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At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

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Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#121

Post by ofjcihen »

dgellow wrote: post #68

Whatever you think of AI for your own work, the fact that the entire economy is betting everything on it is really concerning. It’s not just the fact that it may not work well economically speaking and would end up with a market crash, or all the negative externalities from AI development, it’s also the opportunity cost we are paying. With so much human capital and resources dedicated to developing and running LLMs a…

I know Ed Zitron is a dirty word on HN most days but having recently read some of his (highly editorialized) work… it seems like he’s right and the numbers just aren’t making sense.

Combine that with the fact that “good enough” is a real thing and cheap Chinese models are either there or close depending on your use case and it’s hard to see how this ends well.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#122

Post by rvba »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #119
dgellow wrote: post #68

Whatever you think of AI for your own work, the fact that the entire economy is betting everything on it is really concerning. It’s not just the fact that it may not work well economically speaking and would end up with a market crash, or all the negative externalities from AI development, it’s also the opportunity cost we are paying. With so much human capital and resources dedicated to developing and running LLMs a…

Moonshots are concerning until you consider the alternative. AI is the one and only possibility for saving millions (likely billions) of lives from “old age”, cancers, Alzheimer’s, ALS… you name it. It’s a big bet. The alternative is we all die anyway: sadly after a gradual decline at best or horribly after long undignified suffering at worst. I’ll take the economic risk.

If those billions were poured in research it could bring results too.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#123

Post by hack1312 »

warshinder wrote: post #108
williamdclt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure that I do prefer the AI train to the social media / ad train. I certainly would if the direction was "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so to gradually free citizens from the need to work", but right now it's "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so that we can sacrifice workers for higher corporate profits".

Not to mention how they will be used by terrorists and evil people to create biological weapons and other tools of mass slaughter. Or how it will be/is being used by criminals to target vulnerable people and businesses. Or how coupled with drone warfare the world becomes an unlivable hellhole in the next decade. But Marc Andreesan said only losers are against “tech accelerationiism” on twitter so here we are. Edit: a…

Terrorists and evil people already use the internet for the same thing.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#124

Post by hack1312 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #119
dgellow wrote: post #68

Whatever you think of AI for your own work, the fact that the entire economy is betting everything on it is really concerning. It’s not just the fact that it may not work well economically speaking and would end up with a market crash, or all the negative externalities from AI development, it’s also the opportunity cost we are paying. With so much human capital and resources dedicated to developing and running LLMs a…

Moonshots are concerning until you consider the alternative. AI is the one and only possibility for saving millions (likely billions) of lives from “old age”, cancers, Alzheimer’s, ALS… you name it. It’s a big bet. The alternative is we all die anyway: sadly after a gradual decline at best or horribly after long undignified suffering at worst. I’ll take the economic risk.

> AI is the one and only possibility for saving millions (likely billions) of lives from “old age”, cancers, Alzheimer’s, ALS… you name it.

Says you and everyone else with a financial incentive to trick people into believing this.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#125

Post by terribleperson »

warshinder wrote: post #108
williamdclt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure that I do prefer the AI train to the social media / ad train. I certainly would if the direction was "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so to gradually free citizens from the need to work", but right now it's "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so that we can sacrifice workers for higher corporate profits".

Not to mention how they will be used by terrorists and evil people to create biological weapons and other tools of mass slaughter. Or how it will be/is being used by criminals to target vulnerable people and businesses. Or how coupled with drone warfare the world becomes an unlivable hellhole in the next decade. But Marc Andreesan said only losers are against “tech accelerationiism” on twitter so here we are. Edit: a…

You can, right now, find out how to synthesize VX or sarin, or how to weaponize anthrax. You can and have been able to acquire this knowledge without the use of AI. Knowledge is not the obstacle to proliferation of biological and chemical weapons. It's hard to set up the infrastructure. See Aum Shinrikyo.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#126

Post by hightrix »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #106
florakel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer that scenario to the one we had before where too many smart people were building out social networks and similar services trying to maximize ad impressions. We are still dealing with the consequences…

> too many smart people were building out social networks and similar services trying to maximize ad impressions. Honest question: where should these very smart people work then in your opinion? Nearly all suitable-looking, "smarter" ideas that come to my mind will bring less revenue/profit in expectation than, for example, letting them maximize ad impressions. I of course wish we lived in a "more intelligent" world…

> where should these very smart people work then in your opinion?

Anywhere else. Ads are a net negative to society and provide no value. ANY activity outside of pushing ads is a better contribution to society as a whole.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#127

Post by duped »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #106
florakel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer that scenario to the one we had before where too many smart people were building out social networks and similar services trying to maximize ad impressions. We are still dealing with the consequences…

> too many smart people were building out social networks and similar services trying to maximize ad impressions. Honest question: where should these very smart people work then in your opinion? Nearly all suitable-looking, "smarter" ideas that come to my mind will bring less revenue/profit in expectation than, for example, letting them maximize ad impressions. I of course wish we lived in a "more intelligent" world…

Probably not on systems that rot democracy, freedom, and human expression. Companies like Google and Meta are net negative for humanity and the people that built these companies and continue to work for them are evil in their apathy towards the human cost of their salary.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#128

Post by [deleted] »

warshinder wrote: post #108
williamdclt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure that I do prefer the AI train to the social media / ad train. I certainly would if the direction was "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so to gradually free citizens from the need to work", but right now it's "we're throwing ourselves blindly in AI so that we can sacrifice workers for higher corporate profits".

Not to mention how they will be used by terrorists and evil people to create biological weapons and other tools of mass slaughter. Or how it will be/is being used by criminals to target vulnerable people and businesses. Or how coupled with drone warfare the world becomes an unlivable hellhole in the next decade. But Marc Andreesan said only losers are against “tech accelerationiism” on twitter so here we are. Edit: a…

[deleted]

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#129

Post by vanuatu »

dgellow wrote: post #68

Whatever you think of AI for your own work, the fact that the entire economy is betting everything on it is really concerning. It’s not just the fact that it may not work well economically speaking and would end up with a market crash, or all the negative externalities from AI development, it’s also the opportunity cost we are paying. With so much human capital and resources dedicated to developing and running LLMs a…

at the current pace, LLMs are the researchers

the end goal isnt to serve a chatbot to replace google or a coding agent to build crud

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#130

Post by MichaelDickens »

tmpz22 wrote: post #93
andy99 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People ask the same question of why YC funds yet another Uber for dogs or a button on the Touch Bar that cost $10/mo to help join a meeting faster. They invest in people more than ideas, so you’ve got, at least in many cases, people with good pedigree and skills (age adjusted anyway) building on stupid ideas, but that are eminently employable. Obviously there are other factors, I’m not really trying to defend anythin…

> but that are eminently employable This is what always stood out to me. Founders talk about the risks they take as their major legitimizing force. But what risk? They’re the types who can (mostly) skip an interview and go direct into a six figure job - because of the sales and founder networks they develop. Startup founders with no risk doesnt sound like a recipe for great companies.

YC founders aren't the ones taking risks. The risk comes from pouring your life savings into a company and not getting into any incubators and never getting any VC funding and then having no savings and nothing to show for it.
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