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Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

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Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#241

Post by insane_dreamer »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #96
ants_everywhere wrote: post #48

> Our current structure does not allow the Board to directly consider the interests of those who would finance the mission Why should it? You can't serve two masters. They claim to serve the master of human-aligned AI. Why would they want to add another goal that's impossible to align with their primary one?

I want to put my opinion somewhere and as a reply to this seems like a good option. I am anti-capitalism and anti-profit and anti-Microsoft, but I can take a step back and recognize the truth to what’s being said here. They give the context that hundreds of billions are being spent on AI right now, and if OpenAI wants to remain competitive, they need significantly more money than they originally anticipated. They’re…

> They need money to stay competitive.

The mission was never to stay competitive. The mission was to develop AGI. They need to be competitive if they want to make billions of dollars for themselves and their shareholders; they don't need to be competitive to develop AGI.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#242

Post by sroussey »

remus wrote: post #218
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern hiring process, esp culture fit, is designed to ensure that fraction of true believers inside the company is meaningfully higher compared to the outside.

I think it is simpler than that: people generally tend to work for companies who's products they think are interesting and useful. It's much easier to go into work each day when you think you're spending your time doing something useful.

That’s also a good reason to underpay, historically.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#243

Post by TheRealNGenius »

paxys wrote: post #53

I don't understand why they are spending so much time and effort trying to put a positive spin on this whole for-profit thing. No one is buying it. We all know what's going on. Just say "we want to make lots of money" and move on with your lives.

[dead]

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#245

Post by sungho_ »

paxys wrote: post #53

I don't understand why they are spending so much time and effort trying to put a positive spin on this whole for-profit thing. No one is buying it. We all know what's going on. Just say "we want to make lots of money" and move on with your lives.

Sam Altman and OpenAI aim to become the gods of a new world. Compared to that goal, it makes sense that money feels trivial to them.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#246

Post by jay_kyburz »

bradleyjg wrote: post #190
jasode wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If Sam decided it was a mistake to dedicate his time to a non-profit, he’s perfectly free to quit [...] To be clear, I don't think Sam can do anything and come out looking "good" from a public relations standpoint. That said, Sam probably thinks he's justified because he was one of the original founders and co-chair of OpenAI -- so he feels he should have a say in pivoting it to something else. He said he got all th…

he was one of the original founders and co-chair of OpenAI -- so he feels he should have a say in pivoting it to something else No. Non-profit is a deal between those founders and society. That he was an original founder is irrelevant. I don’t care about Elon, it’s the pivoting that’s inherently dishonorable.

All I care about, (and I guess I don't care than much because I'm not a US citizen) is, has this move allowed them, or their contributors to pay less tax. That is their only obligation to the public.

Was the non profit a way to just avoid tax until the time came to start making money?

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#247

Post by justinbaker84 »

bilbo0s wrote: post #182
maeil wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strong principled stance There had never been one. Not with Sam Altman. It was a play put on to get $100+ million in donations. This was always the goal, from day 0. This is trivially obvious considering the person Sam Altman.

This. Anyone who thought Sam Altman wasn’t in it for the money from the start, was being naive. In the extreme. Not only Mr Altman, but most of the people giving the larger donations were hoping for a hit as well. Why is that so incredible to people? How else would you get that kind of money to fund a ludicrously speculative research based endeavor? You don’t even know if it’s possible before the research. What else…

I think that is the case with Sam, but not Ilya and probably not with some of the other founders.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#248

Post by llamaimperative »

ryao wrote: post #230
habosa wrote: post #197

Sam Altman is one of the biggest threats to humanity right now, and I’m basing that opinion on his own statements. He believes that AGI has the potential to dismantle or destroy most of the existing world order. He believes there is some non-zero chance that even in the most capable hands it could lead to disaster. He believes OpenAI is uniquely positioned to bring AGI to the world, and he is doing everything in his…

That assumes you believe his claims of disaster. We already have been through this with the printing press, telecommunications, computers and the internet. The claims of disaster are overrated.

You conveniently left out nuclear weapons and bioweapons, both of which are actually capable of destroying the world and both of which are very, very tightly controlled accordingly.

It's pretty obvious that a technology's capacity for good rises in lockstep with its capacity for evil. Considering that every technology is just a manifestation of intelligence, then AI would trend toward infinite capacity for good as it develops[1], therefore AI's capacity for evil is... minimal?

1: I remain agnostic as to where exactly we are on that curve and whether transformers will get us much further up it

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#249

Post by futureshock »

depr wrote: post #124
vonneumannstan wrote: post #98

Sam Altman is evil fullstop. He is a pure machiavellian villain. His goal is to the most powerful person on the planet. The future cannot be controlled by him or other autistic human successionists.

I agree wrt to his goal but there is no way he is autistic, and what's a human successionist?

I had the impression that he was ADHD, not autistic.
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