I guess it's not news but it is pretty wild to see the level of millenarianism espoused by all of these guys. The board of OpenAI is supposedly going to "determine the fate of the world", robotics to be "completely solved" by 2020, the goal of OpenAI is to "avoid an AGI dictatorship". Is nobody in these very rich guys' spheres pushing back on their thought process? So far we are multiple years in with much investment…
> Is nobody in these very rich guys' spheres pushing back on their thought process? Yes, frequently and loudly. When Altman was collecting the award at Cambridge the other year, protesters dropped in on the after-award public talk/Q&A session, and he actively empathised with the protestors . > So far we are multiple years in with much investment and little return, and no obvious large-scale product-market fit, much l…
He always does that to give himself cover, but he has clearly shown that his words mean very little in this regard. He always dodges criticism. He used to talk about the importance of him being accountable to the OpenAI board and them being able to fire him if necessary when people were questioning the dangers of having one person have this much control over something as big as bleeding edge AI. He also used to mention how he had no direct financial interests in the company since he had no equity.
Then the board did fire him. What happened next? He came back, the board is gone, he now openly has complete control over OpenAI, and they have given him a potentially huge equity package. I really don't think Sam Altman is particularly trustworthy. He will say whatever he needs to say to get what he wants.