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

newyorker.com

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

#671

Post by keybored »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #304
philip1209 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We talk about Sam Altman a lot. At this point he has a Hollywood movie in post-production, a book ("The Optimist"), and a seemingly endless stream of profiles. It feels intellectually lazy to keep researching the same guy when the industry is moving beyond him. All evidence today suggests Anthropic is passing OpenAI in relative and absolute growth. So where's the critical reporting? The DOD coverage was framed around…

> whether the company that branded itself as the ethical AI lab actually is one FWIW I have two(!!) close friends working for Anthropic, one for nearly two years and one for about 4 months. Both of them tell me that this is not just marketing, that the company actually is ethical and safety conscious everywhere, and that this was the most surprising part about joining Anthropic for them. They insist the culture is ac…

Are your friends also credited in Silicon Valley (2014)?

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

#672

Post by sph »

autonomousErwin wrote: post #655
sph wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing what an LLM has to say about a thing is like sharing what you dreamt of last night — no one really cares.

unless you dreamt how to debug that problem no-one else can solve

It works better if you said it came to you under the influence of heavy drugs

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

#673

Post by jbergqvist »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #81
cs702 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for coming on HN and offering to answer questions.[a] This is a fantastic piece, very timely, evidently well-researched, and also well-written. Judging by the little that I know, it's accurate. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with the world. OpenAI may be in a more tenuous competitive position than many people realize. Recent anecdotal evidence suggests the company has lost its lead in the AI ra…

Many of us prefer OpenAI's Codex, because we think it's a better product. No comment on the CEO: I just find the product superior in everything but UI/UX and conversation. It's better at quality code.

Usage limits are more generous and GPT 5.4 is a good model, but yes, UI/UX lags behind Claude Code. Currently I'm especially missing /rewind with code restoration and proper support for plugin marketplaces

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

#674

Post by cs702 »

dang wrote: post #83
georgemcbay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may want to provide proof online that you are who you say you are Unfortunately it probably doesn't even matter here on HN considering how brigaded down this story is predictably getting. But yeah, it was a fantastic piece.

It wasn't getting "brigaded down" - it set off a software penalty called the flamewar detector. I turned that off as soon as I saw it.

Thank you for keeping HN sane :-)

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

#675

Post by nswango »

mptest wrote: post #392
k1m wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the US launched its attack on Iran, the ethical AI lab's CEO wrote: "Anthropic has much more in common with the Department of War than we have differences." - https://www.anthropic.com/news/where-stand-department-war

"how easy it is, for those of us who play no part in public affairs, to sneer at the compromises required of those who do" - robert harris Not making any value judgements, but I can see how one might value their interpretability research higher than what the ceo says in a time where the corrupt, criminal executive branch is muscling in to everything from what's written on currency, to journalistic sources. I generall…

Not sure that quote has aged well from a close personal friend and spirited defender of Peter Mandelson.

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

#676

Post by Cthulhu_ »

gpt5 wrote: post #548
red369 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find that interesting. And not intending to defend the motives of anyone involved, but I'm hoping we can not worry about literally all jobs being destroyed, and AI companies amassing all the wealth in the world. Don't we need at least some humans working and earning to buy these AI services? Am I not being imaginative enough? Is it possible for the whole economy to consist just of AI selling services to each o…

Do you need ants buying services from humans for the world economy to function? If AI will indeed become superintelligent, we won't matter.

It's a huge if and honestly I don't believe in it.

Actually, if it ends up like described, it really doesn't matter whether I believe in it. Either it happens and we all die, or it doesn't happen. Pascal's Wager I suppose.

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

#679

Post by Cthulhu_ »

goodoldneon wrote: post #217
ainch wrote: post #188

Great piece. And a good excuse to read up on the use of diaeresis in English (eg. coördination, reëlection) to distinguish repeated vowels - I hadn't seen the New Yorker's usage before.

It isn’t for all repeated vowels; only for when the 2 vowels don’t make a single sound. So “chicken coop” wouldn’t have a dieresis

It's also to distinguish metal bands. Motörhead.
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