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The Contradictions of Sam Altman

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Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#341

Post by bcrosby95 »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

This is kinda weird. It's not illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where it's illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where everyone is constantly an asshole.

What are you actually asking for here? Have you thought through the implications of what you're saying here?

The way we normally deal with assholes is we shame them. But then there's people like you saying we can't expect anything better from certain kinds of assholes. Well, yeah, when you tell an asshole to keep on being an asshole, what do you expect.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#342

Post by nborwankar »

davnicwil wrote: post #225
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

I don't know, isn't history really just a series of specific people doing concrete actions? Do you think on some level the idea of some abstract 'government' taking care of things is just a narrative we apply to make ourselves feel better? Sure individual decision makers in that government can concretely affect reality, but beyond that are we just telling a story and really nobody is 'in control'?

Government does not actually “do” the executive action in everything. But government is a rough and messy consensus on the set of rules and constraints within which the “specific people doing concrete actions” act. Large scope actions that impact the public need to be within such rules and constraints. Historically CEO’s of large corporations have quite often acted so as to ignore said rules and constraints primarily for rapid aggregation of monopolistic power and concomitant profit. There is harm from monopolistic power in new and emerging industries hence government action via enforcement of rules and constraints is important. Individuals eg in the office of the AG may be the “specific people doing concrete actions” but they do it on behalf and with the full power and authority of the US Govt which acts through “specific people doing concrete actions”. It’s not an either or.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#343

Post by shagie »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #162
dnissley wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly over what?

LLMs that actually work. They are on GPT-4 and no one else is close to GPT-3.5.

If no one else has yet to create the same quality of product, is that really a monopoly?

Does a given chef have a monopoly on their signature dish?

It feels like people are tossing around "monopoly" whenever it feels like there's a company that has produced a quality product and people want to hobble it because no one else has committed the resources to producing something comparable.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#344

Post by huijzer »

Mezzie wrote: post #321
trendroid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible to Elaborate?

tl;dr: Nobody is steering the ship because they don't know they're on a ship. Or that the ocean exists. It's hard without doxxing myself or calling out specific people and organizations which I'd rather not because I'm a nobody and can't afford lawsuits, but for various reasons I ended up political education and marketing for civics advocacy. Ish. To be semi on topic, I know some people who are published in the WSJ (…

Isn’t history full of examples of governments being slow and seemingly incompetent? Standard Oil was broken up many years after everyone knew that they were a ruthless monopoly which made too much profits. Note also that it didn’t take senators to figure out the monopoly, it was everyone, including the voters, who did.

There is one big benefit that democratic governments have though. They have a monopoly on physical force.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#345

Post by sumedh »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #284
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

This is a really cynical take. CEOs and companies can, and should, act ethically. Not just because it's the "right thing to do", but because it's the best way to guarantee the integrity of the brand in the long term.

> because it's the best way to guarantee the integrity of the brand in the long term

If you personally make less money would you still do it?

You might answer yes but many wont.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#346

Post by sharemywin »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #341
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

This is kinda weird. It's not illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where it's illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where everyone is constantly an asshole. What are you actually asking for here? Have you thought through the implications of what you're saying here? The way we normally deal with assholes is we shame them. But then there's people like you sayin…

I think society has to figure out how much power you give one person or a small group of people. whether it's an emperor, chairman, priest, a CEO, a guru, etc.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#347

Post by ftxbro »

What if the contradictions arise from efforts to hide a Manhattan scale government project racing to superhuman machine intelligence but which requires help from talented researchers outside of Fort Meade?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#348

Post by serf »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #341
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

This is kinda weird. It's not illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where it's illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where everyone is constantly an asshole. What are you actually asking for here? Have you thought through the implications of what you're saying here? The way we normally deal with assholes is we shame them. But then there's people like you sayin…

>What are you actually asking for here?

Sounds like they're asking for government to take the reins w.r.t world impacting decisions rather than relying on the fortune of the big people in tech to make kind, thoughtful and well-planned decisions for our collective humanities' future.

>The way we normally deal with assholes is we shame them.

No, I don't, I avoid them -- and I find that tactic that you mentioned embraced more and more commonly and purported even as the preferred method as if that's just the common sense reaction -- It's not, and I disagree with that behavior vehemently .

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#349

Post by jamilton »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #341
DubiousPusher wrote: post #169

Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law. It's nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective…

This is kinda weird. It's not illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where it's illegal to be an asshole. You also don't want to live in a country where everyone is constantly an asshole. What are you actually asking for here? Have you thought through the implications of what you're saying here? The way we normally deal with assholes is we shame them. But then there's people like you sayin…

They're saying that companies are much more likely to be consistently ethical if they're forced to by the government, assuming the regulations that the government makes are themselves ethical. Even if you accept that Sam Altman, or any CEO, has the people's best interests at heart, it doesn't matter, the people shouldn't have depend on the CEOs of a powerful companies being a nice people to ensure they're not harmed. They're not saying it should be illegal to be an asshole, they're saying it should be illegal to run your company unethically.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#350

Post by abirch »

jasonhansel wrote: post #293
josephg wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? I agree government is useful and needed sometimes. But laws are slow, blunt instruments. Governments can’t micromanage every decision companies make. And if they tried, they would hobble the companies involved. The government moves slowly. When AGI is invented (and I’m increasingly convinced it’ll happen in the next decade or two), what comes next will not be decided by a creaky federal government full…

> And if they tried, they would hobble the companies involved. Well, yeah, that's the point of regulation: to limit corporate behavior. There are plenty of other highly-regulated industries in the US; why shouldn't AI be one of them?

Define AI. Companies tend to find loopholes and the government is slow to regulate.
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