It's all caused by the same risk averse mentality, though.

It's caused by "a business that loses billions of dollars a year for over a decade isn't a sustainable business" mentality. The US is the exact opposite.

Even OpenAI, however amazing it is, is not a business (yet?). It's a money sink.

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#35

Post by api »

swyx wrote: post #5

i highlighted this last night which seems to be making the rounds - https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1699369076529971545 Alec's CV ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/alecradford/ ) seems to be: - 2011-2016 BSc Eng from Olin College - 2013+ started a data/AI consultancy as a sophomore that turned into a vague startup/product? - 2015 first paper on GANs coauthored with soumith https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06434.pdf%C3 - 2016 f…

I am very happy to see an actual researcher and innovator get a significant piece of the proceeds from their work. This used to be a fairly rare event. The fact that it's becoming more common is a sign of progress.

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#36

Post by borroka »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #19
swyx wrote: post #5

i highlighted this last night which seems to be making the rounds - https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1699369076529971545 Alec's CV ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/alecradford/ ) seems to be: - 2011-2016 BSc Eng from Olin College - 2013+ started a data/AI consultancy as a sophomore that turned into a vague startup/product? - 2015 first paper on GANs coauthored with soumith https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06434.pdf%C3 - 2016 f…

They all have crazy CVs. If you're really talented in the US you can get very far on talent alone. If he was in Germany he's be a Ph.d or Postdoc toiling in some outdated research field that nobody cares about. The CTO has an even crazier CV. Born in the poorest European country, BSc at Dartmond (is that considered a good uni? idk), internship at GS, a stint at Tesla, couple of startups and hits gold with OpenAi. A B…

As somebody who grew up in Europe and moved to the US for a postdoc and then started working in tech and never left, the main difference is the lack of venture capital ecosystem in Europe. Why there is no VC ecosystem is a topic for another day. You can have a brilliant idea, but with debt financing, start-ups are not an inviting business for banks, whether the founders have the "right" credentials or not.

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#37

Post by nashashmi »

swyx wrote: post #24
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all have crazy CVs. If you're really talented in the US you can get very far on talent alone. If he was in Germany he's be a Ph.d or Postdoc toiling in some outdated research field that nobody cares about. The CTO has an even crazier CV. Born in the poorest European country, BSc at Dartmond (is that considered a good uni? idk), internship at GS, a stint at Tesla, couple of startups and hits gold with OpenAi. A B…

maybe Europe needs to lighten up a little on the credentialism. (i am not at all saying this is exclusive to europe tho)

This is true. But this is also what happens when there is too much money at play, and not enough of a try-and-fail approach.

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#39

Post by cushpush »

troupo wrote: post #34
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, but it is not our only problem. We don't get those lucrative internships and neither do we get the boatloads of startup capital. It's all caused by the same risk averse mentality, though.

It's caused by "a business that loses billions of dollars a year for over a decade isn't a sustainable business" mentality. The US is the exact opposite. Even OpenAI, however amazing it is, is not a business (yet?). It's a money sink.

"Loss-leader" is the term, I believe

Re: What OpenAI really wants

#40

Post by blibble » 

    “It’s rare that an industry raises their hand and says, ‘We are going to be the end of humanity’—and then continues to work on the product with glee and alacrity.”

    OpenAI rejects this criticism.
imagine that

for humanity's sake I really hope that Altman is another Elizabeth Holmes

Post reply on HN