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Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

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Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#111

Post by Quarrelsome »

pydry wrote: post #102
jrm4 wrote: post #76

Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.

Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just commoditizing the complement. The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open source.

they did say "accidentally". I find that people doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is often the best case outcome.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#112

Post by Quarrelsome »

trhway wrote: post #101
elzbardico wrote: post #80

Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-profit into a for-profit entity.

look around - CA - missionaries have the best real estate. And another related note on connection between strong promotion of devotion to ideas and it is being a good business - the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign "only the donations made here are donations to the real god" of that Temple back then against several other competing ones. (Curiously that the current historic stage…

> the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign

I thought it was because everyone was accepted, technically equal, and sins were seen as something inherent and forgivable (at least with Christianity) whereas paganism and polythiesms can tend towards rewarding those with greater resources (who can afford to sacrifice an entire bull every religious cycle), thereby creating a form of religious inequality. At least that was one of the somewhat compelling arguments I heard that described the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#113

Post by jlebar »

I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public.

I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing conversation within the company.

The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked. So you're eavesdropping on a tiny portion of a conversation. It's impossible not to take it out of context.

What's worse, you think you learned something from reading this article, even though you probably didn't, making you more confident in your conclusions when you should be less confident.

I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to see how confidently wrong most poasters are. It certainly has humbled my own reactions to news. (In this particular instance I don't think there's so much right and wrong but more that I think if you had actually been in the room for more of the conversation you'd probably feel different.)

Btw Sam has tweeted about an open source model. Stay tuned... https://x.com/sama/status/1932573231199707168

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#114

Post by pj_mukh »

neilv wrote: post #29

Can someone make an honest argument for how OpenAI staff are missionaries, after the coup? I'd be very happy to be convinced that supporting the coup was the right move for true-believer missionaries. (Edit: It's an honest and obvious question, and I think that the joke responses risk burying or discouraging honest answers.)

Honest answer*:

I think building super intelligence for the company that owns and will deploy the super intelligence in service of tech's original sin (the algorithmic feed) is a 100x worse than whatever OpenAI is doing, save maybe OpenAI's defense contract, which I have no details about.

Meta will try to buoy this by open-sourcing it, which, good for them, but I don't think it's enough. If Meta wants to save itself, it should re-align its business model away from the feeds.

In that way, as a missionary chasing super intelligence, I'd prefer OpenAI.

*because I don't have an emotional connection to OpenAI's changing corporate structure away from being a non-profit:

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#115

Post by jddj »

toofy wrote: post #69

hilarious seeing that he views it this way when his company is so very well known for taking (strong arguments say stealing) everything from everyone. i’m noticing more and more lately that our new monarchs really do have broken thought patterns. they see their own abuse towards others as perfectly ok but hilariously demand people treat them fairly. small children learn things that these guys struggle to understand.

I think they understand that it's all performative

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#116

Post by gphil »

jlebar wrote: post #113

I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public. I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing conversation within the company. The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked.…

> I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to see how confidently wrong most poasters are.

This is so true. And not confined to HN.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#117

Post by beoberha »

I understand the massive anti-OpenAI sentiment here, but OpenAI makes a really great product. ChatGPT and its ecosystem are widely used by millions every day to make them more productive. Losing these employees doesn’t bode well for users.

Meta doesn’t really have a product unless you count the awful “Meta AI” that is baked into their apps. Unless these acquisitions manifest in frontier models getting open sourced, it feels like a gigantic brain drain.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#118

Post by echelon »

jrm4 wrote: post #76

Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.

Most of Meta's models have not been released as open source. Llama was a fluke, and it helps to commoditize your compliment when you're not the market leader.

There is no good or open AI company of scale yet, and there may never be.

A few that contribute to the commons are Deep Seek and Black Forest Labs. But they don't have the same breadth and budget as the hyperscalers.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#119

Post by gist »

jlebar wrote: post #113

I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public. I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing conversation within the company. The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked.…

> I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public.

To most people I'd think this is mainly for entertainment purposes ie 'palace intrique' and the actual facts don't even matter.

> The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked. So you're eavesdropping on a tiny portion of a conversation. It's impossible not to take it out of context.

That's a good spin but coming from someone who has an anonymous profile how do we know it's true (this is a general thing on HN people say things but you don't know how legit what they say is or if they are who they say they are).

> What's worse, you think you learned something from reading this article, even though you probably didn't, making you more confident in your conclusions when you should be less confident.

What conclusions exactly? Again do most people really care about this (reading the story) and does it impact them? My guess is it doesn't at all.

> I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in.

This is a well known trope and is discussed in other forms ie 'NY Times story is wrong move to the next story and you believe it' ie: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#120

Post by jrm4 »

pydry wrote: post #102
jrm4 wrote: post #76

Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.

Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just commoditizing the complement. The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open source.

Oh, absolutely -- I definitely meant that in the least complimentary way possible :). In a way, it's just the triumph of the ideals of "open source," -- sharing is better for everyone, even Zuck, selfishly.
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