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The Contradictions of Sam Altman

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Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#161

Post by somsak2 »

graeme wrote: post #130
brookst wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I mean, most non-founder company CEOs don't have a significant % of total equity and they still have control over the company.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#162

Post by sebzim4500 »

dnissley wrote: post #146
sebzim4500 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they are both pretty smart, but if anything that makes their apparent monopoly more concerning.

Monopoly over what?

LLMs that actually work.

They are on GPT-4 and no one else is close to GPT-3.5.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#163

Post by gwd »

dragonelite wrote: post #139
victor106 wrote: post #126

> 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?

Do people really think AI will go haywire like in the Hollywood movies?

Not like in Hollywood movies, but yes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1sNLL6yg4

https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/mzgtmmTKKn5MuCzFJ

Look around alignmentforum.org or lesswrong.com, and you'll see loads of people who are worried / concerned at various levels about what could happen if we suddenly create an AI that's smarter than us.

I've got my own summary in this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35281504

But this discussion has actually been going on for nearly two decades, and there is a lot of things to read up on.

EtA: Or, for a fun version:

https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#164

Post by [deleted] »

G_z9 wrote: post #120
TechnicolorByte wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This is ducking insane. How are people not up in arms about this? Imagine if the guy who invented recombinant insulin stated publicly that he intended to capture the entire medical sector and then use the money and power to reshape society by distributing wealth as he saw fit. That’s ducking insane and dangerous. This guy has lost his fucking mind and needs to be stopped.

[deleted]

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#165

Post by latency-guy2 »

maxbond wrote: post #137
latency-guy2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an argument in the first place buddy. You're right that I don't care, because it has already been decided that Orwell is representing the future if things go "The Wrong Way (tm)", buy 1984 at Amazon for $24.99, world's best selling book. Or more succinctly to OP, "The Capitalist Way (tm)".

It's okay to decide that something isn't worth arguing against, and to spend your time in a way you find more productive. Having articulated an argument (which you absolutely did), it's not okay to try to retcon that you were just trolling and everyone else is the fool for having taken you seriously.

[flagged]

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#166

Post by efficientsticks »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #80
efficientsticks wrote: post #28

> The goal, the company said, was to avoid a race toward building dangerous AI systems fueled by competition and instead prioritize the safety of humanity. > “You want to be there first and you want to be setting the norms,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why speed is a moral and ethical thing here.” Clearly having either not learned or ignored the lessons from Black Mirror and 1984, which is that others will co…

The only issue is that in the real world, capitalism has a better track record than socialism.

I agree it’s worth looking at the history, and to not repeat its mistakes, though at the same time this is a new situation, and it will continue to be new into the future, so sticking to heuristics may not serve humanity as well than being open-minded on the policy front.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#167

Post by jeron »

dragonelite wrote: post #139
victor106 wrote: post #126

> 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?

Do people really think AI will go haywire like in the Hollywood movies?

Yudkowsky, to begin with

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#168

Post by leobg »

The contradiction I noticed during his Lex interview was him talking about being attacked by Elon Musk. He said it reminded him of how Elon once said he felt when the Apollo astronauts lobbied against SpaceX. Elon said it made him sad. Those guys were his heroes. And that the wish they would come visit and look at the work SpaceX was doing. I found that comparison by Altman disingenuous. First, he didn’t seem so much sad as he seemed angry. At one point in the interview, he said that he thought about some day attacking back. That’s not at all how Elon had felt about those astronauts. And second, why doesn’t Altman just invite Elon and show him the work they are doing? Wouldn’t take more than a phone call.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#169

Post by DubiousPusher »

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law.

It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective good. It is a temporary social convenience. The higher that niceness exists in the social order, the greater its contemporary benefit but also, the more it masks the vulnerability of that social benefit.

It matters if Sam Altman is Ghandi or Genghis Khan in a concrete way but you, as a citizen must act as if it doesn't matter.

If AI poses a danger to the social good, no amount of good guy CEOs will protect us. The only thing that will is organization and direct action.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#170

Post by sebzim4500 »

G_z9 wrote: post #120
TechnicolorByte wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This is ducking insane. How are people not up in arms about this? Imagine if the guy who invented recombinant insulin stated publicly that he intended to capture the entire medical sector and then use the money and power to reshape society by distributing wealth as he saw fit. That’s ducking insane and dangerous. This guy has lost his fucking mind and needs to be stopped.

I find OpenAI a bit sketchy, but this is an overreaction. The only difference between OpenAI and the rest is that OpenAI claims to have good intentions, only time will tell if this is true. But the others don't even claim to have good intentions. It's not like any of OpenAI's actions are unusually bad for a for-profit compnay.
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