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OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

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Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#421

Post by neves »

xgolwks wrote: post #386

What the other commenters are forgetting is that this is the same Sam Altman who planned and executed the extraction of Reddit from Condé Nast. This acquisition (and the Windsurf acquisition) are all-stock deals, which have the added benefit of reducing the control the nonprofit entity has over the for profit OpenAI entity. How do you extract the for profit entity out of the hands of a nonprofit? - Step 1: you have c…

One of the most informative posts here. I thought that since Altman's coup the no profit status wouldn't be a problem.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#422

Post by sherr »

Today I read a couple of book reviews in the Economist with Sam Altman as the subject. The books are :

The Optimist. By Keach Hagey Empire of AI. By Karen Hao

The reviews are positive for both books. The column itself is titled "Sam Altman is a visionary with a trustworthiness problem" and shows a few reasons people have had some problems with his behaviour. One quote from the article is :

"Ms Livingston fired him, but as Ms Hagey recounts, he left chaos in his wake. Not only was he overseen by a non-functioning board, he had also used YC equity to help lure people to OpenAI. She says some YC partners saw a potential conflict of interest, “or at least an unseemly leveraging of the YC brand for Altman’s personal projects”."

Sam Altman is a visionary with a trustworthiness problem https://archive.is/oANfs

"Two books tell a similar tale about OpenAI. It is worrying"

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#423

Post by fakedang »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #329
bigyabai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of those designs were made at Ive's behest, against the wishes of entire teams of engineers. I feel like we have his "courage" to blame for the Butterfly keyboard, terrible Mac thermals and the lack of ports on "Pro" computers.

Ive did good designs when Jobs kept him in check. Once Jobs was gone he messed up a whole generation of MacBooks. Things got much better after his departure.

I think after Jobs, Ive did all sorts of things just to justify his presence at Apple. Hence trying to make an already well-designed product even more "well-designed", but to his terms. And that's when it started turning to shit.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#424

Post by fallinditch »

Pxtl wrote: post #385
fallinditch wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's hard to think of a new product category for smart devices ... unless maybe Smart HATS! OK folks so remember where you heard it first - ultra stylish head gear with flip-down visor screen anyone?

Even as a joke that's still just a goofier version of smart glasses. There really is nothing new under the sun.

True, I guess they will innovate around devices and periferals that enable or facilitate AI powered activities, and hope to pioneer a new category of activity, and look damn cool at the same time.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#425

Post by jorams »

jinay wrote: post #125

Likely no coincidence that they announce their company, io, during Google I/O. Search "io" on Google right now and see what comes up...

> Search "io" on Google right now and see what comes up...

I don't know about you, but neither of them comes up. Google I/O has always been something you have to search for including the "Google" part and this news is all about Jony Ive, not the nondescript company name.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#426

Post by The_Blade »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #380
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #319

It’s mind boggling how much money is floating around once you are part of the insider circle. What has that company been doing to be worth 6.5 billion?

They made a very pretty font.

that is more useful than more or less anything else that AI has practically achieved

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#427

Post by oldpersonintx2 »

belter wrote: post #382
RC_ITR wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to stem pointless debates before they flame up - both these acquisitions appear to be primarily if not exclusively for stock. Sure, if you want to get into theoretical finance, OpenAI could have sold these new shares for cash, so technically there's no difference, but OpenAI is only spending opportunity cost cash, rather than fiat. OpenAI's fiat likely still goes to the things you'd expect, like training models…

The AI hype seems driven more by stock valuations than genuine productivity gains. Developers now spend excessive time crafting prompts and managing AI generated pull requests :-) tasks that a simple email to a junior coder could have handled efficiently. We need a study that shows the lost productivity. When CEOs aggressively promote such tech solutions, it signals we're deep into bubble territory: “If you go forwar…

[flagged]

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#428

Post by samtp »

DevKoala wrote: post #412
samtp wrote: post #355

> In the interview, Altman said Jobs would be “damn proud” of Ive’s latest move. What an extremely weird (and egotistical) thing to say if you're in Altman's position

While Sam is being egotistic, the reverence of Jobs to the point nobody is even allowed to assume how he would have thought is also weird imho.

I'm certainly not saying that "nobody is even allowed to assume how he would have thought". What I'm saying actually has very little to do with Jobs at all.

I'm saying that as a new partner to someone, it's extremely weird to say that your old dead partner would be extremely proud you teamed up with me. If I were to marry a woman who lost her husband, it would be extremely weird and egotistical for me to tell people that her dead ex-husband would be "damn proud" that she married me.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#429

Post by asadotzler »

theahura wrote: post #246
whynotminot wrote: post #78

These product-focused moves feel like a tacit admission that AGI is further away than they’ve been preaching. If it was close at hand, spending precious resources on anything other than pursuing AGI wouldn’t make sense.

I disagree for two reasons. 1) the two decisions do not seem related to each other. OpenAI has capital to spend and is seeking distribution methods to shore up continued access to future capital. That strategic decision seems totally unrelated to their estimated timelines for when AGI (whatever definition you are using) will show up. Especially because they are in a race against other players. It may be a soft signal…

I asked Gemini to read a clock for me with hands on 10 and 2 and it got the long hand and the short hand backwards, probably because of the massive trove of online documentation about the symmetry of 10 after 10 being aesthetically pleasing for PR materials and icons or some such nonsense unrelated to the question or the clock.

I don't know about you, but I learned how to read an analog clock in kindergarten and Gemini got it wrong.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#430

Post by kmeisthax »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #203
digianarchist wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no post-LLM story. This consolidation is both building product and user-capture before that becomes wildly admitted. I think LLMs will become more useful and more efficient over time as models refine but these aren't the (AI) droids you're looking for.

what does LLVM mean here?

[dead]
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