OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#81

Post by mofeien » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

It seems that every time an article is posted on HN about a lab leader calling for a coordinated Pause of AI development, a sizeable fraction of commenters are interpreting it as hype or admission of failure, often with high confidence that AI progress is slowing.

Is would be understandable for it to be wishful thinking and dissociation with reality facing the fact that our jobs and what many of us love doing is being automated and taken away, and our craft being made economically worthless.

But no one knows where the limit is. It was only one year ago that Claude code was starting to become useful and now it handles large code bases with a dexterity that is unseen in humans, where within each session it basically starts from a clean slate.

So instead of denying that this is actually happening right now, it would be much more productive to actually take sama and others at their word and push for global regulation, to force them to do as they say and slow down with this technology and proceed more judiciously.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#82

Post by bpodgursky » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

aogaili wrote: post #54

bpodgursky wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? What world are you living on.

Let me ask you, have you noticed that all the major labs are releasing models very similar in gains and performance? How do you explain that other than juicing the max out of the current architecture and processes.

? "everyone is advancing but tied" is completely different than arguing we're at the top of an S curve

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#83

Post by aogaili » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

tadejpetric wrote: post #67

aogaili wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you, have you noticed that all the major labs are releasing models very similar in gains and performance? How do you explain that other than juicing the max out of the current architecture and processes.

They have been releasing similar gains/performance for years now... Pretty much never has one company been dominant for a long time (except the initial GPT3/4 release I suppose. That period took a while for others to catch up)

Yeah - that's why I think they are basically squeezing the scaling laws and the current architecture with incremental innovations.

I expect they will continue optimizing and improving for the current use cases/benchmarks. But the core capabilities will stagnant, that's why they will be forced to slow down until another major breakthrough happens.

I personally don't think LLMs have any understanding of the world, nor any imagination or even agency. I think it got very good as recognizing patterns and shapes in human thinking, language and knowledge, but that's pretty much it.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#84

Post by aogaili » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #82

aogaili wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you, have you noticed that all the major labs are releasing models very similar in gains and performance? How do you explain that other than juicing the max out of the current architecture and processes.

? "everyone is advancing but tied" is completely different than arguing we're at the top of an S curve

I think it's narrowing at the top.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#85

Post by lelanthran » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

marcelo-earth wrote: post #50

manmal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a convenient time, just as coding capability seems to reach the upper end of the S curve.

How? Coding capabilities keep improving, there is no break

> How? Coding capabilities keep improving, there is no break

So? The upper end of the S-curve is also a line that still rises.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#86

Post by gfody » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

an0malous wrote: post #79

bpodgursky wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? What world are you living on.

The one where it’s infeasible that a company that needs to live up to a valuation of like 5% of US GDP but is still burning cash and has no moat would willingly decide to slow down the pace of development of their core technology

> has no moat

I would love to see someone try to escape with a copy of openai's raw unaligned base model

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#87

Post by gyguu » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #32

manmal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a convenient time, just as coding capability seems to reach the upper end of the S curve.

? What world are you living on.

How long would it take for a team of 60 to replicate the software that operates a neobank? Serious question - I want serious responses pls ty.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#88

Post by naishoya » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

gfody wrote: post #86

an0malous wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one where it’s infeasible that a company that needs to live up to a valuation of like 5% of US GDP but is still burning cash and has no moat would willingly decide to slow down the pace of development of their core technology

> has no moat I would love to see someone try to escape with a copy of openai's raw unaligned base model

I expect they are slowing down in an attempt to keep from having those models improve to the point where they can effectively escape unassisted into the wild.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#89

Post by manmal » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

chis wrote: post #40

manmal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a convenient time, just as coding capability seems to reach the upper end of the S curve.

HN comments are just on a different planet lately lol

I‘m using Sol all day every day. It’s on average doing better than Astra at what I need it to do. Astra is like an absent minded professor - gives good direct responses, but too inconsistent and forgetful for my codebase.

Re: OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees

#90

Post by manmal » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #32

manmal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a convenient time, just as coding capability seems to reach the upper end of the S curve.

? What world are you living on.

Unless you’re making 3D models of apartments and oneshotting trivial games, I‘m not convinced Astra writes better code than Sol. I‘m way more often disappointed about Astra forgetting some aspect that Sol just nails.