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Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

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Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#41

Finally! Somebody has said it plainly. Sam Altman is merely another "Tech Executive" out for himself and his buddies making money off of true path-breaking researchers. "AI Trailblazer", "Helping Humanity with AGI" etc. was all bullshit.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#42

This is interesting because I kind of view it the opposite way. The interesting thing about Zuckerberg, Brin & Page is that the have legal structures in place to give them control. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't need to be popular, he has the votes. He can drive Meta into a wall if he wants to - and he absolutely has taken that choice sometimes. The thing about the structure that was in place at OpenAI is that if Altman wen…

You don't hand matches and gasoline to kids. Having a board that is in principle not accountable is fine if they are stable and experienced people and there are enough of them to ensure that decisions are made by the book and with sufficient attention to the details, such as the potential fall-out.

Handing that kind of authority to a mix of the gullible, the greedy, the narrow minded and incompetent isn't going to end well.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy, people really love to ride the "AI is the new crypto" narrative, huh? Even pulling in spurious relationships to make the point (. Yet here I am, using this tech every day to for productive uses, greatly improving what I can accomplish. What did crypto ever do for us in comparison?

I am not participating in industrial strength gaslighting. "greatly improving what I can accomplish" is a trap. But to each their own.

You may be gaslighting yourself if you can't see the actual, tractable, current practical applications of this tech (and that includes local models you can run yourself).

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#44
post #40
post #34

>But this weekend we saw perhaps saw another side to the 38-year-old, a flicker of arrogance that gave a glimpse as to the dynamic with OpenAI’s board of directors.(...) Altman took a moment to share a picture on social media of him holding a “guest” pass. “First and last time I ever wear one of these,” he wrote Seriously? Does this pass for arrogance these days? I see nothing arrogant in a person sacked from a workp…

Did you see the face he was making in the picture? I'm not sure I would have initially picked the word _arrogant_ as much as _unpleasant_, but I think both fit (and arrogant is more descriptive).

I read it as 'I'm either going to be wearing my normal badge again or I won't be back here'.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#45

Finally! Somebody has said it plainly. Sam Altman is merely another "Tech Executive" out for himself and his buddies making money off of true path-breaking researchers. "AI Trailblazer", "Helping Humanity with AGI" etc. was all bullshit.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

Then it should be a fundamental mission of people who DO have technical knowledge to spread the word on both the negative and positive effects of AI. If WE have the knowledge, WE have the responsibility to go out there and let people know. But as far as I know, most technical people are happy to discuss it amongst themselves and not even say one word to people who have no technical knowledge. Not one word.

We need more balanced opinions in a world where the only ideas that survive are the ones that promise short-term gains at the cost of long-term disasters.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#46
post #31
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of bullshit going around. You can't convince me ChatGPT launching a few weeks within the collapse of FTX is a coincidence. The crypto hustle-scam is over, time for the next hype cycle. That's all there is .

> You can't convince me ChatGPT launching a few weeks within the collapse of FTX is a coincidence. I don't want to convince you about anything. But what is the supposed connection between these?

There's a cadre of investors I guess epitomized by a16z who hypes some bullshit, makes a lot of money and doesn't care much who gets hurt in the process. They have been loud on crypto and now it's this stochastic parrot, this plausible sentence generator they purport as solving all the problems in the world. Remember the blockchain will solve world hunger articles?

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

Then it should be a fundamental mission of people who DO have technical knowledge to spread the word on both the negative and positive effects of AI. If WE have the knowledge, WE have the responsibility to go out there and let people know. But as far as I know, most technical people are happy to discuss it amongst themselves and not even say one word to people who have no technical knowledge. Not one word. We need mo…

The problem is the same as some of the woke movements. Nobody wants to publicly speak out against AI safety BS because a Twitter mob who has made a career out of it will descend onto them and ruin their career. There is nothing to gain from speaking out against it, but you gain career opportunities by being part of the AI safety BS community. In fact, this has happened with Hinton (I think it was?) when he dared to explain how models aren't inherently biased. Had to publicly apologize for it later.

Even ML conferences have AI safety tracks these days. Nobody sane wants to be excluded from opportunities.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not participating in industrial strength gaslighting. "greatly improving what I can accomplish" is a trap. But to each their own.

You may be gaslighting yourself if you can't see the actual, tractable, current practical applications of this tech (and that includes local models you can run yourself).

That's the thing: there is no actual and tractable use of this tech.

It's probabilistic so every answer it can give can only resemble the real one and only accidentally be the real one so you need to fact check it anyways and then why bother?

Do consider the AI written mushroom hunting guides being sold on Amazon. Would you trust these literally with your life?

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#49

Finally! Somebody has said it plainly. Sam Altman is merely another "Tech Executive" out for himself and his buddies making money off of true path-breaking researchers. "AI Trailblazer", "Helping Humanity with AGI" etc. was all bullshit.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

[flagged]

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#50
post #32

'Let’s say we really do create AGI. Right now, if I’m doing a bad job with that, our board of directors, which is also not publicly accountable, can fire me and say, “Let’s try somebody else”.' - Sam Altman, 2020 0. https://www.exponentialview.co/p/openais-identity-crisis-and...

"...and then I can found (or join) another company so the board has a reference to see how well the new guy is doing"
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