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Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

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631–640 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#631

I found it very interesting that Altman et al were worried that AI will become supremely intelligent and China will make a supervirus or some AI drones or whatnot, but not a single person was worried about destroying all jobs because we wouldn't need humans any more. Or maybe they were not so much "worried" but "hopeful" that they'd amass literally all the wealth in the world.

Altman is an advocate of Universal Basic Income, as far as I'm aware. That doesn't sound like he's not worried about massive job losses. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sam-altman-universal-basic-inco... https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-altman-wants-universal-ex...

If there's one thing that's clear from the article, it's that he's a proponent of anything that will benefit him, even multiple conflicting things at the same time.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things. 1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim. 2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer. 3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs I was working for a company called NationBuilder a…

An extranordinary claim needs a bit more evidence than one datapoint where in his defense maybe he is scared of anyone he doesn't know trying to talk on the street.

Also mentioned was that more evidence is not hard to find

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very minor typo in the article: > “Investors are, like, I need to know you’re gonna stick with this when times get hard,” Should be: > “Investors are like, I need to know you’re gonna stick with this when times get hard,”

I'm not seeing a typo. Just a stylistic difference.

In "that's, like, your opinion", "like" is an interjection, you can take it out and not change the meaning: "That's your opinion".

In "investors were like, you need to grow", you're semi-quoting someone, and can't take it out: "investors were you need to grow".

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#634

Without having read the article, reacting on the headline: no single person should be allowed to control our future. Democracy is a thing in large parts of the world, and we should try very hard to keep that functioning and even improve it.

The only part of the world where _democracy_ is a thing is Switzerland. Rest of the western world is utterly ruled by politicians, governments with ever more control over _their_ population's private life and money, and some who shout out "democracy", deluded they have any control over anything through voting lol.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ronan Farrow on Hacker News. Now I’ve seen everything.

I’ve really appreciated how substantive and polite the discourse here is, overall!

It’s good to have you! We try to keep it civil :)

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things. 1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim. 2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer. 3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs I was working for a company called NationBuilder a…

Note: To all the downvotes; I did this publicly and not anon for a reason, if you will do the same I am more than willing to provide evidence for all of these claims as long as its done publicly and in the open.

It's disappointing to me that a completely factual personal experience can be relayed with zero spin – and yet some of the replies act as if it's 100% spin without any factual evidence. Some people seem to prefer to respond to an imaginary version of a conversation rather than the one that's actually happening in front of them.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#639
post #395

Ronan Farrow here. Andrew Marantz and I spent 18 months on this investigation. Happy to answer questions about the reporting.

From time to time I have been accused of being an apologist for Sam Altman, but I have always tried to assess information based upon what it says instead of whether it matches an existing narrative. You list a number of distortions in your article which show the problem. If you are a good person, bad stories about you may be fake. If you are a bad person, bad stories about you may still be fake. My prima facie view o…

> what information would significantly change your views

Quite simple: show me any single action took by Sam Altman which can not be construed as an attempt to get him more power/money/influence. You can't find it.

The difference between what he claims to believe and what he actually does is a textbook example of sociopathy.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#640

It seems unlikely OpenAI can survive long term with Sam at the helm. Challenge is folks already realized that once and yet here we are.

You come at the king, you best not miss. Unfortunately, having survived a coup, his odds of surviving the next have improved. Now he knows how they go, what to look for and how he might handle them. I wouldn't bet on him being kicked out, at least while OpenAI is still on top. If OpenAI stumbles and Anthropic or another starts to prevail, only then would I bet on Sam getting pushed out.
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