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Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

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Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#671

Post by nicce »

larodi wrote: post #618

I don’t think Sam will stay at Microsoft for too long, but this is a logical move forward as damage to OpenAI is already done even if Sam goes back. Besides it is MS who enabled this scale and it perhaps is Sam who negotiated it to begin with. These other execs simply can’t stand the ground against him being excellent technologist and leader who talks the language of devs. I doubt the rest of these C level people in…

Costs are reduced from profits. You can cost as much as you need. You can also grow as you reinvest everything back to company.

For-profit means that money leaves the company, usually for investors.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#672

Post by ps256 »

thunkshift1 wrote: post #528
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ilya and co are going to get orphaned, there’s no point to the talent they have if they intend to slow things down so it’s not like they’ll remain competitive. The capacity that MSFT was going to sell to OpenAI will go to the internal team.

Maybe they want it that way and want to move on from all the LLM hype that was distracting them from their main charter of pushing the boundaries of AI research? If yes, then they succeeded handsomely

"Don't get distracted by the research which actually produces useful things"

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#673

Post by DebtDeflation »

manojlds wrote: post #582
9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

> The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that. https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1726526112019382275

>And it’s clear that the process and communications around Sam’s removal has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.

This is amazing. His very first public statement is to criticize the board that just hired him.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#674

Post by abm53 »

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #636
9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

> It’s a bit tragic that Ilya and company achieved the exact opposite of what they intended apparently, by driving those they attempted to slow down into the arms of people with more money and less morals. Well. If they didn’t fire him, Altman will just continue to run hog wild over their charter. In that sense they lose either way. At least this way, OpenAI can continue to operate independently instead of being Micr…

There is a third option where he stayed, they managed to find a compromise, and in so doing kept their influence in the space to a large extent.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#675

Post by cutemonster »

calf wrote: post #530
shubhamjain wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not claiming how right or wrong the final outcome would be, but owning the technology with a clear "for-profit" objective is definitely a better structure for Microsoft and for Sam Altman as well (considering, his plans for the future). I have no opinion on AI risk. I just think that a super valuable technology under a non-profit objective was simply an untenable structure, regardless of potential threats.

This super-valuable technology would not have existed precisely because of this unstable (metastable) structure. Microsoft or Google did not create ChatGPT because internally there would have been too many rules, too many cooks, red tape, etc., to do such a bold--and incautionary--thing as to use the entirety of the Internet as the training set, copyright law be damned and all. The crazy structure is what allowed the…

That doesn't seem to require a non profit owning a for profit though.

Just a "normal" startup could have worked too (but apparently not big corp)

Edit: Hmm sibling comment says sth else, I wonder if that makes sense

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#677

Post by donny2018 »

croes wrote: post #617
shubhamjain wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not claiming how right or wrong the final outcome would be, but owning the technology with a clear "for-profit" objective is definitely a better structure for Microsoft and for Sam Altman as well (considering, his plans for the future). I have no opinion on AI risk. I just think that a super valuable technology under a non-profit objective was simply an untenable structure, regardless of potential threats.

Better for MS and Altman, that's exactly. AI should benefit mankind, not corporate profit.

Then “mankind” should be paying for research and servers, shouldn’t it?

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#678

Post by konschubert »

Arainach wrote: post #336
zurfer wrote: post #253

I don't buy it. If you listen to Sam and Greg, they want to change the world and bring us into a world of abundance that everyone can participate in. They were the ideators of this "awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company". Microsoft is setup to create shareholder value. That's it. Both of them will eventually find it moot to advance tech so a few folks get richer.

If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Sam's history is full of the worst parts of venture capital and startup mindset. He's only an idealist so far as he's good at selling the ideal outcome and drowning out any criticism.

You can bring abundance to the world as a for profit entity.

The exchange of services and goods in a market is positive-sum.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#679

Post by nobodywillobsrv »

pavlov wrote: post #368
imgabe wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think. I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.

Exxon shareholders are also part of humanity. The company has known about the dangers of climate change for 50 years and did nothing because it could have impacted short/medium-term profits. In reality ownership is so dispersed that the shareholders in companies like Microsoft or Exxon have no say in long-term issues like this.

Did nothing?

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#680

Post by nobodywillobsrv »

pavlov wrote: post #368
imgabe wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think. I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.

Exxon shareholders are also part of humanity. The company has known about the dangers of climate change for 50 years and did nothing because it could have impacted short/medium-term profits. In reality ownership is so dispersed that the shareholders in companies like Microsoft or Exxon have no say in long-term issues like this.

Did nothing? What do you mean?
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