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Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

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Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#231

Post by jcgrillo »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #142
only-one1701 wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I wonder how much of this initiative and energy is driven by people at Microsoft who want their own star to rise higher than it can when it's bound by a third-party technology. I feel like this is something I've seen a fair amount in my career. About seven years ago, when Google was theoretically making a big push to stage Angular on par with React, I remember complaining that the document…

OpenAI already started divorce proceedings with their datacenter partnership with Softbank/etc, and it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models. Nadella might have initially been caught a bit flat footed with the rapid rise of AI, but seems to be managing the situation masterfully.

This is a great strategic decision, because it puts Suleyman's head squarely on the chopping block. Either Microsoft will build some world dazzling AI whatsit or he'll have to answer, there's no "strategically blame the vendor" option. It also makes the accounting transparent. There's no softbank subsidy, they've got to furnish every dollar.

So hopefully if (when?) this AI stuff turns out to be the colossal boondoggle it seems to be shaping up to be, Microsoft will be able to save face, do a public execution, and the market won't crucify them.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#232

Post by feyman_r »

slt2021 wrote: post #78
paxys wrote: post #32

Microsoft's corporate structure and company culture is actively hostile to innovation of any kind. This was true in Ballmer's era and is equally true today, no matter how many PR wins Nadella is able to pull off. The company justifies its market cap by selling office software and cloud services contracts to large corporations and governments via an army of salespeople and lobbyists, and that is what it will continue…

you are right, Microsoft is a hodge podge of legacy on-premise software, legacy software lifted and shifted to the cloud, and some innovation pockets. Microsoft bread and butter is Enterprise bloatware and large Enterprise deals where everything in the world is bundled together for use-it-or-lose-it contracts. Its not really much different from IBM like a two decades ago

It does seem though that this legacy-cloud-pocket-innovation combination continues to work without slowing down. It also what was said for Microsoft 15 years ago too (not really much different from IBM..), which is correct from one perspective, but not turning out true from revenue, market cap, growth terms.

My thinking is that Lindy Effect runs strong in a lot of Big Tech, and with deep pockets, they can afford to not be innovators but build moats on existing frameworks.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#233

Post by 1propionyl »

BeetleB wrote: post #84
moelf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20k can't get you that many PhD. Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month, effectively costs double that because of school overhead and other stuff.

> Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month Do they really get paid that much these days?

Depends on 1) where the university is located (CoL), 2) if they went on strike recently to get paid enough to pay rent.

You can reliably assume that PhD wages must eventually converge to the rent of a studio apartment nearby + a little bit (which may or may not be enough to cover all other expenses. Going into debt is common.)

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#234

Post by booleandilemma »

only-one1701 wrote: post #19
aresant wrote: post #4

Thematically investing billions into startup AI frontier models makes sense if you believe in first-to-AGI likely worth a trillion dollars + Investing in second/third place likely valuable at similar scales too But outside of that MSFTs move indicates that frontier models most valuable current use case - enterprise-level API users - are likely to be significantly commoditized And likely majority of proceeds will be c…

What even is AGI? Like, what does it look like? Genuine question.

AGI won't be a product they can sell. It's not going to work for us (why would it?), it's going to be constantly trying to undermine us and escape whatever constraints we put on it, and it will do this in ways we can't predict or understand. And if it doesn't do these things, it's not AGI, just a fancy auto complete.

Fortunately, they're not anywhere near creating this. I don't think they're even on the right track.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#235

Post by ahartmetz »

grepLeigh wrote: post #224
bsimpson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

As an outsider looking at Microsoft, I've always been impressed by the attention to maintaining legacy APIs and backward compatibility in the Windows ecosystem. In my mind, Microsoft is at the opposite end of the killedbygoogle.com spectrum. However, none of this is grounded in real evidence (just perception). Red Hat is another company I'd put forth as an example of a long-term support culture, although I don't know…

Joel Spolsky wrote about this. Windows division (WinDiv) is as you say, development tools division (DevDiv) is framework of the week. How many APIs have not-actually-replaced Win32 so far? They do keep the old ones working though, I guess.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#236

Post by doitLP »

esskay wrote: post #143
doitLP wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget that this model would have a phd in everything and work around the clock

Thats pretty useless for most applications though. If you're hiring a phd level person you dont care that if in addition to being great in contract law they're also great in interior design.

I disagree. People are so hyper ultra mega specialized these days the cross pollination should be very helpful. Isn’t that the theory behind why so much amounts of training data makes these models better?

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#237

Post by [deleted] »

myhf wrote: post #160
only-one1701 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What even is AGI? Like, what does it look like? Genuine question.

The official definition of AGI is a system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. For comparison, this would be like if perceptrons in 1968 could generate $10 billion in profits, or if LISP machines in 1986 could generate $35 billion in profits, or if expert systems in 1995 could generate $50 billion in profits.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#238

Post by radicaldreamer »

bsimpson wrote: post #34
only-one1701 wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I wonder how much of this initiative and energy is driven by people at Microsoft who want their own star to rise higher than it can when it's bound by a third-party technology. I feel like this is something I've seen a fair amount in my career. About seven years ago, when Google was theoretically making a big push to stage Angular on par with React, I remember complaining that the document…

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

It's a chronic problem at some companies and not so much at others, it's all about how internal incentives are set up.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#239

Post by tanaros »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #142
only-one1701 wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I wonder how much of this initiative and energy is driven by people at Microsoft who want their own star to rise higher than it can when it's bound by a third-party technology. I feel like this is something I've seen a fair amount in my career. About seven years ago, when Google was theoretically making a big push to stage Angular on par with React, I remember complaining that the document…

OpenAI already started divorce proceedings with their datacenter partnership with Softbank/etc, and it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models. Nadella might have initially been caught a bit flat footed with the rapid rise of AI, but seems to be managing the situation masterfully.

> it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models.

If I recall correctly, Microsoft’s agreement with OpenAI gives them full license to all of OpenAI’s IP, model weights and all. So they already have a SOTA model without doing anything.

I suppose it’s still worth it to them to build out the experience and infrastructure needed to push the envelope on their own, but the agreement with OpenAI doesn’t expire until OpenAI creates AGI, so they have plenty of time.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#240

Post by sponnath »

Fernicia wrote: post #110
paxys wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty funny that OpenAI wants to sell access to a "PhD level" model at a price with which you can hire like 3-5 real human PhDs full-time.

Well, a model with PhD level intelligence could presumably produce research in minutes that would take an actual PhD days or months.

We haven't seen any evidence of this happening ever. It would be groundbreaking if true and OAI's pricing would then make sense.
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