Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reflections on OpenAI

calv.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 446 posts

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#131

Post by swat535 »

fragmede wrote: post #108
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.

The Silenced No More Act" (SB 331), effective January 1, 2022, in California, where OpenAI is based, limits non-disparagement clauses and retribution by employers, likely making that illegal in California, but I am not a lawyer.

Even if it's illegal, you'll have to fight them in court.

OpenAI will certainly punish you for this and most likely make an example out of you, regardless of the outcome.

The goal is corporate punishment, not the rule of the law.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#132

Post by imiric »

fragmede wrote: post #116
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…

Well, Sam Altman has a clear definition of ASI, and AGI is something they've been thinking about for a long time, so presumably they must have some accepted definition of it.

My question was whether everyone believes this vision that ASI is "close", and more broadly whether this path leads to AGI.

> If you didn't think that AGI were ever possible with LLMs, would you even be there to begin with?

People can have all sorts of reasons for working with a company. They might want to work on cutting-edge tech with smart people and infinite resources, for investment or prestige, but not necessarily buy into the overarching vision. I'm just wondering whether such a profile exists within OpenAI, and if so, how it is handled.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#133

Post by m00x »

jonas21 wrote: post #107
rogerkirkness wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calvin is the founder/CTO of Segment, not old but also not some doe eyed new grad.

On one hand, yes. But on the other hand, he's still in his 30s. In most fields, this would be considered young / early career. It kind of reinforces the point that bright, young people can get a lot done in the tech world.

Calvin is loaded from the Segment exit, he would not work if he wasn't excited about the work. The other founders just went on to do their own thing or non-profits.

I worked there for a few years and Calvin is definitely more of the grounded engineering guy. He would introduced him as an engineer and just get talking code. He would spend most of his time with the SRE/core team trying to tackle the hardest technical problem at the company.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#134

Post by m00x »

cainxinth wrote: post #99
guywithabike wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He co-founded and sold Segment. You think he was just at OpenAI to collect a check? He lays out exactly why he joined OpenAI and why he's leaving. If you think everyone does things only for cynical reasons, it might be a reflection more of your personal impulses than others.

Just because someone claims they are speaking in good faith doesn’t mean we have to take their word for it. Most people in tech dealing with big money are doing it for cynical reasons. The talk of changing the world or “doing something hard” is just marketing typically.

Calvin works incredibly hard and has very little ego. I was surprised he joined OpenAI since he's loaded from the Segment acquisition, but if anyone it makes sense he would do this. He's always looking to find the hardest problem and work on it.

That's what he did at Segment even in the later stages.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#135

Post by matco11 »

torginus wrote: post #129
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…

Here's what I think - while Altman was busy trying to convince the public the AGI was coming in the next two weeks, with vague tales that were equaly ominous and utopistic, he (and his fellow leaders) have been extremely busy at trying hard to turn OpenAI into a product company with some killer offerings, and from the article, it seems they were rather good and successful in that. Considering the high stakes, money,…

> remember how they mentioned they built multiple Codex prototypes, it must've sucked to see some other people's version chosen instead of your own

Well it depends on people’s mindset. It’s like doing a hackathon and not winning. Most people still leave inspired by what they have seen other people building, and can’t wait to do it again.

…but of course not everybody likes to go to hackathons

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#136

Post by m00x »

harmonic18374 wrote: post #63
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…

I would never post any criticism of an employer in public. It can only harm my own career (just as being positive can only help it). Given how vengeful Altman can reportedly be, this goes double for OpenAI. This guy even says they scour social media! Whether subconsciously or not, one purpose of this post is probably to help this guy’s own personal network along; to try and put his weirdly short 14-month stint in the…

Calvin cofounded Segment that had a $3.2B acquisition. He's not your typical employee.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#138

Post by tedsanders »

Bratmon wrote: post #94
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 Much more common for OpenAI, because you lose all your vested equity if you talk negatively about OpenAI after leaving.

OpenAI never enforced this, removed it, and admitted it was a big mistake. I work at OpenAI and I'm disappointed it happened but am glad they fixed it. It's no longer hanging over anyone's head, so it's probably inaccurate to suggest that Calvin's post is positive because he's trying to protect his equity from being taken. (though of course you could argue that everyone is biased to be positive about companies they own equity in, generally)

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#140

Post by tedsanders »

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

Not the author, but I work at OpenAI. There are wide variety of viewpoints and it's fine for employees to disagree on timelines and impact. I myself published a 100-page paper on why I think transformative AGI by 2043 is quite unlikely (https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.02519). From informal discussion, I think the vast majority of employees don't think that we're mere years from a post-scarcity utopia where we can drink mai tais on the beach all day. But there is a lot of optimism about the rapid progress in AI, and I do think that it's harder to forecast the path of a technology that has the potential to improve itself. So much depends on your definition of AGI. In a sense, GPT-4 is already AGI in the literal sense that it's an artificial intelligence with some generality. But in the sense of automating the economy, it's of course not close.
Post reply on HN