The Contradictions of Sam Altman • Hacker News Board

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#121

Post by birdymcbird » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

iibarea wrote: post #87

There's tons of extremely effective marketing around who this guy is, what he stands for - and so I'd instead look at what he's done. He took a non-profit intended to offset the commercial motives driving AI development, and turned it into a for profit closely tied to Microsoft. I think he's an extremely shrewd executive and salesman, but nothing he's done suggests any altruistic motivations - that part always seems…

> altruistic motivations

feel like trend among Silicon Valley companies and tech ‘genius’ personality about having altruism. some delusion that basing personality on this lie will make them untouchable and elevate their character, as if they not in this just to make ton of money like every other company and industry. and American media generally push this propaganda. SBF prime example.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#122

Post by cactusplant7374 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

TechnicolorByte wrote: post #115

iibarea wrote: post #87

There's tons of extremely effective marketing around who this guy is, what he stands for - and so I'd instead look at what he's done. He took a non-profit intended to offset the commercial motives driving AI development, and turned it into a for profit closely tied to Microsoft. I think he's an extremely shrewd executive and salesman, but nothing he's done suggests any altruistic motivations - that part always seems…

It’s a capped-profit structure where excess profit will supposedly go back to the no-profit side. From a recent NYTimes article [1]: > But these profits are capped, and any additional revenue will be pumped back into the OpenAI nonprofit that was founded back in 2015. > His grand idea is that OpenAI will capture much of the world’s wealth through the creation of A.G.I. and then redistribute this wealth to the people.…

Are the profits capped for Altman?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#123

Post by Jasper_ » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

TechnicolorByte wrote: post #115

iibarea wrote: post #87

There's tons of extremely effective marketing around who this guy is, what he stands for - and so I'd instead look at what he's done. He took a non-profit intended to offset the commercial motives driving AI development, and turned it into a for profit closely tied to Microsoft. I think he's an extremely shrewd executive and salesman, but nothing he's done suggests any altruistic motivations - that part always seems…

It’s a capped-profit structure where excess profit will supposedly go back to the no-profit side. From a recent NYTimes article [1]: > But these profits are capped, and any additional revenue will be pumped back into the OpenAI nonprofit that was founded back in 2015. > His grand idea is that OpenAI will capture much of the world’s wealth through the creation of A.G.I. and then redistribute this wealth to the people.…

Returns are capped at 100x their initial investment, which, you know, is not that big of a cap. VCs would go crazy for a 100x return. Most companies, even unicorns, don't get there.

They're justifying it by saying AGI is so stupidly big that OpenAI will see 100000x returns if uncapped. So, you know, standard FOMO tactics.

[0] https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#124

Post by rhaway84773 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #7

I believe you can't, at the same time, accuse OpenAI of benefitting of ideas mostly invented elsewhere, and also claim that they are in a predominant position. It does not make any sense, and they are not naturally positioned for a monopoly. Just other companies have to move their asses.

I’m not sure why that doesn’t make sense.

In a winner takes all market, where the product is highly complex, which is likely the case for any product developed since the advent of computers, if not before, the predominant position will almost certainly be taken by somebody, and since it’s a highly complex product, it’s likely no one entity thought of and/or implemented even close to a majority of the ideas needed to make it work.

In fact, it’s likely to be a random winner amongst 10-20 entities who implemented some of the ideas, and another potentially larger number of entities who implemented equally good, or even better, ideas, which happened to fail for reasons that couldn’t have been known in advance.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#125

Post by jeremyjh » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

cowl wrote: post #118

jeremyjh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then Russia invades Ukraine and people change their minds about what is important, and what is possible.

But that's my point. If their opposition was not on principle but based on the naive Idea that "we will live in peace and harmony", I really am afraid what other naive principles are in the bases of their work and what safeguards are being set in place for the AIs.

There is a such thing as being principled and then finding out you were naive.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#126

Post by victor106 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

> OpenAI and Microsoft also created a joint safety board, which includes Mr. Altman and Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, that has the power to roll back Microsoft and OpenAI product releases if they are deemed too dangerous.

what a joke.

find me one instance where the ceo of a company picked public interest/safety over profits when there was no regulatory oversight?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#127

Post by cactusplant7374 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

birdymcbird wrote: post #121

iibarea wrote: post #87

There's tons of extremely effective marketing around who this guy is, what he stands for - and so I'd instead look at what he's done. He took a non-profit intended to offset the commercial motives driving AI development, and turned it into a for profit closely tied to Microsoft. I think he's an extremely shrewd executive and salesman, but nothing he's done suggests any altruistic motivations - that part always seems…

> altruistic motivations feel like trend among Silicon Valley companies and tech ‘genius’ personality about having altruism. some delusion that basing personality on this lie will make them untouchable and elevate their character, as if they not in this just to make ton of money like every other company and industry. and American media generally push this propaganda. SBF prime example.

> and American media generally push this propaganda. SBF prime example.

Did they? I've only listened to one interview of SBF and that was done by Tyler Cowen. He seemed totally aloof to the seriousness of running an exchange. If anything we've been convinced that idiosyncratic individuals are our saviors.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#128

Post by ohgodplsno » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

mongol wrote: post #9

How did he become so rich? His Wikipedia page does not have much details on this.

Parents were rich, sent their child to Stanford and used their connections to let him build connections to other rich people, founded a shitty startup in the middle of a period where any rich kid making a social media company would get bought out for dozens of millions, rest is history.

He's always been rich.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#129

Post by bmitc » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

startupsfail wrote: post #111

iibarea wrote: post #87

There's tons of extremely effective marketing around who this guy is, what he stands for - and so I'd instead look at what he's done. He took a non-profit intended to offset the commercial motives driving AI development, and turned it into a for profit closely tied to Microsoft. I think he's an extremely shrewd executive and salesman, but nothing he's done suggests any altruistic motivations - that part always seems…

What I’m afraid of is that he and Ilya are not as good and smart as they paint themselves. And that a lot of key people had left (i.e. to Anthropic). And that by pure inertia they have GPT-5 on their hands and not much control over where this technology is going. I can’t tell for certain, but it does look like one of their corner pieces, the ChatGPT system prompt which sits at the funnel of the data collection had de…

> What I’m afraid of is that he and Ilya are not as good and smart as they paint themselves.

This describes almost any venture capitalist or high-profile startup founders, as far as I can tell. Most don't realize their either privileged path or lucky path or both had more to do with it than their smarts.

I really like James Simons as he mostly attributes his success to luck and being able to hire and organize smart people and give them the tools they need to work. He basically describes it as luck and taste, despite his actual smarts and his enormous impact on the world.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#130

Post by graeme » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #76

whitepoplar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to believe that Sam doesn't have equity in OpenAI. It must be some 4D-chess-style ownership structure, which I'm guessing is for tax avoidance.

There’s plenty of evidence that he has no equity. I’d love to see contradictory evidence, but without that, just refusing to believe things based on intuition isn’t great.

With no equity comes no control. I would find it very surprising he has no control over the project.

And if he does have control that has value whether you label it equity or not.

It is possible he literally has no control and no financial upside but who would turn down control over what they believed to be a world shaping technology?