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Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

theguardian.com

51–60 of 73 posts

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#51

These reporters know there are CEO’s that sell things like water, food, and energy to huge portions of the population right? Open AI is a blip.

The author is not a reporter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41152161

And you’re engaging in whataboutism. Actions are not excused or justified by someone else doing something different in another context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#52

OpenAI has first-mover advantage, but hardly a monopoly on the technology or the people behind AI. In fact, I think we’ve already hit peak Altman, and his star will be diminishing from here on.

Yeah what's their value add when zuck is giving away everything for free?

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#53

LLMs have benefits, but it's a real negative that you can no longer be sure if you are communicating with a human on the internet or reading something which was written by a human. It seems like public keys and web of trust are the future in terms of knowing that there is a human on the other end of the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party But, I don't know what happens when a cloud of LLMs get t…

In many cases, you can still tell when an article was written by an LLM, but I think that window is closing fast.

I see those as the lazy ones that are the tip of the iceberg. A non-zero amount will even be intentionally lazy (analogous to the Nigerian Prince theory), or to get feedback from people flagging them.

I think the sensible assumption is that there is a 'rest of the iceberg' growing rapidly below the surface, and that the horse has truly bolted.

I currently suspect that ~1-5% of the 'people' I interact with online are LLMs. I suspect that a few Redditors and Facebookers are up to about ~10-25% without realising it, caught in 'AI social media eddies'. Older generations especially susceptible.

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#55

OpenAI has first-mover advantage, but hardly a monopoly on the technology or the people behind AI. In fact, I think we’ve already hit peak Altman, and his star will be diminishing from here on.

Yeah what's their value add when zuck is giving away everything for free?

Which is, honestly, good. Facebook couldn't capture it, so giving it away is far better than the earlier 'keep-it-only-for-us' approach of Google. I don't mean to say Facebook/Meta has anyone's best in their hearts, though.

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#56
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the AI can update its beliefs based on a conversation, then yes it would still be a win. If not, you're talking to a very articulate thick-headed person who can argue you into a corner by deploying all manner of argumentative/persuasive patterns, but may never try to reach across the table for a compromise.

I've certainly "won" some arguments with ChatGPT and Claude, even when I specifically tried to instruct them to never yield (to make it interesting). Even most of the "rules" they need to follow from their system level prompt can often be worked around with enough persuasion. If anything I'd go so far to say that LLMs are innately more vulnerable to persuasion than humans are, they are technically just a complex text…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#57

LLMs have benefits, but it's a real negative that you can no longer be sure if you are communicating with a human on the internet or reading something which was written by a human. It seems like public keys and web of trust are the future in terms of knowing that there is a human on the other end of the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party But, I don't know what happens when a cloud of LLMs get t…

In many cases, you can still tell when an article was written by an LLM, but I think that window is closing fast.

You’re only thinking of charGPT, not finely tuned conversation models

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#58

LLMs have benefits, but it's a real negative that you can no longer be sure if you are communicating with a human on the internet or reading something which was written by a human. It seems like public keys and web of trust are the future in terms of knowing that there is a human on the other end of the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party But, I don't know what happens when a cloud of LLMs get t…

In many cases, you can still tell when an article was written by an LLM, but I think that window is closing fast.

Imagine how much better an article written by one of the big LLMs would be if it were stylistically trained exclusively on an archive of the past 30 years of New York Times articles?

I would expect the powers that be at the New York Times are exploring this very option as we speak.

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#59

These reporters know there are CEO’s that sell things like water, food, and energy to huge portions of the population right? Open AI is a blip.

> These reporters know The article is an opinion piece by an external contributor; the author is not a reporter. From the end of TFA: > Gary Marcus is a scientist, entrepreneur and bestselling author. He was founder and CEO of machine learning company Geometric Intelligence, which was acquired by Uber, and is the author of six books, including the forthcoming Taming Silicon Valley (MIT Press) > there are CEO’s There…

There's more than one way to use an apostrophe y'know

Re: Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. Be afraid

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These reporters know The article is an opinion piece by an external contributor; the author is not a reporter. From the end of TFA: > Gary Marcus is a scientist, entrepreneur and bestselling author. He was founder and CEO of machine learning company Geometric Intelligence, which was acquired by Uber, and is the author of six books, including the forthcoming Taming Silicon Valley (MIT Press) > there are CEO’s There…

There's more than one way to use an apostrophe y'know

Oh yes, I do. “More than one way” in more than one way, even. One such split is two ways: The right way, and the wrong way. Where, for instance, using it in “CEO’s” is the right way for a possessive, but the wrong way for a plural.
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