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Reflections on OpenAI

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Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#111

Post by tptacek »

rvz wrote: post #96
Bratmon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience Much more common for OpenAI, because you lose all your vested equity if you talk negatively about OpenAI after leaving.

Absolutely correct. There is a reason why there was a cult-like behaviour on X amongst the employees in supporting to bringing back Sam as CEO when he was kicked out by the OpenAI board of directors at the time. "OpenAI is nothing without it's people" All of "AGI" (which actually was the lamborghinis, penthouses, villas and mansions for the employees) was all on the line and on hold if that equity went to 0 or would…

Yes, and the reason for that is that employees at OpenAI believed (reasonably) that they were cruising for Google-scale windfall payouts from their equity over a relatively short time horizon, and that Altman and Brockman leaving OpenAI and landing at a well-funded competitor, coupled with OpenAI corporate management that publicly opposed commercialization of their technology, would torpedo those payouts.

I'd have sounded cult-like too under those conditions (but I also don't believe AGI is a thing, so would not have a countervailing cult belief system to weigh against that behavior).

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#112

Post by theletterf »

For a company that has grown so much in such a short time, I continue to be surprised by its lack of technical writers. Saying docs could be better is an euphemism, but I still can't find fellow tech writers working there. Compare this with Anthropic and its documentation.

I don't know what's the rationale for not hiring tech writers other than nobody suggesting it yet, which is sad. Great dev tools require great docs, and great docs require teams that own them and grow them as a product.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#113

Post by jfyi »

simonw wrote: post #37
vouaobrasil wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you should feel bad or not, but even I know that I have a role to play in consumerism that I wish I didn't. That doesn't necessitate feeling bad because the reaction to feel good or bad about something is a side effect of the sort of religious "good and evil" mentality that probably came about due to Christianity or something. But *regardless*, one should at least understand that because our world has…

The TV show The Good Place actually dug into this quite a bit. One of the key themes explored in the show was the idea that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, because eventually the things you consume can be tied back to some grossly unethical situation somewhere in the world.

That theme was primarily explored through the idea it's impossible to live a truly ethical life in the modern world due to unknowable externalities.

I don't think the takeaway was meant to really be about capitalism but more generally the complexity of the system. That's just me though.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#114

Post by bongripper »

bhl wrote: post #3

> The Codex sprint was probably the hardest I've worked in nearly a decade. Most nights were up until 11 or midnight. Waking up to a newborn at 5:30 every morning. Heading to the office again at 7a. Working most weekends. There's so much compression / time-dilation in the industry: large projects are pushed out and released in weeks; careers are made in months. Worried about how sustainable this is for its people, gi…

[dead]

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#115

Post by mlinhares »

theletterf wrote: post #112

For a company that has grown so much in such a short time, I continue to be surprised by its lack of technical writers. Saying docs could be better is an euphemism, but I still can't find fellow tech writers working there. Compare this with Anthropic and its documentation. I don't know what's the rationale for not hiring tech writers other than nobody suggesting it yet, which is sad. Great dev tools require great doc…

The higher ups don't think there's value in that. Back at DigitalOcean they had an amazing tech writing team, with people with years of experience, doing some of the best tech docs in the industry, when the layoffs started the writing team was the first to be cut.

People look at it as a cost a and nothing else.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#116

Post by fragmede »

imiric wrote: post #81

Thanks for sharing. One thing I was interested to read but didn't find in your post is: does everyone believe in the vision that the leadership has shared publicly, e.g. [1]? Is there some skepticism that the current path leads to AGI, or has everyone drunk the Kool-Aid? If there is some dissent, how is it handled internally? [1]: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity

Externally there's no rigorous definition as to what constitutes AGI, so I'd guess internally it's not one monolithic thing they're targeting either. You'd need everyone to take a class about the nature of intelligence first, and all the different kinds of it just to begin with. There's undoubtedly dissent internally as to the best way to achieve chosen milestones on the way there, as well as disagreement that those are the right milestones to begin with. Think tactical disagreement, not strategic. If you didn't think that AGI were ever possible with LLMs, would you even be there to begin with?

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#117

Post by vouaobrasil »

8note wrote: post #100
vouaobrasil wrote: post #4

> The thing that I appreciate most is that the company is that it "walks the walk" in terms of distributing the benefits of AI. Cutting edge models aren't reserved for some enterprise-grade tier with an annual agreement. Anybody in the world can jump onto ChatGPT and get an answer, even if they aren't logged in. I would argue that there are very few benefits of AI, if any at all. What it actually does is create a pri…

hiding from mosquitos under your net is a negative. the point of going out to the woods is to be bitten by mosquitos and youve ruined it. its impossible to get benefit from the woods if youve brought a bug net, and you should stay out rather than ruining the woods for everyone

Rather myopic and crude take, in my opinion. Because if I bring out a net, it doesn't change the woods for others. If I introduce AI into society, it does change society for others, even those who don't want to use the tool. You have really no conception of subtlety or logic.

If someone says driving at 200mph is unsafe, then your argument is like saying "driving at any speed is unsafe". Fact is, you need to consider the magnitude and speed of the technology's power and movement, which you seem incapable of doing.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#118

Post by frankfrank13 »

> As often as OpenAI is maligned in the press, everyone I met there is actually trying to do the right thing

I doubt many people would say something contrary to this about their (former) colleagues, which means we should always take this with a (large) grain of salt.

Do I think (most) AT&T employees wanted to let the NSA spy on us? Probably not. Google engineers and ICE? Palantir and.. well idk i think everyone there knows what Palantir does.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#120

Post by ben_w »

hinterlands wrote: post #52

It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience. I don't think this makes OpenAI special. It's just a good reminder that the overwhelming majority of "why I left" posts are basically trying to justify why a person wasn't a good fit for an organization by blaming it squarely on the organization. Look at it this way: the flip side of "incredibly bottoms-up" from this article is that…

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

FWIW, I have positive experiences about many of my former employers. Not all of them, but many of them.

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