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

#581

Post by whamlastxmas » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 1:10 PM UTC

meroes wrote: post #345

whamlastxmas wrote: post #303

It’s really sad to see all the personal attacks and cynicism that has no basis in reality. OpenAI has an amazing product and was first to market with something game changing for billions of people. Calling him a fraud and scammer is super ridiculous

Game changing for billions? Please give an example. I’m fine to be proven wrong but I don’t know what you could mean.

It will teach you anything in any language step by step and answer every single question directly without having to google stuff and find only semi adjacent question and answers. It has completely replaced the need to google things in many instances. I think this is pretty game changing and it’s available to billions of people.

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

#582

Post by fennecfoxy » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 1:25 PM UTC

changing1999 wrote: post #493

wkat4242 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, you can be economical. You don't need a GPT-4 quality model for everything. Some things are just low value where a 3.5 model would do just fine. I never use the $20 plan but I access everything via API and i spend a couple of dollars per month. Although lately I have a home server that can do llama 3.1 8b uncensored and that actually works amazingly well.

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, and realistically once we can get hardware powerful but cheap/energy efficient enough to run llm + TTS + ASR without any noticeable delay during a conversation then who needs cloud services for most stuff. The really big models will still be useful, but really only for specific things.

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

#583

Post by weebull » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #457

lolinder wrote: post #86

To recap OpenAI's decisions over the past year: * They burned up the hype for GPT-5 on 4o and o1, which are great step changes but nothing the competition can't quickly replicate. * They dissolved the safety team. * They switched to for profit and are poised to give Altman equity. * All while hyping AGI more than ever. All of this suggests to me that Altman is in short-term exit preparation mode, not planning for AGI…

Except the article makes none of these points. The article is saying: a) "the technology is overhyped", based on some meaningless subjective criteria, if you think a technology is overhyped, don't invest your money or time in it. No one's forcing you. b) "child abuse problems are more important", with a link to an article that clearly specifies that the child abuse problems have nothing to do with OpenAI. c) "it uses…

Paying fair market price for energy and water is only fair if you don't need extra infrastructure put in place to support you. If you're expecting the local government to build you electricity generating capacity... No. That's not right.

At best, you're forcing old generation capacity that would have been retired to stay online. At worst you're forcing the government to take loans to invest in new capacity you may not be around to pay for in a few years, leaving the public finances holding the ball.

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

#584

Post by richardw » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #572

richardw wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Half of the language in your comment was fact free and incendiary. Delusion, prattle, deep needs of some role. That’s all firmly in the realm of ad hominem, so I was asking if you had anything substantial. > I'd wager the lack of clear technical understanding of what animal intelligence actually is I made the same points long time ago so can’t be too critical of that. I’ve changed my mind and here’s why. That’…

> fact free and incendiary No. I believe it is factually accurate that many tech workers believe that technology progress marches steadily onwards and upwards. This is easily shown by the historical record to be patently false. Moreover, it's easy to imagine myriad ways we could regress technologically--nuclear war, asteroid impact, space weather, etc. So a belief in the inexorable progress of technology is therefore…

If you’re reaching for nukes and asteroids then I think you just want to argue. Have a nice day.

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

#585

Post by qnleigh » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

almatabata wrote: post #265

deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #15

> At a high enough level of abstraction, Altman’s entire job is to keep us all fixated on an imagined AI future I think the job of a CEO is not to tell you the truth, and the truth is probably more often than not, the opposite. What if gpt5 is vaporware, and there’s no equivalent 3 to 4 leap to be realized with current deep learning architectures? What is OpenAI worth then?

Funnily I came across an interview from around 5 years ago where he straight up admitted that he had no clue how to generate a return on investment back then (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzcJlKg2Rc0&t=1920s ) "We have no current plans to make revenue." "We have no idea how we may one day generate revenue." "We have made a soft promise to investors that once we've built a general intelligence system, basically…

> The fact he has no clue how to generate revenue with an AGI without asking it...

I wouldn't take this statement at face value any more than anything else a CEO says. For example, maybe he still had to appease the board, and talking about making profit would be counterproductive. Maybe he gave this answer because it signals that he's in it for the long game and investors should be too.

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

#586

Post by pj_mukh » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

weebull wrote: post #583

pj_mukh wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the article makes none of these points. The article is saying: a) "the technology is overhyped", based on some meaningless subjective criteria, if you think a technology is overhyped, don't invest your money or time in it. No one's forcing you. b) "child abuse problems are more important", with a link to an article that clearly specifies that the child abuse problems have nothing to do with OpenAI. c) "it uses…

Paying fair market price for energy and water is only fair if you don't need extra infrastructure put in place to support you. If you're expecting the local government to build you electricity generating capacity... No. That's not right. At best, you're forcing old generation capacity that would have been retired to stay online. At worst you're forcing the government to take loans to invest in new capacity you may no…

Barring societal collapse, I don't see a scenario in which extra energy isn't used up and as long as it's sold at market prices the government investments should be fine.

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

#587

Post by gojomo » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #427

gojomo wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're projecting a short-term cash-out mentality here. Altman's actions are even more consistent with total confidence & dedication to a vision where OpenAI is the 1st and faraway leader in the production of the most valuable 'technology' ever. Plus, a desire to retain more personal control over that outcome – & not just conventional wealth! – than was typical with prior breakthroughs.

> you're projecting a short-term cash-out mentality I'm a software engineer comfortably drawing a decent-but-not-FAANG paycheck at an established company with every intention of taking the slow-and-steady path to retirement. I'm not projecting, I promise. > to a vision where OpenAI is the 1st and faraway leader in the production of the most valuable 'technology' ever Except that OpenAI isn't a faraway leader. Their b…

I think your biographical testimony more confirms than refutes my suspicions.

You think "smart" implies a low chance of world-epochal AI breakthroughs that would ruin your "slow-and-steady path to retirement". You think OpenAI has "no moat". You think it's wise to satisfice – taking a "decent" paycheck – rather than shoot-for-the-moon (and beyond it, control of the 'lightcone').

That's closer to the "short-term exit" mindset – get a good-enough payout, in mundane dollars, while you can – that you're alleging in Altman than what I'm seeing in his statements & behaviors. Yes, someone with your beliefs would in fact be trying to pump OpenAI's short-term hype for a timely exit and an even-more-cushy retirement.

But Altman's already a billionaire with any creature comfort he'd want, for the rest of his life, plus at least one "doomsday bunker" (per a 2016 'New Yorker' profile).

For at least 10 years, he's been consistently expressing a desire to advance, and control, breakthroughs in AI, AGI, and ASI that could – in a true believers' worldview – wipe away as obsolete all his prior billions – as well as the "slow-and-steady path[s] to retirement" pursued by others.

He knows as an insider and contributor OpenAI's actual lead over others – who have tended to approximately-reach OpenAI's capabilities a year or more later.

That you rate as OpenAI's "big news this week" their "Artifacts" end-user feature, rather than everything else announced & rolled out, plus OpenAI's gigantic leads in funds raised and revenue run-rate, suggests a particular world-view.

I would suggest that you are over-focused on the kind of small-stakes products/markets/ambitions that are highly-legible to a "software engineer comfortably drawing a decent-but-not-FAANG paycheck at an established company" – but such considerations are barely afterthoughts in the game of power & legacy that Altman is now playing.

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

#588

Post by peteforde » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 7:01 PM UTC

barrell wrote: post #577

peteforde wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surrounded by people who "ask GPT" things constantly. That seems like the same thing to me.

Are these people asking chatGPT though? Or do they say “ask GPT” and then use other LLMs? I feel like I hear “ask Claude” as much as “ask chatGPT”

Yeah... I think it's GPT.

I just sampled my family and nobody could name an LLM that wasn't GPT. In this very small, obviously anecdotal scenario, GPT == LLM.

They seemed vaguely aware that there are other options; my wife asked if I meant Bing.

Meanwhile, I have literally never heard the words "ask Claude" out loud. I promise to come back and confirm if/when that ever changes.

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

#589

Post by peteforde » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 7:03 PM UTC

hyperG wrote: post #558

SoftTalker wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If we ever find each other IRL, I suspect that we will be fast friends.

A tip of my hat to you, sir/ma'am.

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

#590

Post by peteforde » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 7:06 PM UTC

hyperG wrote: post #556

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 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.

YESssss

I feel like this has become one of the most taboo things to even wonder about out loud, because it drives a different part of the Venn diagram into a freaking rage. How dare you force me to consider that perhaps I am only slightly above average in a population of billions?