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

#61

Post by ben_w » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

angulardragon03 wrote: post #42

ThinkBeat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a CEO lies all the time, and investors make investments because of it, will that not turn out to become a problem for the CEO?

This is the Tesla Autopilot playbook, which seems to continue to work decently for that particular CEO

The difference between Tesla and Nikola is that some false claims matter more than others: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1129248846/nikola-founder-ele...

Given Altman seems to be extremely vague about exact timelines and mainly gives vibes, he's probably doing fine. Especially as half the stuff he says is, essentially, to lower expectations rather than to raise them.

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

#62

Post by lor_louis » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #49

surgical_fire wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were never geniuses. They were just rich assholes propped up by other rich assholes. "It's too late to stop conflating wealth with intelligence"

Regardless of personal qualities, for some reason these people have achieved great things for themselves and humanity, whereas countless competitors, including many other rich assholes, have not.

Luck and money.

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

#63

Post by bee_rider » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #16

bee_rider wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s right. First off, we don’t generally define jobs based on the closest computer analogy (we would be unhappy if the loggers returned with a list of things that happened in the woods, rather than a bunch of wood). The journalist’s job is to describe what actually is happening, and to provide enough context for readers to understand it. Some bias will inevitably creep in, because they can’t possibly…

>The journalist’s job is to describe what actually is happening, and to provide enough context for readers to understand it. The former is a journalist's job, the latter is the reader's concern and not the journalist. One of the reasons I consider journalism a cancer upon humanity is because journalists can't just write down "it is 35 degrees celsius today at 2pm", but rather "you won't believe how hot it is". Just j…

The journalist is making a product for the reader in the best case, their job is to help the reader. The second example you mention is a typical example of clickbait journalism, where the journalist has betrayed the reader and is trying to steal their attention, because they actually serve advertisers.

But the first example is not very useful either. That journalist could be replaced by a fully automated thermometer. Or weather stations with an API. Context is useful: “It is 35 degrees Celsius, and we’re predicting that it will stay sunny all day” will help you plan your day. “It is 35 degrees Celsius today, finishing off an unseasonably warm September” could provide a little info about the overall trend in the weather this year.

I don’t see any particular reason that journalists should follow your definition, which you seem to have just… made up?

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

#64

Post by kibwen » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:00 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #41

thelastgallon wrote: post #32

"Although it will happen incrementally, astounding triumphs – fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics – will eventually become commonplace. With nearly-limitless intelligence and abundant energy – the ability to generate great ideas, and the ability to make them happen – we can do quite a lot." - Sam Altman, https://ia.samaltman.com/ Reality: AI needs unheard amounts of en…

So far it seems that AIs appetite for energy might finally pushing western countries back to nuclear, which would make climate significantly better.

Unfortunately no, this is not how it works.

The relative quantity of power provided by nuclear (or renewables, for that matter) is NOT our current problem. The problem is the absolute quantity of power that is provided by fossil fuels. If that number does not decrease, then it does not matter how much nuclear or renewables you bring online. And nuclear is not cheaper than fossil fuels (even if you remove all regulation, and even if you build them at scale), so it won't economically incentivize taking fossil fuel plants offline.

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

#65

Post by photochemsyn » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

Of course no corporate executive can be taken at their word, unless that word is connected to a legally binding contract, and even then, the executive may try to break the terms of the contract, and may have political leverage over the court system which would bias the result of any effort to bring them to account.

This is not unusual - politicians cannot be taken at their word, government bureaucrats cannot be taken at their word, and corporate media propagandists cannot be taken at their word.

The fact that the vast majority of human beings will fabricate, dissemble, lie, scheme, manipulate etc. if they see a real personal advantage from doing so is the entire reason the whole field of legally binding contract law was developed.

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

#66

Post by throwaway42668 » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

melenaboija wrote: post #58

It is weird that one of the most valued markets (openai, microsoft investments, nvidia gpus, ...) is based on a stack that is available to anyone that can pay for the resources to train the models and that in my opinion still has to deliver to the expectations that have been created around it. Not saying it is a bubble but something seems imbalanced here.

It's okay to say it. It's a bubble.

It was just the next in line to be inflated after crypto.

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

#67

Post by simpaticoder » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

A bit of a "dog bites man" story to note that a CEO of a hot company is hyping the future beyond reason. The real story of LLMs is revealed when you posit a magical technology that can print any car part for free.

How would the car industry change if someone made a 3D printer that could make any part, including custom parts, with just electricity and air? It is a sea change to manufacturers and distributors, but there would still be a need for mechanics and engineers to specify the correct parts, in the correct order, and use the parts to good purpose.

It is easy to imagine that the inventor of such a technology would probably start talking about printing entire cars - and if you don't think about it, it makes sense. But if you think about it, there are problems. Making the component of a solution is quite different than composing a solution. LLMs exist in the same conditions. Being able to generate code/text/images is of no use to someone who doesn't know what to do with it. I also think this limitation is a practical, tacit solution to the alignment problem.

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

#68

Post by ben_w » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #41

thelastgallon wrote: post #32

"Although it will happen incrementally, astounding triumphs – fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics – will eventually become commonplace. With nearly-limitless intelligence and abundant energy – the ability to generate great ideas, and the ability to make them happen – we can do quite a lot." - Sam Altman, https://ia.samaltman.com/ Reality: AI needs unheard amounts of en…

So far it seems that AIs appetite for energy might finally pushing western countries back to nuclear, which would make climate significantly better.

Only if they build the reactors then go bankrupt leaving the rectors around for everyone else. Likewise if they build renewables to power the data centres.

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

#69

Post by raincole » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

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?

> What if gpt5 is vaporware, and there’s no equivalent 3 to 4 leap to be realized with current deep learning architectures?

Sam Altman himself doesn't know whether it's the case. Nobody knows. It's the natural of R&D. If you can tell whether an architecture works or not with 100% confidence it's not cutting edge.

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

#70

Post by UncleMeat » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #41

thelastgallon wrote: post #32

"Although it will happen incrementally, astounding triumphs – fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics – will eventually become commonplace. With nearly-limitless intelligence and abundant energy – the ability to generate great ideas, and the ability to make them happen – we can do quite a lot." - Sam Altman, https://ia.samaltman.com/ Reality: AI needs unheard amounts of en…

So far it seems that AIs appetite for energy might finally pushing western countries back to nuclear, which would make climate significantly better.

A world where we produce N watt-hours of energy without nuclear plants and a world where we produce N+K watt-hours of energy with K watt-hours coming from nuclear has exactly the same effect on the climate.