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The Contradictions of Sam Altman

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Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#451

Post by throwawaylinux »

sergiomattei wrote: post #442
throwawaylinux wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government looks after its own interests. That is what an institution does. A government isn't different than a corporation or any other organization this way. Delegating powers to a government for the common good does not change any of this. The people still have the job of ensuring the government carries that out properly because its priority is and always will be foremost itself, so the people have to ensure t…

So does the private sector. At least the public has some say in governance. Who wins?

So does the private sector what? Did you only read and respond to the first sentence of my comment? I can't figure out what you're responding to.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#452

Post by Hasu »

s1gsegv wrote: post #362
jasonhansel wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The emergent behavior from this however is not that we get healthy competition, it's that the big guys have the money, connections, and understanding of the process to still do everything they want, while the little guys can't get off the ground and compete. This is a necessary evil in the case of an industry like aviation where there's a massive and immediate risk to human life if you get it wrong. If you see AGI as…

I don't know, power concentrates plenty in unregulated industries. Google has owned search for over two decades, and it's not like there's a ton of government regulation preventing anyone from starting a search engine. pPople have tried, they just haven't succeeded because Google was that much better and that much farther ahead, and they used their advantages to widen the gap. The same is true for advertising, it's not like the government was stopping anyone from competing with Google and Facebook, but other companies just couldn't get there.

I'm not sure that AI is going to look that different. Is there any reason to believe that if OpenAI wins the majority share, that any competition is going to be able to dethrone them?

We could imagine a world where the US government broke up big tech companies in the late 2000s or early 2010s, and it sure seems like that world would be in a much better position today, due exactly to increased competition. Instead we have a bunch of big companies that don't take risks or release ambitious new products because they're too busy trying to defend their moats.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#453

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #374
ohgodplsno wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents were rich, sent their child to Stanford and used their connections to let him build connections to other rich people, founded a shitty startup in the middle of a period where any rich kid making a social media company would get bought out for dozens of millions, rest is history. He's always been rich.

There’s like 100k people going to undergrad at schools of that caliber at any given time and none of the rest of them founded OpenAI, so this is pretty underdetermined as an account of how sama got where he did.

And there are probably millions just as smart as him but not as connected and middle or lower class so they’re going to unheard of state schools. This dude had every advantage handed to him + hard work so of course he’s the guy.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#454

Post by bryanrasmussen »

selestify wrote: post #445
smirth wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that society and our economies and particularly people in places of power are not preparing for a world in which automation, AI, and robots rapidly advance to the point where jobs will no longer be needed in many cases, and perhaps one day be a choice not a necessity to even live. It would be better if we prepared for that instead of worshipping jobs as if the point of life is to have a job. The…

What indications are there that the US will start preparing for this anytime soon? We’ve had decades to share the cost savings from outsourcing to China and failed to do so. On the other hand, unemploying a large enough segment of society at once might finally force some change in the system, rather than letting it continue limping on in a slow burn where 1-2% of jobs get automated a year.

>On the other hand, unemploying a large enough segment of society at once might finally force some change in the system, rather than letting it continue limping on in a slow burn

Proof of employment required to vote.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#455

Post by trendroid »

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 (…

Thanks for elaborating!

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#456

Post by whitemary »

JenrHywy wrote: post #446
whitemary wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir? - John Maynard Keynes I sure would love to hear Mr. Keynes acknowledge defeat. If he were alive today, I seriously doubt we (Marxists like myself) would have the pleasure.

Keynes is probably the most influential economist of all time. I disagree with some of his ideas (for likely different reasons than you do), but I can't see any basis for him "admitting defeat" - he's many things, but defeated is not one of them.

Karl Marx is not only the most influential economist of all time; he is many orders of magnitude more influential than Keynes. Only an American could be clueless enough to think this is up for discussion.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#457

Post by inglor_cz »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #417
ajross wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not the job of the government, it's the job of citizens If only there was a system of government designed from first principles to reflect the will of the people... This is just librarian tautology. It's not wrong, but any "citizen" organization you can imagine to implement whatever policy it is you want[1] is going to be isomorphic to a democratic government. [1] You skipped this part!

The government looks after its own interests. That is what an institution does. A government isn't different than a corporation or any other organization this way. Delegating powers to a government for the common good does not change any of this. The people still have the job of ensuring the government carries that out properly because its priority is and always will be foremost itself, so the people have to ensure t…

One of the problems that people forget about when designing their ideal political system is that the principal / agent problem is everywhere.

When it comes to keeping your country (or region) livable, nothing beats personal engagement and a little vigilance.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#458

Post by speakfreely »

josephg wrote: post #240
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…

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…

> When AGI is invented (and I’m increasingly convinced it’ll happen in the next decade or two)

Aside from the issue of AGI being extremely difficult to capture in a proper definition, what leads you to believe this? Recent developments like LLMs and stable diffusion are impressive technology but I don't view them as remotely relevant to achieving AGI.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#459

Post by chii »

sergiomattei wrote: post #442
throwawaylinux wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government looks after its own interests. That is what an institution does. A government isn't different than a corporation or any other organization this way. Delegating powers to a government for the common good does not change any of this. The people still have the job of ensuring the government carries that out properly because its priority is and always will be foremost itself, so the people have to ensure t…

So does the private sector. At least the public has some say in governance. Who wins?

The private sector's interest aligns with the market, at least on the average, as long as they are not allowed to illegally obtain a monopoly.

The market, then, is assumed to be rational on average, and thus all participants in the market would make decisions in their own best interest, and thus, obtain the best outcome for themselves that is possible. Those who do not choose optimally is then selected out by economic darwinian competition.

The gov't has a role to play, but it does not follow that _more_ gov't regulation makes for a better society.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#460

Post by noduerme »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #454
selestify wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What indications are there that the US will start preparing for this anytime soon? We’ve had decades to share the cost savings from outsourcing to China and failed to do so. On the other hand, unemploying a large enough segment of society at once might finally force some change in the system, rather than letting it continue limping on in a slow burn where 1-2% of jobs get automated a year.

>On the other hand, unemploying a large enough segment of society at once might finally force some change in the system, rather than letting it continue limping on in a slow burn Proof of employment required to vote.

And breed.
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