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It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

theatlantic.com

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Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#11

Post by llamaimperative »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

A journalist's job is to journal something, exactly like how NTFS keeps a journal of what happens. A journalist doing anything other than journaling is not a journalist. So people getting quoted verbatim is perfectly fine. If the quoted turns out to be a liar, that's just part of the journal.

You’re describing a PR representative. Simply the decision of what to cover is inherently selective and driven by an individual’s and a culture’s priorities.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#12

Post by i80and »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

A journalist's job is to journal something, exactly like how NTFS keeps a journal of what happens. A journalist doing anything other than journaling is not a journalist. So people getting quoted verbatim is perfectly fine. If the quoted turns out to be a liar, that's just part of the journal.

That sounds more like stenography than anything else

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#13

Post by bee_rider »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

A journalist's job is to journal something, exactly like how NTFS keeps a journal of what happens. A journalist doing anything other than journaling is not a journalist. So people getting quoted verbatim is perfectly fine. If the quoted turns out to be a liar, that's just part of the journal.

I don’t think that’s right. First off, we don’t generally define jobs based on the closest computer analogy (we would be unhappy if the loggers returned with a list of things that happened in the woods, rather than a bunch of wood).

The journalist’s job is to describe what actually is happening, and to provide enough context for readers to understand it. Some bias will inevitably creep in, because they can’t possibly describe every event that has ever happened to their subject. But for example if they are interviewing somebody who usually lies, it would be more accurate to at least include a small note about that.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#14

Post by soared »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

A journalist's job is to journal something, exactly like how NTFS keeps a journal of what happens. A journalist doing anything other than journaling is not a journalist. So people getting quoted verbatim is perfectly fine. If the quoted turns out to be a liar, that's just part of the journal.

Thats.. not what journalism means. I don’t know where you got that definition, but I can’t find anything similar. Processing and displaying information is a huge part of journalism - ie assessing what is truth or fiction and communicating each as such. Wikipedia: > A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#15

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

> At a high enough level of abstraction, Altman’s entire job is to keep us all fixated on an imagined AI future

I think the job of a CEO is not to tell you the truth, and the truth is probably more often than not, the opposite.

What if gpt5 is vaporware, and there’s no equivalent 3 to 4 leap to be realized with current deep learning architectures? What is OpenAI worth then?

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#16

Post by Dalewyn »

bee_rider wrote: post #13
Dalewyn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A journalist's job is to journal something, exactly like how NTFS keeps a journal of what happens. A journalist doing anything other than journaling is not a journalist. So people getting quoted verbatim is perfectly fine. If the quoted turns out to be a liar, that's just part of the journal.

I don’t think that’s right. First off, we don’t generally define jobs based on the closest computer analogy (we would be unhappy if the loggers returned with a list of things that happened in the woods, rather than a bunch of wood). The journalist’s job is to describe what actually is happening, and to provide enough context for readers to understand it. Some bias will inevitably creep in, because they can’t possibly…

>The journalist’s job is to describe what actually is happening, and to provide enough context for readers to understand it.

The former is a journalist's job, the latter is the reader's concern and not the journalist.

One of the reasons I consider journalism a cancer upon humanity is because journalists can't just write down "it is 35 degrees celsius today at 2pm", but rather "you won't believe how hot it is".

Just journal down what the hell happens literally and plainly, we as readers can and should figure out the rest. NTFS doesn't interject opinions and clickbait into its journal, and neither should proper journalists.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#17

Post by secondcoming »

Apreche wrote: post #10
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

It’s possible to insert a few sentences factually accounting for a person’s character without inserting a subjective judgement of character. For example you could say: Joey JoeJoe, billionaire CEO, who notably said horrible things, was convicted of some crimes, and ate three babies, was quoted as saying “machine learning is just so awesome”. There, you didn’t inject a judgement. You accurately quoted the subject. You…

"Nelson Mandela, convicted of some crimes, calls for World Peace"

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#18

Post by yownie »

api wrote: post #8
cyanydeez wrote: post #6

Better headline : It's too late to stop taking Sam Altman at his word See same with Elon Musk. Money turns genius to smooth brained egomaniacal idiots. See same with Steve Jobs

Money removes social feedback. You end up surrounded with bobble heads telling you how genius you are… because they want your money. This is terrible for human psychology. It’s almost like a kind of solitary confinement — solitary in the sense that you are utterly deprived of meaningful rich human contact.

it's this more than anything else I wish the general public would understand, those same bobble heads that surround celebrities and eventually warp all sense of costs of common everyday items. We often only see the end result of this when so-and-so celebrity declares bankruptcy and the masses cheer.

In reality they've been vampire sucked dry by close family / friends / salesmen for years and didn't know it.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#19

Post by Moto7451 »

MailleQuiMaille wrote: post #5
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

>Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. Is it even possible ? Like, don't you know the political inclination of any website/journal you read ? I feel like this search of "The Objective Truth" is just a chimera. I'd rather articles combine pros and cons of everything they discuss tbh

There’s a difference between having natural human biases you try to avoid when reporting by using the usual context sentence (where, when, to whom something was stated), quote, appositive denoting speaker, quote format and writing “this guy is full of crap” or “you really need to believe this person” while cherry picking statements.

You can easily find examples of each. Both NYT and Slate are considered left leaning and at the same time have been the professional stomping grounds of right leaning writers that started their own media companies that are not left leaning. Everyone has a bias and they don’t have to work somewhere with that same bias, especially if you just stick to the paper’s style guide. On the same substance the two media outlets present the same topic very differently. Sometimes I appreciate the Slate format for the author’s candor and view being injected (like being pointed on Malcom Gladwell). Sometimes I just want to know the facts as clearly stated as possible (I don’t care if the author doesn’t believe in climate change, tell me what happened when North Carolina flooded).

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#20

Post by smogcutter »

MailleQuiMaille wrote: post #5
bediger4000 wrote: post #3

This seems like a more general problem with journalistic practices. Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. So they quote people exactly. Quoting exactly means that bad actors can inject falsehoods into articles. I don't have any suggestions on how to solve this. Everything I can think of has immediate large flaws.

>Journalists don't want to inject their own judgements into articles, which is admirable, and makes sense. Is it even possible ? Like, don't you know the political inclination of any website/journal you read ? I feel like this search of "The Objective Truth" is just a chimera. I'd rather articles combine pros and cons of everything they discuss tbh

Yes, you’ve rediscovered the curriculum of a journalism 101 class.
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