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Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

newyorker.com

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Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#251

Post by irishcoffee »

cs702 wrote: post #70
ronanfarrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this, very much appreciate the thoughtful response. The piece captures some of the anxieties within OpenAI right now about their competitive position. This obviously ebbs and flows but of late there has been much focus on Anthropic's relative position. We of course mention the allegations of "circular deals" and concerns about partners taking on debt.

Thank you. Yes, I saw that. The company's always been surrounded by endless talk about insane hype, speculative bubbles, and financial engineering. I wasn't asking so much about that. I was asking more about your informed view on how OpenAI's technology, products, and roadmap are perceived, particularly by customers and partners, in comparison to those of competitors. If you have an opinion about that, everyone here…

My guess is that the answer to your question, fantastic question, is that nobody knows. I remember having the same thoughts when Covid was first “arriving” if you will: we wanted people in the know to throw us a nugget of information, and they just didn’t know.

As it turns out, and what I’m kind of going with for this LLM shit, is that it’ll play out exactly how you think it will. The companies are all too big to fail, with billionaire backers who would rather commit fraud than lose money.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#252

Post by bko »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #81
cs702 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for coming on HN and offering to answer questions.[a] This is a fantastic piece, very timely, evidently well-researched, and also well-written. Judging by the little that I know, it's accurate. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with the world. OpenAI may be in a more tenuous competitive position than many people realize. Recent anecdotal evidence suggests the company has lost its lead in the AI ra…

Many of us prefer OpenAI's Codex, because we think it's a better product. No comment on the CEO: I just find the product superior in everything but UI/UX and conversation. It's better at quality code.

I also find Codex much more generous in terms of what you get with a Pro ($20/mo) subscription. I use it pretty much non-stop and I have yet to hit a limit. Weekly reset is much better as well.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#254

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dolebirchwood wrote: post #212
buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sociopath is the next word that people seem to want to entirely destroy the meaning of

[flagged]

> Struck a nerve?

No need to be petty. They have a point. We did this with the words racist and fascist. Overinclusion diluted the term and gave cover for the actual baddies to come in. I'm not sure debating who is and isn't a sociopath is as useful as, say, the degree to which Sam is a liar (versus visible).

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#255

Post by arionhardison »

arionhardison wrote: post #175
arionhardison wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things. 1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim. 2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer. 3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs I was working for a company called NationBuilder a…

Note: To all the downvotes; I did this publicly and not anon for a reason, if you will do the same I am more than willing to provide evidence for all of these claims as long as its done publicly and in the open.

PG said something along the lines of: "There should be no truth that is increasingly unpopular to speak."

If you don't believe what I shared is true, address that directly. But seeing my post sitting at 1 point and [flagged] after 2 hours is not OK. Just as DJT can't flag away his issues, you shouldn't be able to do so on HN.

One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings. I really hope that what happened to my post is not the beginning or a continuance of the end for that ethos.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#256

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bigyabai wrote: post #241
stavros wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All they do is perform compute-intensive brute-force attacks on the problem/solution space and call it 'reasoning' If they discover the cure to cancer, I don't care how they did it. "I don't trust anyone who claims they're superhumanly intelligent" doesn't follow from "all they do is ".

That's moonshot logic that reinforces the parent's point. You'd absolutely care if the AI's cure to cancer entailed full-body transplants or dismemberment.

> You'd absolutely care if the AI's cure to cancer entailed full-body transplants or dismemberment

That's not a cure. Like yes, I'd care if the AI says it cures cancer while nuking Chicago. But that isn't what OP said.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#257

Post by steve_adams_86 »

kevinqi wrote: post #238
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #164

> Amodei, in one of his early notes, recalled pressing Brockman on his priorities and Brockman replying that he wanted “money and power.” Brockman disputes this. His diary entries from this time suggest conflicting instincts. One reads, “Happy to not become rich on this, so long as no one else is.” In another, he asks, “So what do I really want?” Among his answers is “Financially what will take me to $1B.” I can't im…

it is disappointing, but is it shocking that people most driven by gaining money/power are the ones the most successful at achieving it?

What sticks out to me most is that humanity consistently fails to weed these creatures out and regulate society. It's a bug in our social software; we seem to like these broken people rather than recognize that they're a liability.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#258

Post by boc »

quantified wrote: post #176

A bit of a feeling of "so what" here. Maybe he's less trustworthy than some. We have people of X trustworthiness running the government, crypto exchanges, a certain space exploration and satellite company, social media companies, and so on. We know their trustworthiness. Isn't the real issue how to cope?

What's the point of living in an advanced society if you just sit around watching it decay around you? Our ancestors fought for our indifference today, and with attitudes like yours we'll watch our children fight for it again tomorrow.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#260

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Boxxed wrote: post #177
quantified wrote: post #176

A bit of a feeling of "so what" here. Maybe he's less trustworthy than some. We have people of X trustworthiness running the government, crypto exchanges, a certain space exploration and satellite company, social media companies, and so on. We know their trustworthiness. Isn't the real issue how to cope?

Your point is that it's ok he's untrustworthy because lots of people in power are?

> Your point is that it's ok he's untrustworthy because lots of people in power are?

It's...weirdly a valid question. If Sam fibs as much as the next guy, we don't have a Sam problem. Focussing on him alon is, best case, a waste of resources. Worst case, it's distracting from real evil. If, on the other hand, as this reporting suggests, Sam is an outlier, then focussing on him does make sense.

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