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Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

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Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#121

Post by voncheese »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #21

The thesis is as follows: OpenAI receives funds as a non-profit. Some of those funds are redirected to for profit ventures. Critically, the GM (Altman) of the nonprofit owns shares of the for-profit ventures, that OpenAI funds were redirected into. A regular company could and does invest in any company even when there's a conflict, as long as the conflict is disclosed and the Board votes in favor of it. There's no cr…

The problem with the current political situation/administration in the US is that there's so much existing conflict of interest going on that anytime the government investigates concerns about conflict of interest, it feels politically motivated because of the uneven investigation.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#122

Post by deaton »

hx8 wrote: post #68
jjulius wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... I still kind of want to try to believe he's not. Asking genuinely - why?

What if it's actually super-intelligence and a human aligned visionary is at the helm. The good case is very good.

If he's our representative in the era of superintelligence, we are all screwed.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#123

Post by kccoder »

swingboy wrote: post #100
manphone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ran a government institution that recklessly cut public spending and hurt us all. What are you talking about?

DOGE only cut like $7 billion dollars which is nothing in the bigger picture.

Their ineffectiveness at reducing the debt doesn't indicate the changes they made didn't have an outsized effect on many lives. USAID for example.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#124

Post by _verandaguy »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #99
shimman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it, let them attack each other and hopefully the backlash will elect a labor President to turn the final screws on knee capping big tech for the next 50 years.

How do you knee cap big tech when other countries continue to push forward with it?

IMHO: when an emerging technology threatens the livelihoods of millions, it's responsible and ethical to step away from seeing this stuff through a purely competitive lens.

Out of the three big geographic players, the US and China are jockeying for "most performant" models (whatever that means) with two separate approaches; the EU is trying to develop models that work best within their privacy, human rights and labour rights frameworks and laws.

All of these have have merits, though arguably the US's (de-facto) strategy of market dominance at any cost with as few restraints as possible will be the worst for society at large. The prudent thing to do would be to first determine if this is something that will actually live up to the hype (which IMO is still very much in the air), and then if it does, turns this into an international collaboration rather than a competitive enterprise.

It's not lost on me that this is a terminally naive point of view.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#125

Post by lawn »

danaw wrote: post #87
tremon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you heard? Psychopath, like Pedophile, is a mere epithet these days, to indicate a person's favoured status with the in-crowd. In contrast to the equally meaningless epithet "woke".

who's calling people pedos that don't at least have credible allegations against them of that crime (eg trump)?

Musk has a history.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#126

Post by latexr »

saulpw wrote: post #108
hx8 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it's actually super-intelligence and a human aligned visionary is at the helm. The good case is very good.

I mean what if he's actually the second coming of Christ. We can make up "what if"s all day but it's meaningless to even discuss them if you don't have a shred of evidence to support the claim.

> I mean what if he's actually the second coming of Christ.

Makes sense. Cue Don LaFontaine: In a world, where one man sacrificed himself for all of humanity… And they learned nothing of his lessons… In a country where people lie in his name as an excuse to hate their fellow man… Where they mock him by wearing his moment of death as jewellery¹… He’s back and adopted a new identity to slowly fuck them all and make the world burn… Johnny W Pussyfoot is Jesus in: The Second Coming.

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJSZcxXe7IQ

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#127

Post by platevoltage »

mindslight wrote: post #102
shimman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it, let them attack each other and hopefully the backlash will elect a labor President to turn the final screws on knee capping big tech for the next 50 years.

Democrats being only slightly less beholden to corporate interests and functioning as controlled opposition is exactly how we've gotten to the point we're at. I'd like to be optimistic and say that the backlash from the second Trump catastrophe will be a full 8 years of simmering authoritarianism rather than the current rolling boil , but that wasn't even true after 2020. I think media saturation has gotten so strong…

Yup. that's why we need new Democrats.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#128

Post by genxy »

elmomle wrote: post #56
meowface wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a more benign explanation for these things? Altman is undeniably famously cagey and political but despite most of the tech and non-tech worlds at this point seeing him as some kind of con artist, I still kind of want to try to believe he's not. No doubt some of OpenAI's founding principles like "stop + assist if a competitor gets to AGI first" are likely flying out the window, perhaps in part due to him and…

He will say whatever it takes to get the result he wants. That's manipulative and, when pursued as a lifestyle, sociopathic. Living like that is corrupting. When you treat humans like objects, the question of your starting intentions is really secondary.

I like his tactic of talking to everyone individually to be able to tell each person exactly what they want to hear. I now use that one all the time.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#129

Post by platevoltage »

tremon wrote: post #48
threethirtytwo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God why do people frame things in such extremes? Neither person is a psychopath. If anyone is closer to a psychopath it’s Altman, but he doesn’t completely fit the monicker.

Haven't you heard? Psychopath, like Pedophile, is a mere epithet these days, to indicate a person's favoured status with the in-crowd. In contrast to the equally meaningless epithet "woke".

Except Psychopath and Pedophile are actual words that weren't lifted straight off of gen-z slang.

Re: Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO

#130

Post by platevoltage »

scottyah wrote: post #107
Arainach wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no one in the country is feeling a boom. Everyone is feeling the consequences of their greed and recklessness.

AI is the only thing keeping the S&P afloat. You don't want to see what it would look like when all pensions numbers start going down. So far it's fake numbers from inflation and the value is decreasing dramatically, but at least they still go up.

There's no way you think that will be sustainable even in the short term.
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