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Evolving OpenAI's Structure

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Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#321

Post by jon_richards »

dgreensp wrote: post #284
stego-tech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That world never existed. Yes, pockets did - IT professionals with broadband lines and spare kit hosting IRC servers and phpBB forums from their homes free of charge, a few VC-funded companies offering idealistic visions of the net until funding ran dry (RIP CoHost) - but once the web became privatized, it was all in service of the bottom line by companies. Web 2.0 onwards was all about centralization, surveillance,…

I don’t think the parent was saying that everyone’s intentions were pure until recently, but rather that naked greed wasn’t cool before, but now it is. The Internet has changed a lot over the decades, and it did used to be different, with the differences depending on how many years you go back.

As recently as the Silicon Valley tv show, the joke was that every startup pitch claimed they were “making the world a better place”.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#322

Post by jonfromsf »

foobiekr wrote: post #81
the_duke wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI is matter of when, not if. It will likely require research breakthroughs, significant hardware advancement, and anything from a few years to a few decades. But it's coming. ChatGPT was released 2.5 years ago, and look at all the crazy progress that has been made in that time. That doesn't mean that the progress has to continue, we'll probably see a stall. But AIs that are on a level with humans for many common ta…

I think this is right but also missing a useful perspective. Most HN people are probably too young to remember that the nanotech post-scarcity singularity was right around the corner - just some research and engineering way - which was the widespread opinion in 1986 (yes, 1986). It was _just as dramatic_ as today's AGI. That took 4-5 years to fall apart, and maybe a bit longer for the broader "nanotech is going to ch…

Every consumer has very useful AI at their fingertips right now. It's eating the software engineering world rapidly. This is nothing like nanotech in the 80s.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#323

Post by rchaud »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #183
rchaud wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It's frankly quite shocking to see how otherwise atheist or agnostic people have so quickly begun worshipping at the altar of "inevitable AGI apocalypse", much in the same way as how extremist Christians await the rapture.

I guess they think that the “digital god” has a chance to become real (and soon, even), unlike the non-digital one?

We'll be debating whether or not "AGI is here" in philosophical terms, in the same way people debate if God is real, for years to come. To say nothing of the untaxed "nonprofit" status these institutions share.

Omnipotent deities can never be held responsible for famine and natural disasters ("God has a plan for us all"). AI currently has the same get-out-of-jail free card where mistakes that no literate human would ever make are handwaved away as "hallucinations" that can be exorcised with a more sophisticated training model ("prayers").

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#324

Post by JumpCrisscross »

henryfjordan wrote: post #300
always_imposter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI would mean something which doesn't need direction or guidance to do anything. Like us humans, we don't wait for somebody to give us a task and go do it as if that is our sole existence. We live with our thoughts, blank out, watch TV, read books etc. What we currently have and possibly in the next century as well will be nothing close to an actual AGI. I don't know if it is optimism or delusions of grandeur that d…

> AGI would mean something which doesn't need direction or guidance to do anything. Like us humans, ... Name me a human that also doesn't need direction or guidance to do a task, at least one they haven't done before

> Name me a human that also doesn't need direction or guidance to do a task, at least one they haven't done before

Literally everything that's been invented.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#325

Post by SCAQTony »

Does anyone truly believe Musk had benevolent intentions? But before we even evaluate the substance of that claim, we must ask whether he has standing to make it. In his court filing, Musk uses the word "nonprofit" 111 times, yet fails to explain how reverting OpenAI to a nonprofit structure would save humanity, elevate the public interest, or mitigate AI’s risks. The legal brief offers no humanitarian roadmap, no governance proposal, and no evidence that Musk has the authority to dictate the trajectory of an organization he holds no equity in. It reads like a bait and switch — full of virtue-signaling, devoid of actionable virtue. And he never had a contract or an agreement for with OpenAI to keep it a non-profit.

Musk claimed Fraud, but never asked for his money back in the brief. Could it be his intentions were to limit OpenAI to donations thereby sucking the oxygen out of the venture capital space to fund Xai's Grok?

Musk claimed he donated $100mil, later in a CNBC interview, he said $50-mil. TechCrunch suggests it was way less.

Speakingof humanitarian, how about this 600lbs Oxymoron in the room: A Boston University mathematician has now tracked an estimated 10,000 deaths linked to the Musk's destruction of USAID programs, many of which provided basic health services to vulnerable populations. He may have a death count on his reume in the coming year.

Non profits has regulation than publicly traded companies. Each quarterly filings is like a colonoscopy with Sorbonne Oxley rules etc. Non profits just file a tax statement. Did you know the Chirch of Scientology is a non-profit.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#326

Post by [deleted] »

voidspark wrote: post #306
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a redefinition, it's a refinement It's really not. The Space Shuttle isn't an emerging interstellar spacecraft, it's just a spacecraft. Throwing emerging in front of a qualifier to dilute it is just bullshit. > By the same reasoning, so is a person. They are just auto completing words when they speak. We have no evidence of this. There is a common trope across cultures and history of characterising human i…

Technically it is a refinement, as it distinguishes levels of performance. The General Intelligence part of AGI refers to its ability to solve problems that it was not explicitly trained to solve, across many problem domains. We already have examples of the current systems doing exactly that - zero shot and few shot capabilities. > We have no evidence of this. That's my point. Humans are not "autocompleting words" wh…

[deleted]

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#327

Post by jampekka »

patmcc wrote: post #307
wmf wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PBCs have no beneficial tax treatment and neither does OpenAI.

Huh. Then yah, what the heck? Why not just be a regular corp?

Branding, and perhaps a demand from the judges. In practice it doesn't mean anything if/when they stuff the board with people who want to run it as a normal LLC.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#328

Post by JumpCrisscross »

voidspark wrote: post #306
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a redefinition, it's a refinement It's really not. The Space Shuttle isn't an emerging interstellar spacecraft, it's just a spacecraft. Throwing emerging in front of a qualifier to dilute it is just bullshit. > By the same reasoning, so is a person. They are just auto completing words when they speak. We have no evidence of this. There is a common trope across cultures and history of characterising human i…

Technically it is a refinement, as it distinguishes levels of performance. The General Intelligence part of AGI refers to its ability to solve problems that it was not explicitly trained to solve, across many problem domains. We already have examples of the current systems doing exactly that - zero shot and few shot capabilities. > We have no evidence of this. That's my point. Humans are not "autocompleting words" wh…

> Technically it is a refinement, as it distinguishes levels of performance

No, it's bringing something out of scope into the definition. Gluten-free means free of gluten. Gluten-free bagel verus sliced bread is a refinement--both started out under the definition. Glutinous bread, on the other hand, is not gluten free. As a result, "almost gluten free" is bullshit.

> That's my point. Humans are not "autocompleting words" when they speak

Humans are not. LLMs are. It turns out that's incredibly powerful! But it's also limiting in a way that's fundamentally important to the definition of AGI.

LLMs bring us closer to AGI in the way the inventions of writing, computers and the internet probably have. Calling LLMs "emerging AGI" pretends we are on a path to AGI in a way we have zero evidence for.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#329

Post by alganet »

Can you commit to a "swords into ploughshares" goal?

We know it's a sword. And there's war, yadda yadda. However, let's do the cultivating thing instead.

What other AI players we need to convince?

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#330

Post by k__ »

richardw wrote: post #262
lolinder wrote: post #70

So the non-profit retains control but we all know that Altman controls the board of the non-profit and I'd be shocked if he won't have significant stock in the new for-profit (from TFA: "we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock"). Which means that regardless of whether the non-profit has control on paper, OpenAI is now even better structured for Sam Altman's personal enrichment. No more ca…

Or, alternatively, it’s much harder to fight with one hand behind your back. They need to be able to compete for resources and talent given the market structure, or they fail on the mission. This is already impossibly hard. Approximately zero people commenting would be able to win this battle in Sam’s shoes. What would they need to do to begin to have a chance? Rather than make all the obvious comments “bad evil man…

The moment we stop treating "bad evil man wants to ge it rich" as a straw man, we can heal.
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