The Contradictions of Sam Altman • Hacker News Board

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#501

Post by ShamelessC » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:15 AM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #478

PostOnce wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all well and good, but it's not well and good to change what you say because the calculus of what will personally benefit you has changed. It's not the same as "new information coming to light", it is instead greed. We've already seen a charity robbed to no end other than Profit. Commercializing OpenAI was for one reason: to enrich the people commercializing it. Not to benefit society, and with nary a thought…

I am astonished how anyone could just make a statement like this, here. It's so sticky, it's so damning and brash. It offers absolutely no proof, while contradicting what sama says themselves. And we are entirely fine with that. Top of the comments after 7 hours. Note, I am not claiming it could not be true. That is entirely beside my point. The issue is, that it could be entirely untrue. And I really mean, every sin…

Chill out a little bit. The commenter made it clear that it's their opinion. In fact, they seem to have gone out of their way to suggest it's their opinion - despite the rules here requiring the assumption of good faith (a rule you're breaking, in my opinion).

That it happens to also be a popular opinion doesn't indicate that people are burning witches - it indicates that people are increasingly finding it easier to explain the world in terms of greed and cynicism; because, frankly, that is the world we live in (aghem, in my opinion).

That you find this to be "witch-burning" indicates to me that you must really relate with the ultra-wealthy which honestly just sounds tone deaf. Sam Altman nor Jeff Bezos will "go down" because of a comment on the internet. Do you know who _doesn't_ have that guarantee? Normal people.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#502

Post by Raptor22 » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:16 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #492

To all the detractors of work ethic and the supporters of UBI: What freedom will exist in a world where everyone is reliant on their government for survival, and all mass communication is mediated by or written by opaque AIs? In trading the yoke of labor for free time we would also trade our independence, and any hope of changing the structure of power that had been set in place. I'm so sick of our new style of wanna…

This is a simplified version of the argument, but basically: right now, I am dependent on an employer for my survival. Keeping a roof over my head depends on my being competent at my job, AND my employer not deciding to fire me. One of those I can control - the other is completely outside of my control. If instead I was dependent on a democratic government for my survival and keeping a roof over my head, at the very least I and other citizens would have a say in the direction and decisions of that government every time an election happened.

Your point does stand in autocracies and dictatorships though.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#503

Post by vasco » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:20 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #499

noduerme wrote: post #492

To all the detractors of work ethic and the supporters of UBI: What freedom will exist in a world where everyone is reliant on their government for survival, and all mass communication is mediated by or written by opaque AIs? In trading the yoke of labor for free time we would also trade our independence, and any hope of changing the structure of power that had been set in place. I'm so sick of our new style of wanna…

I don't know what you mean by "work ethic" (why does that have anything to do with UBI?), but regarding UBI, I think you're either exaggerating or misunderstanding some things, and I say these without any regard to my position on the topic (which is complicated). When you think UBI, don't think "everyone gets $300k/year for free so nobody needs to worry about working anymore". Think more like "everyone gets $30k/year…

> Think more like "everyone gets $30k/year for free so nobody lives paycheck-to-paycheck

What impact would UBI have on inflation? I've read some things about minimum wage increases largely going to landlords. If everyone has 30k, 30k is not worth much, right?

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#504

Post by bambataa » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:22 AM UTC

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 (…

Do you read anything by Dominic Cummings? He writes a lot (like, a lot) about this from the UK perspective.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#505

Post by vasco » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:22 AM UTC

Raptor22 wrote: post #502

noduerme wrote: post #492

To all the detractors of work ethic and the supporters of UBI: What freedom will exist in a world where everyone is reliant on their government for survival, and all mass communication is mediated by or written by opaque AIs? In trading the yoke of labor for free time we would also trade our independence, and any hope of changing the structure of power that had been set in place. I'm so sick of our new style of wanna…

This is a simplified version of the argument, but basically: right now, I am dependent on an employer for my survival. Keeping a roof over my head depends on my being competent at my job, AND my employer not deciding to fire me. One of those I can control - the other is completely outside of my control. If instead I was dependent on a democratic government for my survival and keeping a roof over my head, at the very…

You are not dependent on your employer. You're dependent on society having enough employers at any point that would match with the skills you can provide in exchange for salary, you can switch employers at any time you want. It's not 1-1, it's 1-many right now. By moving that to the government you're actually going from 1-many to 1-1 and getting a way worse deal.

Worse deal because the many employers are in competition against each other so you can rely on their self interest to remain in business, whereas the people that get government jobs, their self interest doesn't have an incentive system where it would benefit me.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#506

Post by Raptor22 » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:35 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #505

Raptor22 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a simplified version of the argument, but basically: right now, I am dependent on an employer for my survival. Keeping a roof over my head depends on my being competent at my job, AND my employer not deciding to fire me. One of those I can control - the other is completely outside of my control. If instead I was dependent on a democratic government for my survival and keeping a roof over my head, at the very…

You are not dependent on your employer. You're dependent on society having enough employers at any point that would match with the skills you can provide in exchange for salary, you can switch employers at any time you want. It's not 1-1, it's 1-many right now. By moving that to the government you're actually going from 1-many to 1-1 and getting a way worse deal. Worse deal because the many employers are in competiti…

On the surface, yes, there are many employers. How's that going for the folks that have been recently laid off from checks notes... Amazon, Facebook/Meta, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, EA, Indeed, Yahoo, Github, Zoom, Dell, Paypal, IBM, Spotify, Goldman Sachs, Coinbase, HP, Cisco...

I'm not really sure that going from many possible employers who cannot guarantee my job to a single entity who can is a way worse deal, but ok.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#507

Post by vasco » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:36 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #485

chii wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 economi…

This assumption of a rational market has been fucking up people's lives for a long time now. What's it gonna take to put that conceit to bed?

It has lifted the largest amount of people from poverty in the history of the world.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#508

Post by dataflow » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:36 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #503

dataflow wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by "work ethic" (why does that have anything to do with UBI?), but regarding UBI, I think you're either exaggerating or misunderstanding some things, and I say these without any regard to my position on the topic (which is complicated). When you think UBI, don't think "everyone gets $300k/year for free so nobody needs to worry about working anymore". Think more like "everyone gets $30k/year…

> Think more like "everyone gets $30k/year for free so nobody lives paycheck-to-paycheck What impact would UBI have on inflation? I've read some things about minimum wage increases largely going to landlords. If everyone has 30k, 30k is not worth much, right?

> If everyone has 30k, 30k is not worth much, right?

I mean, I just made up the $30k number to get a completely different point across. I wasn't saying $30k is the magic number. The actual number will, yes, have to be larger to account for the self-induced inflation. I have no idea where the equilibrium would be. Maybe it's double that. Maybe it's location dependent, or something else. Who knows. But it will be somewhere.

And no, I have no idea how to fund it sustainably in the current economic system; some people think it's doable, and some don't. And other changes in how society/government/life works will almost certainly be necessary in the process. I think the point of the UBI debate isn't "the government can send everyone $30k checks tomorrow and everything will be fine", but rather, the point is to inspire people to move from "this is stupid" to "let me humor the idea and at least help spend some effort investigating to see if there's any way to make it work before we declare failure". There's no guarantee the approach would success if we try, but there is a guarantee that it would fail if nobody is willing to even consider taking it seriously.

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#509

Post by notjulianjaynes » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:37 AM UTC

gautamcgoel wrote: post #477

p3rls wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever someone is accused of hypocrisy on the internet Oscar Wilde's dead corpse must be exhumed and put on the defense. I must have seen these exact lines on HN a dozen times over the last few years. It's as though this is a subject that people cannot reason about in the normal fashion and must fall back on cliches and appeals to authority (meanwhile almost the entire western canon is against this sorta character…

This is interesting, but can you explain the Oscar Wilde reference? I didn't get that part.

"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.”

― Oscar Wilde

Re: The Contradictions of Sam Altman

#510

Post by throwawaylinux » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:39 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #485

chii wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 economi…

This assumption of a rational market has been fucking up people's lives for a long time now. What's it gonna take to put that conceit to bed?

The assumption of a benevolent government of experts and moral leaders making decisions for the greater good has killed literally millions of people stolen trillions of dollars in war since WWII, and that's just counting western liberal democracies.

If you don't implicitly trust "the market", and you shouldn't, then you can't trust the government. What's it going to take to convince you that handing over more of your rights and money won't enable the government to solve problems it previously could not have.

"The government should fix that" is no less ridiculous than "the free market could fix that". Which is to say it can occasionally be true with a lot of caveats, and often wrong.