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I resigned from OpenAI

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Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#111
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack booted thugs shot a women in the face for the crime of sitting in her car and the administration called her a terrorist. Nothing happened to the thug. Jack booted thugs shot a man in the back for the crime of defending a woman and the administration called him a terrorist. Nothing happened to that thug either.

Absolutely. But what people don't realize is this sort of thing happens in China too, it's just never reported or heard about, other than some whispers here and there, because of such tight control over the media, the internet, and public discourse. In the US, as much as the fascists are trying to take over, at least you can still protest and make your voice heard.

Source?

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's the sign. Ai often fails to do what it's told. So that's the sign of it asked to not sound like an AI. I told AI to do this for my current post as well.

ok. do you see any more concrete signs? to me it smells like openai output with newlines removed. but aside from smell (and the negative parallel construction), one could argue that this may be the output of a human who has been influenced by the prose of ai.

Perhaps there isn't really a functional difference.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#113

Anybody who stays at openai is signing on to build machines that will be used to kill innocent people and control people who think that’s a bad idea.

Considering the agreement Anthropic has with Palintar, you could say the exact same about employees working at Anthropic.

Edit: Google, too. Microsoft with its Israel and US Gov ties. Probably most of big tech tbh. How do you recommend we view these employees from an ethical perspective?

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#114
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m worried that China will build said killing machines and that we’ll be unprepared.

I'm worried that China will build said killing machines only because they see that we are and feel the need to be prepared.

If you compare how many countries China has attacked or invaded with how many the United States has attacked or invaded, it paints a clear picture of whom to fear.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok. do you see any more concrete signs? to me it smells like openai output with newlines removed. but aside from smell (and the negative parallel construction), one could argue that this may be the output of a human who has been influenced by the prose of ai.

Perhaps there isn't really a functional difference.

as a black box there evidently is no functional difference, as output is perceptibly identical in both cases. as a white box its amusing to consider that an ai worker may themselves become verbally indistguishable from ai, although in this particular case its more likely that the ai worker is simply lazy and told ai to write a tweet for them.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anybody who stays at openai And paying off their mortgage and feeding their families and has a job in unstable times. Morals come a distant last in the current state of affairs.

Why have them if they don't mean anything?

That’s the result of equating survival with earning money. Western societies have done a good job of ensuring that. As long as morals aren’t equated to either to money or survival, they lose their meaning and become nice to have.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#117

Anybody who stays at openai is signing on to build machines that will be used to kill innocent people and control people who think that’s a bad idea.

Considering the agreement Anthropic has with Palintar, you could say the exact same about employees working at Anthropic. Edit: Google, too. Microsoft with its Israel and US Gov ties. Probably most of big tech tbh. How do you recommend we view these employees from an ethical perspective?

Are they working on building tech that is being used for weapons or mass surveilance? Like yes Microsoft has contracts with israel, but their entire business is not centered around those contracts. If you help build a better ai for openai, it will be used for war and control. If you help build a better version of one of the 10,000 things microsoft makes, that’s not definitely going to be used for war and control.

Not to get all historical on you, but if you worked for IBM in the 1930s-1940s you may have worked on something that was used to perpitrate a holocaust. Was that ethical? I don’t think so.

That said, it’s very easy to abstract yourself away from the harm. To tell yourself you’re not the one who builds the landmines, you just maintain the coffee machine at the landmine factory. But that’s just lying to yourself. An honest and deep appraisal of what you’re work is helping make happen is required to decide if your job is ethical or not.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#118
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anybody who stays at openai And paying off their mortgage and feeding their families and has a job in unstable times. Morals come a distant last in the current state of affairs.

There are levels to morality, from the abstract (e.g. climate change, energy usage, veganism) to the concrete (murder). Time are unstable, but there are multiple ways to make money. If you are established in your career, you can probably find work in a similar field, but the worst case scenario would be to drive a truck. The way you frame it, you make it sound like an engineer at OpenAI has no choice but to work ther…

Unfortunately there are such things as social media where potential new employers check.

That makes this step even more risky as this is an open opposition. Mostly probably they have already signed at anthropic.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#119

Anybody who stays at openai is signing on to build machines that will be used to kill innocent people and control people who think that’s a bad idea.

> Anybody who stays at openai And paying off their mortgage and feeding their families and has a job in unstable times. Morals come a distant last in the current state of affairs.

Someone with OpenAI on their resume (and vested shares) does not have to worry about finding another job, paying the mortgage, or feeding their families.

This is not a relevant point to this discussion.

Re: I resigned from OpenAI

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have them if they don't mean anything?

That’s the result of equating survival with earning money. Western societies have done a good job of ensuring that. As long as morals aren’t equated to either to money or survival, they lose their meaning and become nice to have.

> That’s the result of equating survival with earning money. Western societies have done a good job of ensuring that.

OpenAI engineers with vested shares are not worried about having enough money to survive.

This is a lame attempt to shoe-horn unrelated political talking points and “Western society bad” into a conversation about highly paid engineers who will have no problem putting food on the table.

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