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Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

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Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#41

Post by PretzelPirate »

tensility wrote: post #26

The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. We already have way too many immature robber barons playing the oligarchy game for the likes of such as him to be positive for society in the end. If he had a conscience, it appears that he's sold it already.

> The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust.

This might seem true in our technical buble, but most of the public probably has no idea who he is. They try ChatGPT for a work task and think it's amazing and love it.

I've seen this happen many times, and once one person in a small team/company tries it, everyone else starts using it and they also love it. These people don't know what OpenAI or who Sam Altman is and there hasn't been any trust broken because ChatGPT works for them.

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#42

Post by eduction »

infecto wrote: post #8

I only skimmed through the beginning but I am not sure what the news is. Looks like they mostly/only? pulled it from some filings that I am sure was being put together by third party agents.

The claim was repeated on the website of the SPAC itself until the story ran. And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman.

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#43

Post by dang »

mlyle wrote: post #38
dang wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I meant false claims about HN moderation, like the GP comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40711123 ("The mods suppress anything that makes YC or anything they invest in look bad"). That wasn't just completely made up, it's the exact opposite of the truth. My comment originally included that explicitly, but I was trying to edit it down a bit and thought this would be clear from the context. Since it wasn…

> it's the exact opposite of the truth. One can hardly call it the exact opposite of the truth if the feared downweighting of this post actually happened. It's commendable that it was corrected and that you are attempting to be transparent. But, it sure creates the appearance of a self-protective attempt to moderate.

Yes, I take your point and would have preferred the original downweight to be less for that reason. (Edit: I checked with the mod and originally it was - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720026. It looks like user flags made the difference.)

Different mods inevitably make different calls sometimes, though. That doesn't change the fundamental practice, which has been stable for a long time (long before I took over HN long ago).

One thing I often point out in these situations is that "moderate less" (which is what the rule calls for) is not the same thing as "not moderating at all". Most probably the mod in this case was thinking along the lines of "I'm still moderating less in this case than we normally would, but I'll check with dang just in case".

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#44

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #33
eduction wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to tell if there's any there-there but, given how this sort of story usually works, the odds seem low. Not at all. The source links the relevant SEC filing. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849056/000110465921... On page 111 the false claim is plainly visible: “ Prior to joining OpenAI, Mr. Altman served as President of Y Combinator from February 2014 until March 2019. Mr. Altman currently serves…

Oh, I meant false claims about HN moderation, like the GP comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40711123 ("The mods suppress anything that makes YC or anything they invest in look bad"). That wasn't just completely made up, it's the exact opposite of the truth. My comment originally included that explicitly, but I was trying to edit it down a bit and thought this would be clear from the context. Since it wasn…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #41
tensility wrote: post #26

The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. We already have way too many immature robber barons playing the oligarchy game for the likes of such as him to be positive for society in the end. If he had a conscience, it appears that he's sold it already.

> The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. This might seem true in our technical buble, but most of the public probably has no idea who he is. They try ChatGPT for a work task and think it's amazing and love it. I've seen this happen many times, and once one person in a small team/company tries it, everyone else starts using it and they also love it. These people don't know what OpenAI…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#46

Post by infecto »

eduction wrote: post #42
infecto wrote: post #8

I only skimmed through the beginning but I am not sure what the news is. Looks like they mostly/only? pulled it from some filings that I am sure was being put together by third party agents.

The claim was repeated on the website of the SPAC itself until the story ran. And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman.

I guess I don’t see the issue. The SPAC materials are largely pointless and immaterial until an acquisition is made. Purely a guess but I would assume they put these materials together when perhaps the board position was in play. Maybe he was fabricating it but it’s mostly a shrug moment for the SEC.

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#47

Post by zamadatix »

dang wrote: post #22
bowsamic wrote: post #9

This is going to fall off the front page very quickly, just watch. The mods suppress anything that makes YC or anything they invest in look bad

Actually we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story. This is the #1 rule of HN moderation and has been since pg first explained it to me on the morning he started showing me how to moderate HN. If anyone wants to read about this, there are ten years' worth of past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . It looks like a mod downweighted this story but…

Hey Dang, I appreciate the transparency and general policy in such situations. As well as undowning the story

Do you think there will ever be in band signaling of when (or perhaps even why) a post was artificially depressed by moderation? Particularly aimed at cases where people are already using tools like https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=40710417 on posts like this where more people have already seen the story drop off and confirmation that it was via moderation than will probably ever see this comment in its later revival explaining how or why. Something like a "downed" with hover alt text next to the flag tag even. Apart from being immediately clearer to everyone without waiting for a comment/email that helps solidify against "and then 5 hours later they back tracked it slightly but not all the way with some other excuse why after being called out" type thinking/arguments. I mean you'll never get rid of that completely but it's a lot more powerful that the message existed there at T=30 minutes than T=5 hours.

Would typically email but this seemed like something good for an open message :).

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#48

Post by gexla »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #41
tensility wrote: post #26

The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. We already have way too many immature robber barons playing the oligarchy game for the likes of such as him to be positive for society in the end. If he had a conscience, it appears that he's sold it already.

> The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. This might seem true in our technical buble, but most of the public probably has no idea who he is. They try ChatGPT for a work task and think it's amazing and love it. I've seen this happen many times, and once one person in a small team/company tries it, everyone else starts using it and they also love it. These people don't know what OpenAI…

Apple just gave the company under his leadership a huge vote of confidence.

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#49

Post by bamboozled »

S_A_P wrote: post #28
jpm_sd wrote: post #2

Sam Altman is a pathological liar https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/29/ex_openai_board_membe... https://www.wheresyoured.at/sam-altman-is-full-of-shit/

Just the sort of personality type that we need leading the most potentially dangerous new technology in the past 50 years.

While I get the sentiment, things have a way of working out. Maybe he is actually the best person to do it...no one knows who the best person for an undefined situation will be.

Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?

#50

Post by jgalt212 »

infecto wrote: post #29
jgalt212 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in process to being true" That's Altman-esque language.

Huh? It’s an S1 for a SPAC. Practically the whole S1 is immaterial. It was a disclosures page. Stop making something about nothing.

[flagged]
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