good for people who invested in MSFT.. this drama might not negatively affect it.
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
491–500 of 1001 posts
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#492Anyone else find it strange that startup founders of the magnitude of Sam & Greg would join a gigantic corporation as employees? It sounds very out of line of what you'd expect.
Satya probably offered the one resource they couldn’t buy at the scale/speed they need: GPUs. Both time on Azure’s cloud, as well as promise of some of the first Azure Maia 100 and Cobalt 100 chips.
Plus continued access to OpenAI technology.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#493Best thing open AI can do is to align with Google and Amazon. This will keep MS on its toe.
I'm quite surprised that this point is not being made more. It's not like MSFT is the only shop that OpenAI can turn to, and you could argue that what will now happen is a full scale lobbying war will be now be waged by OpenAI backed by others who don't want MSFT to win (Goog? Musk?). Could be that OpenAI's principled stand will "win" regulation and MSFT will be in a very poor position.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#494I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…
You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think. I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.
>corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain
Not a cartoon villain. A paperclip maximizer.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#495Satya is the best CEO in tech and it isnt even close
Honest question, why is he the best CEO?
I will never forget something I read in his "Hit Refresh" book(I'm Microsoft employee)...
He wrote something along the lines, Office should write best app for iPhone, Mac or even Linux if that helps them grow. They should not help Windows sell Windows copies by doing better Office features on Windows, it is up to Windows team to make Windows best operating system, it should not rely and keep back Office team...
This makes Windows and Office better, because it allows Office to be free and do what they need to grow, and it forces Windows to improve OS and not rely on others...
Just one example where CEO can help teams grow...
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#496Having read through a lot of the comments around this situation, seems nobody on HN cares that much about AI safety, and is much more focused on corporate profits? Am I reading this wrong?
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think. I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.
The mega rich have been building bunkers and preparing for the downfall of humanity for a long time now. Look around and you'll notice that greed wins out over everything else. We're surrounded by companies doing nothing or only small token gestures to protect humanity or the world we live in and instead focusing on getting rich, because getting rich is exactly why people become shareholders. Don't rely on those guys…
Incidentally, Altman is a 'prepper'.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#498I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…
I am not claiming how right or wrong the final outcome would be, but owning the technology with a clear "for-profit" objective is definitely a better structure for Microsoft and for Sam Altman as well (considering, his plans for the future). I have no opinion on AI risk. I just think that a super valuable technology under a non-profit objective was simply an untenable structure, regardless of potential threats.
It isn't fear of a sentient AI that enslaves humanity that makes me disappointed with for-profit companies getting a stronger grip on this tech. It is the fear that a greater portion of the value of this technology will go to the stockholders of said companies rather than potentially be shared among a larger percentage of society. Not that I had that much faith in OpenAI, but in general the shift from non-profit to for-profit is a win for the few over the many.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#499It's really telling of US tech culture, how AI hype quickly turned from "Open" and "we're doing it for humanity" into a mega-corp cash grab *show. I understand what money does to principles, but this is comical.
All parties involved are already millionaires or more. It gets even more comical.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#500The new Open AI CEO Emmett Shear just released a long statement and he says one of his top 30-day plan is to `Hire an independent investigator to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report`
https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1726526112019382275
He adds even more drama lol