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Reflections on OpenAI

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Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#281

Post by hobofan »

criddell wrote: post #222
tedsanders wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the OpenAI charter, it's "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work." https://openai.com/charter/

Huh. That feels like kind of a weak definition. That makes me wonder what kinds of work aren’t economically valuable? Would that be services generally provided by government?

> Would that be services generally provided by government?

Most services provided by governments are economically valuable, as they provide infrastructure that allow individual actors to perform better, increasing collective economic output. (For e.g. high-expenditure infrastructure it could be quite easily argued though that they are not economically profitable.)

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#282

Post by cootsnuck »

stickfigure wrote: post #250
yoyohello13 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure people working for cigarette companies are doing the best they can too. People can be good individuals and also work toward evil ends.

I am of the opinion that the greatest evils come from the most self-righteous.

I think y'all are agreeing.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#283

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

achierius wrote: post #261
kadushka wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are bad parents. Many are bad at their jobs. Many at bad at both. At least this guy is good at his job, and can provide very well for his family.

It'll be of little comfort to the kid.

It is all relative. A workaholic seems pretty nice when compared to growing up with actual objectively bad parents, workaholics plus: addicts, perpetually drunk, gamblers, in jail, no shows for everything you put time into, competing with you when obtaining basic skills, abusing you for being a kid, etc.

There are plenty worse than that. The storied dramatic fiction parent missing out on a kid's life is much better than what a lot of children have.

Yet, all kids grow up, and the greatest factor determining their overall well-being through life is socioeconomic status, not how many hours a father was present.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#284

Post by Vektorceraptor »

My biggest problem with these new companies is their core philosophy. First, these companies generate their own demand — natural demand for their products rarely exists. Therefore, they act more like sellers than developers. Second, they always follow the same maxim: "What's the next logical step?" This naturally follows from the first premise, because this allows you to ignore everything "real". You are simply bound to logic. They have no "problems" to solve, yet they offer you solutions - simply as a logical consequence of their own logic. Has anyone ever actually asked if coders would use agents if it meant losing their jobs? Thirdly, this naturally brings to light the B2B philosophy. The customer is merely a catalyst that will eventually become superfluous. Fourth, the same excuse and ignorance of the form "(we don't know what we are doing, but) time will tell". What if time tells you "this is bad and you should and could have known better?"

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#285

Post by cootsnuck »

windowshopping wrote: post #259
viccis wrote: post #146

>It's hard to imagine building anything as impactful as AGI >... >OpenAI is also a more serious place than you might expect, in part because the stakes feel really high. On the one hand, there's the goal of building AGI–which means there is a lot to get right. I'm kind of surprised people are still drinking this AGI Koolaid

for real. same. the level of delusion. i think what'll happen is they'll get some really advanced agents that can effectively handle most general tasks and they'll call it AGI and say they've done it. it won't really be AGI, but a lot of people will have bought into the lie thanks to the incredibly convincing facsimile they'll have created.

> i think what'll happen is they'll get some really advanced agents that can effectively handle most general tasks and they'll call it AGI

They likely won't wait even for that. Because that itself is still really far off.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#286

Post by Timwi »

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…

> everyone I met there is actually trying to do the right thing" - yes! That's true at almost every company that ends up making morally questionable decisions!

The operative word is “trying”. You can “try” to do the right thing but find yourself restricted by various constraints. If an employee actually did the right thing (e.g. publish the weights of all their models, or shed light on how they were trained and on what), they get fired. If the CEO or similarly high-ranking exec actually did the right thing, the company would lose out on profits. So, rationalization is all they can do. “I'm trying to do the right thing, but.” “People don't see the big picture because they're not CEOs and don't understand the constraints.”

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#287

Post by norskeld »

billmcneale wrote: post #262
maest wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to Pascal's wager, which pretty much amounts to "yeah, God is probably not real, _but what if it is_? The utility of getting into heaven is infinite (and hell is infinitely negative), so any non-zero probability that God is real should make you be religious, just in case." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager#Analysis_with...

I am convinced! Which god should I believe in, though? There are so many. And what if I pick the wrong god?

You should believe in all of them. Just spray and pray!

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#288

Post by senko »

retornam wrote: post #247

Doesn't it bother anybody that their product heavily relies on FastAPI according to this post yet they haven't donated to the project or aren't listed as sponsors? https://github.com/sponsors/tiangolo#sponsors https://github.com/fastapi/fastapi?tab=readme-ov-file#sponso...

Presumably it also relies on Python, Linux, nginx, coreutils and a bunch of other stuff they haven't donated to.

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#289

Post by segalord »

> 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.

That is literally how openAI gets data for fine-tuning it's models, by testing it on real users and letting them supply data and use cases. (tool calling, computer use, thinking, all of these were championed by people outside and they had the data)

Re: Reflections on OpenAI

#290

Post by Timwi »

kaashif wrote: post #159
tptacek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

> I also don't believe AGI is a thing Why not? I don't think we're anywhere close, but there are no physical limitations I can see that prevent AGI. It's not impossible in the same way our current understanding indicates FTL travel or time travel is.

I also believe that AGI is not a thing, but for different reasons. I notice that almost everybody seems to implicitly assume, without justification, that humans are a GI (general intelligence). I think it's easy to see that if we are not a GI, then we can't see what we're missing, so it will feel like we might be GI when we're really not. People also don't seem interested in justifying why humans would be GI but other animals with 99% of the same DNA aren't.

My main reason for thinking general intelligence is not a thing is similar to how Turing completeness is not a thing. You can conceptualize a Turing machine, but you can't actually build one for real. I think actual general intelligence would require an infinite brain.

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