why are so many people so keen on this prepper?
Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
381–390 of 625 posts
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human biodiversity is an empirical fact. Are some populations taller than other, on average? Is red hair more prevalent in certain populations? Pretty much nobody actually rejects the idea of human biodiversity. The neo reactionary types tend to draw specific conclusions from the idea of human biodiversity, like that racial disparities in IQ are inherent and not environmental. That's a conclusion I don't think is in…
> Human biodiversity is an empirical fact. Are some populations taller than other, on average? Is red hair more prevalent in certain populations? Pretty much nobody actually rejects the idea of human biodiversity. > The neo reactionary types tend to draw specific conclusions from the idea of human biodiversity, like that racial disparities in IQ are inherent[...] This is a classic motte-and-bailey. The IQ view is cle…
Again, you're drawing very explicit conclusions from a few sentences. Racial disparities in IQ are indeed observed, but it's highly contentious over whether these are due to environmental factors like education and nutrition or inherent. That Asians have score higher IQs on average than whites in the US is an empirical observation. But it's also known that IQ can be increased by studying, and Asians study about twice as much as white people in childhood [1].
Scott is acknowledging that the taboo to even recognize these disparities is counterproductive: it stymied attempts to improve schooling or studying practices, because it's taboo to even recognize that there is a difference and instead people typically allege that the tests are biased. Would Scott argue that with identical environmental factors we'd still see the same disparities in IQ across ethnic groups? I don't think so, and nothing in the emails linked seem to suggest this.
1. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/analyzing-the-homework-ga...
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#383The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…
"I'm much more interested in how Helen managed to get on this board at all."
Indeed. This is far more interesting. How the hell did Helen and Tasha get on, and stay on, the board.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human biodiversity is an empirical fact. Are some populations taller than other, on average? Is red hair more prevalent in certain populations? Pretty much nobody actually rejects the idea of human biodiversity. The neo reactionary types tend to draw specific conclusions from the idea of human biodiversity, like that racial disparities in IQ are inherent and not environmental. That's a conclusion I don't think is in…
When Moldbug says HBD, he isn't saying "not all humans have exactly the same genes". HBD has a specific meaning in that context and the meaning is that some races are superior to others. That is specifically what Moldbug says when he talks about HBD, and SSC's author knows that well.
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Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://openai.com/our-structure "Second, because the board is still the board of a Nonprofit, each director must perform their fiduciary duties in furtherance of its mission—safe AGI that is broadly beneficial. While the for-profit subsidiary is permitted to make and distribute profit, it is subject to this mission. The Nonprofit’s pzrincipal beneficiary is humanity, not OpenAI investors." I see. I don't know whethe…
> but it really does not sound like she had any obligation to do so The optics dont look good though if a board member is complaining publicly.
but her job is to do exactly that. anybody in this space knows Anthropic was formed with the goal of AI Safety. her paper just backed that. is she supposed to lie?
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#386A lot of people in tech say that executives are excessively diplomatic and do not speak their truth. But this is what happens when they do too much, too ardently, too often. This is why diplomacy and tact is so important in these roles. Things do not go well if everyone keeps poking each other with sticks and cannot let their own frame of reference go for the sake of the bigger picture. Ultimately, I don’t think Altm…
Spot on.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#387None of the comments thus far seem to clearly explain why this matters. Let me summarize the implications: Sam Altman expelling Toner with the pretext of an inoffensive page ( https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding... ) in a paper no one read* would have given him a temporary majority with which to appoint a replacement director, and then further replacement directors. These directors would, nat…
Okay, let's stipulate that Sam was maneuvering to get full board control. Then the independent directors were probably worried that -- sooner or later -- Sam would succeed. With Sam fully in charge the non-profit goals would be completely secondary to the commercial goals. This was unacceptable to the independent directors and Ilya and so they ousted Sam before he could oust them? That's a clear motive. Sam and the i…
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Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#388None of the comments thus far seem to clearly explain why this matters. Let me summarize the implications: Sam Altman expelling Toner with the pretext of an inoffensive page ( https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding... ) in a paper no one read* would have given him a temporary majority with which to appoint a replacement director, and then further replacement directors. These directors would, nat…
This is insane. "They had to fire Sam, because he was trying to take over the board". First: most boards are accountable to something other than themselves. For the exact reason that it pre-empts that type of nonsense. Second: the anti-Sam Altman argument seems to be "let's shut the company down, because that will stop AGI from being invented". Which is blatant nonsense; nothing they do will stop anyone else. (with t…
> Second: the anti-Sam Altman argument seems to be "let's shut the company down...
Isn't that the pro-Altman argument? The pro-Altman side is saying "let's shut the company down if we don't get our way." The anti-Altman side is saying "let's get rid of Sam Altman and keep going."
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a matter of what I think, it's a matter of fact. I quoted Wikipedia, and the paragraph that discussed this in your link looks essentially the same as my quote. Let's take a peek at the one from your link - the first sentence is... >The group’s other founding members are world-class research engineers and scientists: Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, a…
Since you quoted Wikipedia, why don't you take a look at Elon Musks's Wikipedia page, it says he is a founder. It is well known that he is a founder. And Altman's Wikipedia page says he is a funder of the company. The problem may be your interpretation of their announcement. As in, if you are a co-chair at founding then it is understood that you're a founder.
>And Altman's Wikipedia page says he is a funder of the company.
Funder, not founder, yes.
If OpenAI themselves chose to distinguish between founder and co-chair, then I really dunno what else to tell ya.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
i read through most of moldbug's blog, and also knew his name and rhetorical style from crooked timber comments. possibly he was less racist than his followers? or just more circumspect about it. in any case, he attempted to justify his anti-liberal philosophy, at quite extreme length, but never on the basis of racism; so if racism was a core belief of his neoreactionary thought, it was apparently at a subconscious l…
I guess I am much less familiar with Moldbug's stated views than you, so I'm happy to concede that point. Anyway, I think the HBD/NRx relationship is peripheral to the discussion of the Metz article -- I just framed it that way because that's the context of Scott's emails (certainly he think's they're at least associated!). The discourse around the Metz article was that it framed Scott as holding racist views, not sp…
yes