didn't know Thiel had helped start this here Y Combinator
He didn't. That sentence was a bit confusingly written but "co-founded" binds only to the second name.
The Contradictions of Sam Altman
171–180 of 564 posts
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have the source, it was a video interview, but Sam said he has personally invested in around 400 startups. And it says here he employs "a couple of dozen people" to manage his investment and homes. At that scale I think you yourself basically are a venture capital firm.
You are just describing a rich person, not how he became rich.
Those 400 startups are gradual investments. They didn't all happen overnight. If you have really early access to some very promising startups you don't need a shitton of money to invest in them.
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can use Anthropic’s chatbot in Quora’s Poe app. Right now it isn’t as good as Bing or ChatGPT. Misses some basic logic things, and the “As an AI language model” BS still stops it from doing fun things like making Jesus rap battle Gus Fring (that was like a month ago, someone in the replies got it to do that so I’ll have to check it out again). I’d have to see how it is at writing PowerPoints but idk
Verse 1 - Jesus I'm the son of God, the King of Kings You're just a drug lord, selling crystal meth and things My teachings change lives, bring peace to the world You bring addiction, violence and pain, unfurled Chorus Jesus, the savior, the light in the dark Gus Fring, the villain, who leaves his mark Verse 2 - Gus Fring You talk a big game, but where's your proof? I've built an empire, with power that's bulletproof…
Huh, last time I checked it it gave me a message about how that was “offensive to Christians”. I’ll have to check it out again
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There is also the substantial effectiveness of propaganda, and the fact that it is essentially impossible to know if one's beliefs/"facts" have been conditioned by it.
That most discussions on such matters typically devolve rapidly into the regurgitation of unsound memes doesn't help matters much either.
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#175Are there any employees of OpenAI around? I had a question: Does anyone in the office stop to contemplate the ramifications of developing technology that will likely put most people out of a job, which will have a whole host of knock-on effects?
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Many of them probably do contemplate it. Aware that since AI is a sea change, there's difficulty predicting the full range of first-order consequences, much less all the resulting second-order ones.
But... genie, bottle; prisoner's dilemma. If they object to what they're building, or how it's implemented, too strenuously, they will be out of a job. Then not only do they have more immediate concerns about sustaining themselves, they have no weight in how things play out.
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#176Earlier 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.…
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
[deleted]
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#177Sama He stuck to the 99.9% gamble of setting money on fire that were startups and navigated to the big time(tm). Also, he helped lift Clerky, Triplebyte, YC, and may others pre, during, and post Loopt. Not many people (or no one) "deserves" success, but Sama brings a healthy dose of goodwill wherever he goes.
Are you kidding? He had one startup that was more or less a flop, then for some reason was appointed to a high position at y combinator, got lucky allocating capital (plenty of idiots can and have gotten lucky or were at the right place at the right time) and now is the CEO of OpenAI. This man is the definition of it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and that’s not a good thing.
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#178Stop 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…
In general governments have done far more harm to individuals than anyone in the market. The job of the government is to protect your individual rights not the collective interest.
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paul Graham is his Les Wexner. "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking 'Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.'" "Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs…
If anyone has read "Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murukami, there was the idea of being possessed by the sheep which turned one into a forceful business man. I have only met a couple people like this, but as in the quote it's immediately obvious, and you see why they are where they are.
In my opinion, this book is his most underrated book. It's very funny, highly recommend!
Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman
#180> 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…
> lessons from Black Mirror and 1984 Those are works of fiction.
"The only thing stupider than thinking something will happen because it is depicted in science fiction is thinking something will not happen because it is depicted in science fiction."
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/position-statement-on-...