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OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

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Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#211

Post by strogonoff »

Suchir’s suicide (if it was a suicide) is a tragedy. I happen to share some of his views, and I am negative on the impact of current ML tech on society—not because of what it can do, but precisely because of the way it is trained.

The ends do not justify the means—and it is easy to see the means having wide-ranging systemic effects besides the ends, even if we pretended those ends were well-defined and planned (which, aside from the making profit, they are clearly not: just think of the nebulous ideas and contention around AGI).

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#212

Post by OfficeChad »

bubaumba wrote: post #134
consumer451 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very naive to believe in 'European press'. To get the idea check Ukrainian war coverage. What you'll see first is how single sided it is. This is such a wild take from my POV, a person in the EU. Have you considered the possibility that the nearest imperialist power beginning to violently invade Europe again is likely to trigger a common reaction? This is one of those rare cases in modern history where there i…

I can explain a bit. Russians living in Empire of Evil can see all internet including US and EU news. At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU. In EU only one side is available. This creates an information bubble, as intended. Which is a basic crowd control technique used to drive public opinion. In this case to support the war. The result is obvious, EU polls show much stronger support than the…

Fuck off.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#213

Post by sssilver »

McDyver wrote: post #202
konart wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is one of those rare cases in modern history where there is a clear right vs. wrong. There is no right or wrong in politics.

Yes, yes there is. It is wrong to kill or perform any violence or harm against children in any war context.

Every single developed country today touting moral rights has its foundation in those "wrongs". Its citizens gleefully consuming the resources those "wrongs" have created, so they can preach morality online.

It is the nature of life itself to "kill and perform violence", children and otherwise. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must".

Death is, as of now, life's only mechanism for iteration in its process of endless prototyping.

Every marvel that humankind has produced has its roots in extreme violence. From the creation of Ancient Greece to the creation of the United States, children had to die horrible deaths so that these things could come to be.

Anyone can make arbitrary claims about what's right and what's wrong. The only way to prove such a claim is through victory, and all victory is violence against the loser.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#214

Post by ALittleLight »

neuroelectron wrote: post #159
bpodgursky wrote: post #10

I'm confused by the term "whistleblower" here. Was anything actual released that wasn't publicly known? It seems like he just disagreed with whether it was "fair use" or not, and it was notable because he was at the company. But the facts were always known, OpenAI was training on public copyrighted text data. You could call him an objector, or internal critic or something.

The issue is it has to be proven in court. This man was personally responsible for developing web scraping; stealing data from likely copyrighted sources. He would have had communications specifically addressing the legality of his responsibilities, which he was openly questioning his superiors about.

"Stealing data" seems pretty strong. Web scraping is legal. If you put text on the public Internet other people can read it or do statistical processing on it.

What do you mean he was "stealing data"? Was he hacking into somewhere?

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#215

Post by thayne »

DevX101 wrote: post #84
aniviacat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that accomplish? Are you saying they won't kill you because then the documents would be released? So you would never release the documents if they never kill you? Or are you saying you'll do this so the documents are guaranteed to be released, even if you're killed? In that case, why not just publish them right now?

The scenario I described is to ensure the whistleblower being alive or dead has minimal change in impact to the company. If there's a pending case that could wipe billions off a company's market cap and 1 person is a key witness in the outcome...well lots of powerful people now have an incentive if that witness were no longer around. Why not just publish immediately? Publishing immediately likely violates NDA and cou…

> The scenario I described is to ensure the whistleblower being alive or dead has minimal change in impact to the company.

That may not be enough to keep you alive though. Assuming there is minimal difference in the impact to the company, potential killers may want to get revenge. The difference also may not be that minimal. IANAL, but it wouldn't surprise me if evidence released that way would be easier for the defendant to block from being used in the courtroom.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#216

Post by OutOfHere »

jjulius wrote: post #193
OutOfHere wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even thoughtful people can be wrong, make mistakes, or have lapses in judgement. Nobody is perfect, we all have flaws. Edit: Heck, even by definition, "thoughtful" doesn't mean "accurate". You can put a lot of thought and consideration into something and still end up with a different viewpoint than your neighbor. That's okay, that's life. Edit 2: "Didn't get his way"? He was part of an ongoing trial that hadn't concl…

The word "thoughtful" can carry different meanings. It can have a literal meaning (as in "deliberate") which you resonate with, and a different meaning (as in "solicitous" toward AI) that I resonate with. Neither meaning is wrong.

Reference: merriam-webster thesaurus

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#217

Post by mrtksn »

snovv_crash wrote: post #205

Given the outcomes of the Facebook mood experiments and how I've seen people put together very targeted ads, I'm wondering whether it's possible to induce someone (who's already under a lot of pressure) to commit suicide simply via a targeted information campaign. I'm speculating less on what happened here, and more on the general "yes that would be possible" situation. How would one protect themselves from something…

On Reddit there’s this thing about suicide prevention. Essentially, if someone thinks that you are suicidal, they can make reddit send you a very official looking “don’t do it” message.

I found that people are using it to abuse those they hate. I’ve received the message a few times when I had an argument with someone. Apparently it's a thing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/questions/comments/1bp1k9h/why_do_i...

There’s something profound about someone looking serious(official looking reddit account) giving you the idea of suicide. The first time I remember feeling very bad, because it’s written in a very official and caring way, it was like someone telling me that “I hate you so much that I spent lots of energy to meticulously tell you dat I want you to kill yourself” but also made me question myself.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#218

Post by mbix77 »

Think about the current geopolitical climate and the possibility this person was actually targeted by malicious actors as a way to sow chaos and distrust in the establishment in the West. What better way to make people grow weary of the digital platforms that are making up a majority part of their lives in their bubbles.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#219

Post by ironhaven »

neuroelectron wrote: post #168
XorNot wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean in the last week a guy with a similar profile shot and killed the United Healthcare CEO. But frankly this is a "oh that person seemed so happy, how could they have been depressed!?" line of thinking. The 2021 suicide death rate in the US population for the 26 to 44 age bracket is 18.8 per 100,000[1]. It is literally the highest rate (second is 18-25), and it is wildly skewed in favor men (22.8 / 100,000 vs 5.7…

I get what you're saying but statistics aren't evidence of an individual's behavior.

Have you considered that maybe testifying against the company you work for and may have some personal connection to is very stressful.

I'm being serious that someone in that situation may have mixed feelings about doing the right thing vs betraying friends/bosses and how they may have contributed to wrongdoing in the testmony

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#220

Post by thayne »

dgfitz wrote: post #69
nialv7 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this guy apparently killed himself. where did you get that? this article doesn't say a cause of death.

> The medical examiner’s office has not released his cause of death, but police officials this week said there is “currently, no evidence of foul play.”

It now says

> The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be suicide

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