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Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

fortune.com

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Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#261

Post by jcgrillo »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #199
jcgrillo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You guys have the opportunity to be generation AI—where you come into the workforce saying, ‘I know this a lot better than all of you' Yeah, it was expressly my intent to shut this kind of nonsense down. This is just a different version of "get on board right now or you'll all be left behind". Enough with the lying.

I don't think it's a different version of that at all? Presumably what he has in mind is the Internet transition. Nobody got "left behind" from the Internet, even cranky 80 year olds are often pretty familiar these days, but people like Reid Hoffman achieved "fulfilling lives and jobs" by recognizing early that it was going to be a big deal.

> Nobody got "left behind" from the Internet, even cranky 80 year olds...

This is actually false. There are plenty of 80+ year olds in care facilities and living alone that are disadvantaged by the implicit assumption that everyone has a smartphone or an email address. Unable to communicate with their bank, insurance company, care providers, etc. All down to your "inclusive progress".

Call it what it is: an extractive, inhumane power grab meant to monopolize everyone's attention.

And that was tech's Big Success Story. Everything since has been trying to re-live those glory days.

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#262

Post by epistasis »

pydry wrote: post #249
zdragnar wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think theyre special Where did you get that from the comment you replied to? They merely pointed out you couldn't paint everyone with the same brush, which is pretty much the definition of 'not special'.

I didn't. The point was that that amount of money turns most people into assholes. Many of them donate money but it doesnt make them any less of an asshole.

Power, including financial power, reveals who people really are without constraints. President Johnson has to be my favorite example of this, he spent a political career kowtowing to racists, enforcing racism where he needed to in order to acquire power, and then when full power was finally thrust on him by JFK's assassination, he flips and pushes through key legislation from the Civil Rights Movement.

I certainly didn't put forward an idea that having money makes people less of an asshole. Somebody who gives it away in a non-assholish way certainly makes them less of an asshole.

Or is your contention that anybody with money is an asshole, without exception?

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#263

Post by mschuster91 »

watwut wrote: post #217
mschuster91 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Race is a social construct. Age is not. Mixing them up is fundamentally wrong and, I’d argue, dangerous. Even worse. Our entire society, hell our biology is based on old people retiring to leave space for the young to develop themselves. When you got gerontocrats in power for too long and after them boomers, all you'll end with in 20 years is a bunch of dead boomers and gen silent, and a bunch of gen y/z that never…

> Our entire society, hell our biology is based on old people retiring to leave space for the young to develop themselves. No it is not. People retire, because they dont have strength to work anymore. They have no duty to give up their lives just because you want to take it from them.

> No it is not. People retire, because they dont have strength to work anymore.

That's part of the problem, we shifted from an agrarian to industrial and now service economy. Unlike the first two, in a service economy you can work until old age finally takes you.

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#264

Post by narnarpapadaddy »

ryandvm wrote: post #135
narnarpapadaddy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this happened it would make Elon emperor of the known universe. Can’t imagine the level of influence this would buy. It also seems impossible. What are people seeing that I don’t?

Nobody (with money to invest) actually believes that SpaceX or Tesla will ever catch up to their valuations. People investing in things like this only believe that somebody else believes it. This will continue to work until they run out of morons willing to buy a stock with a PE of 300 at which point it will contract spectacularly.

Are securities regulations so lax that pump ‘n dump schemes on a global scale get IPO’d? Are conmen so sophisticated that their plans take decades to mature and require sending rockets to space?

Either or both of those being true is almost as mind-boggling to me. How is one supposed to navigate that world?

Mass delusion seems like the most likely answer to me. I can point to instances of that at similar scales outside of tech/investing.

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#265

Post by joquarky »

epistasis wrote: post #262
pydry wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't. The point was that that amount of money turns most people into assholes. Many of them donate money but it doesnt make them any less of an asshole.

Power, including financial power, reveals who people really are without constraints. President Johnson has to be my favorite example of this, he spent a political career kowtowing to racists, enforcing racism where he needed to in order to acquire power, and then when full power was finally thrust on him by JFK's assassination, he flips and pushes through key legislation from the Civil Rights Movement. I certainly di…

At the very least, I would question the motive of people who defend billionaires.

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#267

Post by nailer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #179
nailer wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means why do we care what the LinkedIn founder has to say about xAI. The answer seems to be "we don't, he's on the board of a competiting AI company"

> answer seems to be "we don't, he's on the board of a competiting AI company" That seems like a good reason to listen to him? He is prominently placed in the field. Has a lot to lose by knowingly making false statements in public about a competitor. And has an incentive (and the resources with which) to dig deeply into them in a way e.g. a trash-talking YouTuber does not. He has his set of biases. But Board member a…

> He is prominently placed in the field.

No he isn't. He's the LinkedIn guy. That's his only success. Good for him but the LinkedIn founder doesn't know anything baout AI.

> Has a lot to lose by knowingly making false statements in public about a competitor.

The article ignores the conflict of interest - Hoffman is introduced as:

> Reid Hoffman has watched the AI industry from virtually every vantage point—as a founder, a lead investor and as a decade-long Microsoft board member.

they don't say:

"Reid invested in both OpenAI and Anthropic" which seems to indicate that Fortune think they can get away with lying through omission.

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#268

Post by epistasis »

joquarky wrote: post #265
epistasis wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power, including financial power, reveals who people really are without constraints. President Johnson has to be my favorite example of this, he spent a political career kowtowing to racists, enforcing racism where he needed to in order to acquire power, and then when full power was finally thrust on him by JFK's assassination, he flips and pushes through key legislation from the Civil Rights Movement. I certainly di…

At the very least, I would question the motive of people who defend billionaires.

Who do you believe is doing this? The implication, I guess, would be me, but I wasn't talking about strictly "billionaires". What is the wealth cutoff here, and how?

Re: Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'

#269

Post by olivierestsage »

andsoitis wrote: post #143
jcgrillo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an out of touch attempt to get the youths onboard the hype train.. ok boomer.

> ok boomer. Reid Hoffman is not a boomer. He was born in 1967. Also: ageism isn't sexy.

Imposing AI on the young when you no longer stand to experience the negative consequences because of your age is its own form of ageism.
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