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Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

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Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#271
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

It's worse than that. Elon is a notoriously bad employer, and the only people that put up with him were the people that shared his vision. Pretty much the only people that will work for him now are second rate researchers and people that think gooner AI and racism is a worthwhile mission.

Gooning and racism have been a cornerstone of humanity since we descended from the trees, for better or worse.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#272
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

Why does being a top AI researcher so often come with this philosophical bent you describe?

Maybe you’re reading “philosophical bent” as “armchair philosopher”, as in they are dabbling in a field unrelated to their profession and letting it drive their profession - worldview might have made it clearer?

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#273
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

In an interview with xAI I was literally told that certain parts of the model have to align with Elon, and that Elon can call us and demand anything at anytime. No thanks!

From my time at Tesla, this is 100% the case. When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deliver the thing you were already working on against the original timeline before the interrupt.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#274
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can afford it, they are very sought after. And smart people usually have moral convictions. I know for some people on this website it's hard to understand, but not everything in life is about $$$

I'm smart and you can buy my morals. So what?

So what, indeed (not sure what you mean)

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#275
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

In an interview with xAI I was literally told that certain parts of the model have to align with Elon, and that Elon can call us and demand anything at anytime. No thanks!

I don't see the problem with this. The chatbot is the most important part of Grok, so it makes sense Elon would be dogfooding it then providing suggestions.. He wants it to be truthful... It was shown on benchmarks recently that it hallucinates the least...

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#276
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

In an interview with xAI I was literally told that certain parts of the model have to align with Elon, and that Elon can call us and demand anything at anytime. No thanks!

wild, but not surprising! anything else interesting you can share from that interview?

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#277
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

Anthropic, maybe, but what is the philosophical niche of OpenAI? Their only consistent philosophical position about AI is "let's make more money".

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that. Elon is a notoriously bad employer, and the only people that put up with him were the people that shared his vision. Pretty much the only people that will work for him now are second rate researchers and people that think gooner AI and racism is a worthwhile mission.

Gooning and racism have been a cornerstone of humanity since we descended from the trees, for better or worse.

[dead]

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#279
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

Why does being a top AI researcher so often come with this philosophical bent you describe?

Because it is not Macrodata Refinement and you can’t stop them thinking off the clock.

Re: Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

#280
post #125

I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical ni…

Why does being a top AI researcher so often come with this philosophical bent you describe?

Because a lot of them are academics that are doctors of philosophy
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