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Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

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Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#51

Post by ethanbond »

Roark66 wrote: post #34

>But this weekend we saw perhaps saw another side to the 38-year-old, a flicker of arrogance that gave a glimpse as to the dynamic with OpenAI’s board of directors.(...) Altman took a moment to share a picture on social media of him holding a “guest” pass. “First and last time I ever wear one of these,” he wrote Seriously? Does this pass for arrogance these days? I see nothing arrogant in a person sacked from a workp…

firmly stating what you want != turning your company politics into a reality TV show

The whole “everything must be entertaining” trend is horribly depressing, and in this case I don’t think it reflected well on Sam. Especially at the helm of what is claimed to be such a fundamentally important technology.

Related: “Amusing Ourselves to Death” is a worthwhile read.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#52

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

Am I the only one who thinks that AI accountability is a fool's errand? The genie is out of the bottle and we know how to build these things now. I assume that AI will be put to every unethical/evil purpose possible (as humans often do) and it is only a matter of time.

Maybe it's still worth trying?

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#53

Post by wongarsu »

loveparade wrote: post #41
rramadass wrote: post #6

Finally! Somebody has said it plainly. Sam Altman is merely another "Tech Executive" out for himself and his buddies making money off of true path-breaking researchers. "AI Trailblazer", "Helping Humanity with AGI" etc. was all bullshit.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

AI safety has been a thing since long before ChatGPT viable LLMs, and most of those people are legitimate, with good research that solves real (current or potential future) problems. But that is currently getting drowned out by people hopping on the LLM bandwagon; with AI Safety as a good way to profit from the current hype or to build a moat around your own LLM.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#54

Post by Tenoke »

rob74 wrote: post #50
Tenoke wrote: post #32

'Let’s say we really do create AGI. Right now, if I’m doing a bad job with that, our board of directors, which is also not publicly accountable, can fire me and say, “Let’s try somebody else”.' - Sam Altman, 2020 0. https://www.exponentialview.co/p/openais-identity-crisis-and...

"...and then I can found (or join) another company so the board has a reference to see how well the new guy is doing"

Except so far he has 1. Tried to reverse the decision and come back 2. Position the board into being publically pressured and thus accountable 3. Tried to have the board replaced 4. Take near everyone and everything from OpenAI where he is going thus leaving no place for a comparison.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#55

Post by vouaobrasil »

loveparade wrote: post #47
vouaobrasil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be a fundamental mission of people who DO have technical knowledge to spread the word on both the negative and positive effects of AI. If WE have the knowledge, WE have the responsibility to go out there and let people know. But as far as I know, most technical people are happy to discuss it amongst themselves and not even say one word to people who have no technical knowledge. Not one word. We need mo…

The problem is the same as some of the woke movements. Nobody wants to publicly speak out against AI safety BS because a Twitter mob who has made a career out of it will descend onto them and ruin their career. There is nothing to gain from speaking out against it, but you gain career opportunities by being part of the AI safety BS community. In fact, this has happened with Hinton (I think it was?) when he dared to e…

Well, I for one am speaking out against it (and against AI in general). I have a blog, Twitter, newsletter, and I even post warnings on my YouTube channel from time to time. I was part of a discussion that led my employer to commit to NOT using generative AI.

No Twitter mob is going to stop me. They can descend all they want and pretend to be brave in front of a keyboard and screen. As far as I'm concerned, they're cowards.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#56

Post by croes »

trosi wrote: post #27
Devasta wrote: post #9

Honestly there is something deeply shameful about tech workers finally organizing, uniting together in one voice, and using that voice to defend Sam Altman of all people.

They like money just like everyone else does. And you can't build AGI without a lot of money. The board screwed up. They could have negotiated with MS on another CEO. Instead they went behind everyone's backs and thought themselves omnipotent. Well, guess what.

>negotiated with MS

Why? The board is from OpenAI, Inc. and MS isn't an investor of OpenAI, Inc.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#57

Post by loveparade »

wongarsu wrote: post #53
loveparade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

AI safety has been a thing since long before ChatGPT viable LLMs, and most of those people are legitimate, with good research that solves real (current or potential future) problems. But that is currently getting drowned out by people hopping on the LLM bandwagon; with AI Safety as a good way to profit from the current hype or to build a moat around your own LLM.

Depends on your definition of AI Safety. Like you said, there is in fact some very legit research that (unfortunately) is done under the umbrella of "AI Safety", but that's quite different from the threat-to-humanity AI safety crowd.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#58

Post by anonymousDan »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
donkeyd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the CEO who arranged that now working for Microsoft? Interesting turn of events.

The timeline is a bit murky about what happened when but it looks to me as if Altman was working for OpenAI until he got fired after which he took a job with OpenAI's major partner that he helped bring on board. That doesn't 100% rule out that there was more to this but the optics are mostly ok. It still doesn't resolve the problem that you probably don't want either Sam Altman or Microsoft to have an army of people…

If I was the OpenAI board and this goes ahead I would be investigating the possibility of taking legal action for this very reason.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#59

Post by hanselot »

danielbln wrote: post #26
chx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of bullshit going around. You can't convince me ChatGPT launching a few weeks within the collapse of FTX is a coincidence. The crypto hustle-scam is over, time for the next hype cycle. That's all there is .

Boy, people really love to ride the "AI is the new crypto" narrative, huh? Even pulling in spurious relationships to make the point (. Yet here I am, using this tech every day to for productive uses, greatly improving what I can accomplish. What did crypto ever do for us in comparison?

I hate posting my stupid things here, because they are hardly ever relevant, but w/e here goes.

Last night I spent a good couple of hours with ChatGPT assessing the similarities between DNA and Blockchain. Blockchain does seem to have quite a few similar features to what DNA.

With smart contract type code you introduce a mechanism that can act like an immune system if programmed to, setting up bounties for proactive repair on the open market. I don't know why I want blockchain to act like synthetic DNA, but in my mind these things are more similar than distinct. As is the idea that blockchain could be the natural place to house AI. Why burn the planet down to mine hashes, when you could be mining inference.

Anyways, I agree with your sentiment though. A lot of AI is the new crypto is going around, the only difference being, AI has way more potential upside (unless people realise the economy is dead, and only held aloft by trillions of dollars of paper that has next to no value once people realise how diluted it is).

Ironically, I think we should listen to 4chan and buy silver xD

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