It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word • Hacker News Board

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#551

Post by nerdix » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 2:18 PM UTC

disiplus wrote: post #459

VirusNewbie wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? He did not have a large exit to give him a bankroll to invest. Unless you mean from whatever YC shares he received as President, which seems unlikely. Even if he was paid ~25 million in equity per year, did YC shares increase 10x in that time?

Didn't he own like 10% of Reddit. Here what pg had to say about the guy. --- Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't…

One of those quotes where I can't tell if it's a compliment or not.

I hear "He will find a way to not only survive but to thrive in difficult situations"

But I also hear "He will eat people to get ahead".

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#552

Post by casta » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 2:25 PM UTC

echoangle wrote: post #365

esskay wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stops it getting more intelegent? That's litterally its primary aim. Its only limit as to how quickly it does that is hardware capacity, and I'd be shocked if it didn't somehow theorise to itself that it can and should expand its knowledge in any way possible.

Why would the only limit be hardware capacity? Can’t there be an innate limit due to the model size/architecture? Maybe LLMs can’t be superintelligent because they are missing a critical ability which can’t be overcome with any amount of training? It’s not obvious to me that it’s going to get smarter infinitely.

The limit could also be in the training data. If we could train LLMs with a corpus generated by some super intelligent entity, maybe we'd consider them super intelligent even with the same model size/architecture we have today.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#553

Post by vbezhenar » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 2:53 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #274

vbezhenar wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Search engine replacement. I'm using it for many queries I asked Google before. I still use Google, but less often. 2. To break procrastination loops. For example I often can't name a particular variable, because I can see few alternatives and I don't like all of them. Nowadays I just ask ChatGPT and often proceed with his opinion. 3. Navigating less known technologies. For example my Python knowledge is limited a…

>> 3. Navigating less known technologies. For example my Python knowledge is limited and I don't really use it often, so I don't want to spend time to better learn it. Respectfully but that's a bit like saying you don't need to learn how to ride a bicycle because you can use a pair of safety wheels. It's an excuse to not learn something, to keep yourself less knowledgeable and skillful than you could really be. Why s…

I'm long time programmer and I learned quite a lot of languages along the way. 20 years ago I programmed Perl and I spent some time learning its quirks. While some of that knowledge definitely helped me all these years, especially regular expressions, I wouldn't write a single Perl line without Googling today.

So learning syntax nuances of yet another programming language which I'll forget soon is wasted time. There's some "fundamental" knowledge, like understanding what functional value is, but the specific syntax that Python invented for lambda - that's not something valuable when I use Python few times a year.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#554

Post by changing1999 » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #540

changing1999 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Llama 3.1 8B Instruct 128k at home and that pretty much covers all my LLM needs. Don't see a reason to pay for GPT-4.

Yeah it's good, right?? Amazingly good. The first-gen small models were a bit iffy but Llama 3.1 is so good The only thing I see is that it hallucinates a lot when you ask it for knowledge. Which makes sense because 8B is just not a lot to keep detailed information around. But the ability to recite training knowledge is really a misuse of LLMs and only a peculiar side-effect. I combine it with google searches (though…

Oh this is great! Currently I don't incorporate web search into the UI I use, will give OpenWebUI a try.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#555

Post by baking » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #522

baking wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So if everything about this AI boom fails what we'll be left with is a massive amount of abundant renewable energy Except that someone has to pay for it. AI companies are only willing to pay for power purchase agreements, not capital expenses. Same with the $7T of chip fab. Invest your money in huge capital expenditures and our investors will pay you for it on an annual basis until they get tired of losing money.

Power purchase agreements are what renewables developers use to obtain financing for construction. The contract is collateral. Worst case, the developer might need to be prepared to find a substitute offtaker for the power if a PPA with a gen AI offtaker goes bust (if brought up by whomever is underwriting the financing, if there are debt covenants, etc). I absolutely support AI companies signing as many PPAs for low…

What if it is a 5 gigawatt data center in the middle of nowhere or if the power source is a nuclear reactor or three? Presumably, data centers are paying a premium that other customers aren't willing to pay.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#556

Post by hyperG » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 4:43 PM UTC

peteforde wrote: post #344

coffeefirst wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to share how you're using it? I keep hearing from people who find these enormous benefits from LLMs. I've been liking them as a search engine (especially finding things buried in bad documentation), but can't seem to find the life-changing part.

I can't even summarize how much GPT4x has helped me teach myself engineering skills over the past two years. It can help me accomplish highly specific and nuanced things in CAD, plan interactions between component parts (which it helped me decide) on PCBs that it helps me to lay out, figure out how to optimize everything from switching regulators to preparing for EM certification. And I could say this about just abou…

I suspect many people are simply not that intellectually curious about the world.

It a super power for the intellectually curious while the highly specialized that thought they were done learning can only see the threat to their intellectual moat. They aren't wrong.

I feel like I level up on a weekly basis practically.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#557

Post by toomuchtodo » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

baking wrote: post #555

toomuchtodo wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power purchase agreements are what renewables developers use to obtain financing for construction. The contract is collateral. Worst case, the developer might need to be prepared to find a substitute offtaker for the power if a PPA with a gen AI offtaker goes bust (if brought up by whomever is underwriting the financing, if there are debt covenants, etc). I absolutely support AI companies signing as many PPAs for low…

What if it is a 5 gigawatt data center in the middle of nowhere or if the power source is a nuclear reactor or three? Presumably, data centers are paying a premium that other customers aren't willing to pay.

Hard to say with random "what ifs." If we're starting merchant nuclear reactors back up, because they have some life left in them and can be operated safely, I support such an operating model as it pushes high carbon energy out of the generation mix until there is more clean energy on the grid.

Illinois provides subsidies to their nuclear reactors because they are low carbon [1], the federal government is subsidizing Diablo Canyon in California [2] and Palisades in Michigan [3]. Every coal fired generator in the US is more expensive to run than to replace with low carbon renewables except the one in Dry Fork, WY, [4] so subsidies are just arguments, not real economic signals.

TLDR We're kicking the can until we can get more clean energy online, and that ramp rate continues to accelerate [5].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/20/illinois-nuclear-power-subsi... ("Why Illinois paid $694 million to keep nuclear plants open")

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-finalizes-11-billion-cre... ("US finalizes $1.1 billion in credits for California nuclear plant")

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41696884 (HN: MI nuclear plant finalizes fed loan for first reactor restart in US history")

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37601970 (citations)

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41602799 (citations)

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#558

Post by hyperG » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #362

peteforde wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even summarize how much GPT4x has helped me teach myself engineering skills over the past two years. It can help me accomplish highly specific and nuanced things in CAD, plan interactions between component parts (which it helped me decide) on PCBs that it helps me to lay out, figure out how to optimize everything from switching regulators to preparing for EM certification. And I could say this about just abou…

> I honestly don't understand how the folks reading HN don't intuitively and passionately lean into that. It's a freaking superpower. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Many of us here would see our jobs eliminated by a sufficiently powerful AI, perhaps some have already experienced it. You might as well. If you use AI so much, what value do you…

Maybe because my salary doesn't depend on any of this that I think this whole framing is science fiction.

A calculator needs direction on what to calculate because the machine doesn't have agency.

We are going to a higher level of abstraction and at that higher level you probably need a different skill set than before. Humans aren't going to get cut out of the loop but you always have to level up your skills.

I think there is just a generation of tech workers that got lazy and thought they were immune to change some how. I didn't even know anyone that had been on the internet when I graduated high school. Someone older and wiser though told me I would have to constantly reinvent myself, always learn new skills and will have several different careers. They were so spot on. Guess what? Nothing has changed.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#559

Post by gabrielhidasy » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 5:54 PM UTC

baking wrote: post #555

toomuchtodo wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power purchase agreements are what renewables developers use to obtain financing for construction. The contract is collateral. Worst case, the developer might need to be prepared to find a substitute offtaker for the power if a PPA with a gen AI offtaker goes bust (if brought up by whomever is underwriting the financing, if there are debt covenants, etc). I absolutely support AI companies signing as many PPAs for low…

What if it is a 5 gigawatt data center in the middle of nowhere or if the power source is a nuclear reactor or three? Presumably, data centers are paying a premium that other customers aren't willing to pay.

Hopefully we get a nuclear reactor or three

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#560

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sun, Oct 06, 2024, 6:03 PM UTC

peteforde wrote: post #517

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, I didn't say anything about the OP's "ability to learn". I know nothing about that and can't tell anything about it from their comment. I also didn't say anything about how our brain works, or about "the tendrils of ML overlords". If you want to have a debate, I'm all for it, but if you're going to go around imagining things that I may have said in another timeline then I don't see what's the point o…

Your comment said, in many more words, that to embrace LLMs for learning or knowledge enhancement might pay off in the short term but will leave you stunted and operating in a local maximum of potential and possibility. You could be right, but I strongly suspect that you are actually wrong.

Nope. I said that refusing to learn something will leave you stunted. I did not say that using an LLM will leave you stunted.

The OP said:

>>> For example my Python knowledge is limited and I don't really use it often, so I don't want to spend time to better learn it.

And I replied:

>> Respectfully but that's a bit like saying you don't need to learn how to ride a bicycle because you can use a pair of safety wheels. It's an excuse to not learn something, to keep yourself less knowledgeable and skillful than you could really be. Why stunt yourself? Knowledge is power.

"It's an excuse to not learn something (...) Why stunt yourself?".