Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Evolving OpenAI's Structure

openai.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 746 posts

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#641

Post by [deleted] »

throwup238 wrote: post #436
LMYahooTFY wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Google not have brand recognition and Consumer good will? We might read all sorts of deep opinions of Google on HN, but I think Search and Chrome market share speak themselves. For the average consumer, I'm skeptical that OpenAI carries much weight.

> For the average consumer, I'm skeptical that OpenAI carries much weight. My friend teaches at a Catholic girls’ high school and based on what he tells me, everyone knows about ChatGPT, both staff and students. He just had to fail an entire class on an assignment because they all used it to write a book summary (which many of them royally screwed up because there’s another book with a nearly identical title). It’s a…

[deleted]

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#642

Post by dns_snek »

dbacar wrote: post #252
bdangubic wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI is matter of when, not if probably true but this statement would be true if when is 2308 which would defeat the purpose of the statement. when first cars started rolling around some mates around the campfire we saying “not if but when” we’ll have flying cars everywhere and 100 years later (with amazing progress in car manufacturing) we are nowhere near… I think saying “when, not if” is one of those statements tha…

It is already here, kinda. I mean look at how it passes the bar exam, solves math olympiad level questions, generates video, art, music. What else are you looking for? It already has penetrated into job market causing significant disruption in programming. We are not seeing flying cars but we are witnessing things even not talked about around campfire. Seriously even 4 years ago, would you think all these would happe…

> What else are you looking for?

To begin with, systems that don't tell people to use elmer's glue to keep the cheese from sliding off the pizza, displaying a fundamental lack of understanding of.. everything. At minimum it needs to be able to reliably solve hard, unique, but well-defined problems like a group of the most cohesive intelligent people could. It's certainly not AGI until it can do a better job than the most experienced, talented, and intelligent knowledge workers out there.

Every major advancement (which LLMs certainly are) has caused some disruption in the fields it affected, but that isn't useful criteria that can differentiate between "crude but useful tool" from "AGI".

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#643

Post by herculity275 »

wrsh07 wrote: post #637
amelius wrote: post #608

> We did not really know how AGI was going to get built, or used (...) Altman keeps on talking about AGI as if we're already there.

I don't agree with Tyler on this point (although o3 really is a thing to behold) But reasonable people could argue that we've achieved AGI (not artificial super intelligence) https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/04/o3... Fwiw, Sam Altman will have already seen the next models they're planning to release

The goalposts seem to have shifted to a point where the "AGI" label will only be retroactively applied to an AI that was able to develop ASI

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#644

Post by Meneth »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #600
thurn wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of these statements do you disagree with? - Superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity - Predicting the future is famously difficult - Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence - Even a 1-in-1000 existential threat would be extremely serious. If an asteroid had a 1-in-1000 chance of hitting Earth and obliterating humanity we shoul…

> Superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity I disagree at least on this one. I don't see any scenario where superintelligence comes into existence, but is for some reason limited to a mediocrity that puts it in contention with humans. That equilibrium is very narrow, and there's no good reason to believe machine-intelligence would settle there. It's a vanishingly low chance event. It considerably chan…

So you assume a superintelligence, so powerful it would see humans as we see ants, would not destroy our habitat for resources it could use for itself?

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#645

Post by 6510 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #89
Night_Thastus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing OpenAI is doing, or ever has done, has been close to AGI.

I agree with you I wonder, do you have a hypothesis as to what would be a measurement that would differentiate AGI vs Not-AGI?

It's not much help but when I read "AGI" I picture a fish tank with brains floating in it.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#646

Post by polynomial »

throw101010 wrote: post #623
tsimionescu wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use the exact same argument to argue the opposite. Simply change the first premise to "Super intelligence is the only thing that can save humanity from certain extinction". Using the exact same logic, you'll reach the conclusion that not building superintelligence is a risk no sane person can afford to take. So, since we've used the exact same reasoning to prove two opposite conclusions, it logically follow…

That’s not how logic works. The GP is applying the precautionary principle: when there’s even a small chance of a catastrophic risk, it makes sense to take precautions-like restricting who can build superintelligent AI, similar to how we restrict access to nuclear technology. Changing the premise to "superintelligence is the only thing that can save us" doesn’t invalidate the logic of being cautious. It just shifts t…

Not really. If there is a small chance that this miraculous new technology will solve all of our problems with no real downside, we must invest everything we have and pull out all the stops, for the very future of the human race depends on AGI.

Also, @tsimionescu's reasoning is spot on, and exactly how logic works.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#647

Post by Davidzheng »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #293
lanthissa wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI can't really be a winner take all market. The 'reward' for general intelligence is infinite as a monopoly and it accelerates productivity. Not only is there infinite incentive to compete, but theres decreasing costs to. The only world in which AGI is winner take all is a world in which it is extremely controlled to the point at which the public cant query it.

> AGI can't really be a winner take all market. The 'reward' for general intelligence is infinite as a monopoly and it accelerates productivity The first-mover advantages of an AGI that can improve itself are theoretically unsurmountable. But OpenAI doesn't have a path to AGI any more than anyone else. (It's increasingly clear LLMs alone don't make the cut.) And the market for LLMs, non-general AI, is very much not w…

I'm pretty sure today's models probably can be capable of self-improving. It's just that they are not yet as good as self-improving as the combinations of programmers improving them with the help of the models.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#648

Post by polynomial »

geysersam wrote: post #577
thurn wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of these statements do you disagree with? - Superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity - Predicting the future is famously difficult - Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence - Even a 1-in-1000 existential threat would be extremely serious. If an asteroid had a 1-in-1000 chance of hitting Earth and obliterating humanity we shoul…

Isn't the question you're posing basically Pascals wager? I think the chance they're going to create a "superintelligence" is extremely small. That said I'm sure we're going to have a lot of useful intelligence. But nothing general or self-conscious or powerful enough to be threatening for many decades or even ever. > Predicting the future is famously difficult That's very true, but that fact unfortunately can never…

Yes, this is literally Pascal's wager / Pascal's mugging.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#649

Post by 6510 »

kvetching wrote: post #447
Night_Thastus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing OpenAI is doing, or ever has done, has been close to AGI.

Please, keep telling people that. For my sake. Keep the world asleep as I take advantage of this technology which is literally General Artificial Intelligence that I can apply towards increasing my power.

That is just what it wants you to think.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#650

Post by quietbritishjim »

thurn wrote: post #560
CorpOverreach wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really love to talk to someone that both really believes this to be true, and has a hands-on experience with building and using generative AI. The intersection of the two seems to be quite hard to find. At the state that we're in the AIs we're building are just really useful input/output devices that respond to a stimuli (e.g., a "prompt"). No stimuli, no output. This isn't a nuclear weapon. We're not going to ac…

Which of these statements do you disagree with? - Superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity - Predicting the future is famously difficult - Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence - Even a 1-in-1000 existential threat would be extremely serious. If an asteroid had a 1-in-1000 chance of hitting Earth and obliterating humanity we shoul…

> Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence

I think you realise this is the weak point. You can't rule out the current AI approach leading to superintelligence. You also can't rule out a rotting banana skin in your bin spontaneously gaining sentience either. Does that mean you shouldn't risk throwing away that skin? It's so outrageous that you need at least some reason to rule it in. So it goes with current AI approaches.

Post reply on HN