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An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

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Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#31

Post by throwatdem12311 »

dathinab wrote: post #19
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend of mine got a new job. He’s required to and only allowed to use Copilot (because muh trusted enterprise partner). He also has to pay for his subscription/usage out of pocket. Of course they didn’t tell him this until after on-boarding. The corpo fucks want their cake and to eat it too. That’s where we are headed. Having the privilege to pay to have a bot do our jobs for us.

I don't think this is legal?? It's like telling someone they have to drive none stop for their job but neither giving them a company car or nor a budget for it. (To be clear done and companies get away with it != legal. I know companies sometimes get away with exactly the example I named in some cases.)

It’s generally legal for employers to require employees to supply their own tools as a condition of employment as long as it doesn’t reduce their wage to below minimum wage. Why would developers be any different?

Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#32

Post by gr_norm »

> Ball, who recently joined OpenAI as Head of Strategic Futures, has argued that frontier AI labs could become a “counterbalance to government.” Before joining the company, he described the organizations building the most advanced AI systems as a “new kind of institution under the sun.”

Upvoted not because this is an agreeable idea, but so more people see their insanity for what it is.

Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#33

Post by dgan »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #31
dathinab wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is legal?? It's like telling someone they have to drive none stop for their job but neither giving them a company car or nor a budget for it. (To be clear done and companies get away with it != legal. I know companies sometimes get away with exactly the example I named in some cases.)

It’s generally legal for employers to require employees to supply their own tools as a condition of employment as long as it doesn’t reduce their wage to below minimum wage. Why would developers be any different?

for one, because that's like requiring a particular brand of a tool to be used. That's even ignoring the "required" because usually I can't require that my hide uses a tool unless I, as employer, provide it to him/her

Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#38

Post by abixb »

gr_norm wrote: post #32

> Ball, who recently joined OpenAI as Head of Strategic Futures, has argued that frontier AI labs could become a “counterbalance to government.” Before joining the company, he described the organizations building the most advanced AI systems as a “new kind of institution under the sun.” Upvoted not because this is an agreeable idea, but so more people see their insanity for what it is.

Some of the people in the tech industry are, for lack of a better word, borderline insane.

They forget how it was literally initial government investments into DARPA and other organizations that laid the foundation for the long ascendance of the tech industry in Northern California, aside from huge pool of talented people imported from mostly Asia.

Even a good chunk of artificial neural network and "AI" research was NSF/government-funded, iirc.

I've been noticing a level of dislike for the tech industry that I haven't ever seen before among my fellow tech peers, and it's all squarely pointed at one thing — insane concentration of wealth, power and compute at the hands of private corporations.

Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#39

Post by dgellow »

khuey wrote: post #6

Governments are famously tolerant of other actors seeking to rival or usurp their power.

Unfortunately with the current administration there is a non zero chance that the usurpers merge with the existing government… that wouldn’t be too surprising for Thiel to push for, he’s already the one who made Vance VP and has been pushing the Republican Party to its current anti-democratic form

Re: An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

#40

Post by throwatdem12311 »

dgan wrote: post #33
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s generally legal for employers to require employees to supply their own tools as a condition of employment as long as it doesn’t reduce their wage to below minimum wage. Why would developers be any different?

for one, because that's like requiring a particular brand of a tool to be used. That's even ignoring the "required" because usually I can't require that my hide uses a tool unless I, as employer, provide it to him/her

They can require certain “brands” of tools if it’s deemed necessary for some other requirement of the job. In the case of Copilot it’s because Microsoft’s tools already check all the boxes for their enterprise partner requirements and haven’t bothered to do the leg work to get anyone else in-line. It’s completely arbitrary but it’s most likely all legal.
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