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Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

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Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#651

Post by godelski »

andsoitis wrote: post #503
TFYS wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International co-operation to control development and usage. The decision to unleash AGI can only be made once. Making such a decision should not be done hastily, and definitely not for the reason of pursuing private profit. Such a decision needs input from all of humanity.

> International co-operation to control development and usage. Non-starter. Why would you trust your adversary to "stay within the lanes". The rational thing to do is to extend your lead as much as possible to be at the top of the pyramid. The arms race is on.

With these things, the distrust is a feature, not a flaw. The distrust ensures you are keeping a close eye on each other. The collaboration means you're also physically close and intellectually close. Secrets are still possible, but it's just harder to keep them because it's easier for things to slip

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#652

Post by godelski »

moffkalast wrote: post #374
godelski wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a button any one person should have their finger on?

They don't make buttons large enough for multiple people to press. It's always going to be someone in the end.

Yes they do?

There's also plenty of buttons that can't be pressed unless unlocked by multiple keys which cannot be turned by a single person.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#653

Post by cmrdporcupine »

wraptile wrote: post #493
_heimdall wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would have to know their intent to really know if they fit a general understanding "the good guys." Its very possible that China is open sourcing LLMs because its currently in their best interest to do so, not because of some moral or principled stance.

The country ruled by "people's party" has almost no open source culture while capitalism is leading the entire free software movement. I'm not sure what that says about our society and politics but the absurdist in me is having a good laugh every time I think about this :D

Capitalist countries (actually there are no other kinds of economies, in reality) are leading the open source software movement because it is a way for corporations to get software development services and products for free rather than paying for. It's a way of lowering labour costs.

Highly paid software engineers working in a ZIRP economy with skyrocketing compensation packages were absolutely willing to play this game, because "open source" in that context often is/was a resume or portfolio building tool and companies were willing to pay some % of open source developers in order to lubricate the wheels of commerce.

That, I think, is going to change.

Free software, which I interpret as copyleft, is absolutely antithetical to them, and reviled precisely because it gets in the way of getting work for free/cheap and often gets in the way of making money.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#654

Post by azan_ »

dmoy wrote: post #542
elif wrote: post #517

I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$ and a family you love.

Man I disagree with this on multiple points: I wouldn't describe a team full of people who don't want to work 60 hour weeks as "eroded", cus like... That's 6x 10 hour days leaving incredibly little time for family, chores, unwinding, etc. Once in awhile maybe, but sustained that'll just burn people out. And also by that logic, is every executive paid $5M+/yr in every company, or every person who's accumulated say $20…

There are people that are capable of working 60+/week long term without burnout, they are very rare but do exist (I know like two or three).

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#655

Post by sorcerer-mar »

nilkn wrote: post #649
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality all frontier models will likely progress at nearly the same pace making it difficult to disaggregate this team's performance compared to others. More importantly, it'll be nearly impossible to disaggregate any one contributor's performance from the others, making it basically impossible to enforce accountability without many many repetitions to eliminate noise. > Even in top-tier sports, many underperforme…

There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions, so while I wouldn't say that's a complete nonissue, it's not a major problem. The output of the team is more important to the business anyway (as is the case in sports, too). And if the team produces results on par with the best results being attained anywhere else on the planet, Zuck would likely consider that a…

> There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions

"Established" != valid, and literally everyone knows that.

The executives you reference are never ICs and are definitionally accountable to the measured performance of their business line. These are not superstar hires the way that AI researchers (or athletes) are. The body in the chair is totally interchangeable so long as the spreadsheet says the right number, and you expect the spreadsheet performance to be only marginally controlled by the particular body in the chair. That's not the case with most of these hires.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#656

Post by MangoToupe »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #78
mlinhares wrote: post #10

That didn't work for the American colonies, Portugal and Spain were very focused on being missionaries and were beaten by the Dutch and Brits that just wanted to make money.

90% of the reason Spain and Portugal explored the new world was for wealth (spices, gold/silver, sugar, brazilwood). The rest of the reason was to spread their religion and increase their national power. Missions only popped up 30 years after they first began colonization. The Dutch, British, and French were initially brought to the new world because they'd heard how rich it was and wanted a piece of the pie. It took…

It's also worth noting that missions were often a chit to curry political favor with the catholic church. This was sort of the manufactured consent of the 17th century.

There's also this illuminating letter sent from King Leopold II to missionaries in the late 19th century: https://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~luarnaut/Letter%20Leopold%20II%2...

I would quote it, but it's worth reading in its entirety and is extremely blunt in its intent.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#657

Post by tedheath123 »

waffletower wrote: post #597
px43 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some people "free" means "autonomy", and copyleft licences do a lot to restrict autonomy.

"Free" decidedly means autonomy; "I have been freed from prison". Use of the word "free" in many OSS licenses is a jarring euphemism.

cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#658

Post by ddellacosta »

p4ul wrote: post #644
shwaj wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a play on “don’t anthropomorphize the lawn mower”, referring to Larry Ellison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s

Gotcha, thank you both, I totally missed this

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#659

Post by thih9 »

haiku2077 wrote: post #300
LtWorf wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which countries would these be?

The US, for one. You can sue nearly anyone for nearly anything, even something you obviously won't win in court, as long as you find a lawyer willing to do it; you don't need any actual legal standing to waste the target's time and money. Even the most unscrupulous lawyer is going to look at the MIT license, realize the target can defend it for a trivial amount of money (a single form letter from their lawyer) and mo…

There are other ways to litigate that the malicious/greedy can use, where MIT offers no protection; e.g. patent trolling.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#660

Post by _aavaa_ »

birn559 wrote: post #236
_aavaa_ wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Llama is not open source. It is at best weights available. The license explicitly limits what kind of things you are allowed to use the outputs of the models for.

Is that easier to enforce than having AI only trained in a legal way (=obeying licenses / copyright law)?

Yes. Having training obey copyright is a big coordination problem that requires copyright holders to group together to sue meta (and prove they broke copyright, which is not something proven before for LLM).

Whereas meta suing you into radioactive rubble is straightforward.

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