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Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

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Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#681

Post by chx »

trashtester wrote: post #572
chx wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world, that won't happen, the next scam will be different it was crypto until FTX collapsed then the usual suspects led by a16z leaned on OpenAI to rush whatever they had on market hence the odd naming of ChatGPT 3.5. When the hype is finally realized to be just mass printing bullshit -- relevant bullshit, yes, which sometimes can be useful but not bill…

Crypto currencies has the potential to grow the world economy by about 1-3%, as banking fees go down. Add other uses of crypto may double or triple that, but that's really speculative. AI, on the other hand, has a near infinite potential. It's conceivable that it will grow the global economy by 2% OR MORE per MONTH for decades or more. AI is going to be much more impactful than the internet. Probably more than intern…

All crypto"currencies" with a transaction fee are negative sum games and as such , they are a scam. It's been nine years since the Washington Post admittedly somewhat clumsily but still drawn attention to this and people still insist it's something other than a scam. Despite heady articles about how it's going to solve world hunger, it's just a scam.

This round of AI is only capable of producing bullshit. Relevant bullshit but bullshit. This can be useful https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650 but it doesn't mean it's more impactful than the Internet.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#682

Post by amirhirsch »

Zambyte wrote: post #621
fprog wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except OpenAI hasn’t yet finished discovery on its true goal: AGI. I wonder if they risk plateauing at a local maximum.

I'm genuinely curious: what do you expect an "AGI" system to be able to do that we can't do with today's technology?

Prove the Riemann Hypothesis

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#683

Post by trashtester »

varjag wrote: post #664
trashtester wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI in the past (adjusted for 1980s) was pretty well funded. A tiny fraction of the current funding. 2-4 orders of magnitude less. > It's just that fundamental scientific discovery bears little relationship to the pallets of cash Heavy funding may not automatically lead to breakthroughs such as Special Relativity or Quantum Mechanics (though it helps there too). But once the most basic ideas are in place, massive is…

> A tiny fraction of the current funding. 2-4 orders of magnitude less. Operational costs were correspondingly lower, as they didn't need to pay electricity and compute bills for tens of millions concurrent users. > But once the most basic ideas are in place, massive is what causes the breakthroughs like in the Manhatten Project and Apollo Program. There is no reason to think that the ideas are in place. It could be…

> There is no reason to think that the ideas are in place.

That depends what you mean when you say "ideas". If you consider ideas at the level of transformers, well then I would consider those ideas of the same magnitude as many of the ideas the Manhatten Project or Apollo Program had to figure out on the way.

If you mean ideas like going from expert system to Neural Networks with backprop, then that's more fundamental and I would agree.

It's certainly still conceivable that Penrose is right in that "true" AGI requires something like microtubules to be built. If so, that would be on the level of going from expert systems to NNs. I believe this is considered extremely exotic in the field, though. Even LeCun probably doesn't believe that. Btw, this is the only case where I would agree that funding is more or less irrelevant.

If we require 1-2 more breakthroughs on par with Transformers, then those could take anything from 2-15 years to be discovered.

For now, though, those who have predicted that AI development will mostly be limited by network size and the compute to train it (like Sutskever or implicitly Kurzweil) have been the ones most accurate in the expected rate of progress. If they're right, then AGI some time between 2025-2030 seems most likely.

Those AGI's may be very large, though, and not economical to run for a wider audience until some time in the 30's.

So, to summarize: Unless something completely fundamental is needed (like microtubules), which happens to be a fringe position, AGI some time between 2025 and 2040 seems likely. The "pessimists" (or optimists, in term of extinction risk) may think it's closer to 2040, while the optimists seem to think it's arriving very soon.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#684

Post by boringg »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #452
nabla9 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 6 science guys are long gone. Open AI is run by marketing, business, software and productization people. When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world, Microsoft eats whats left of them. They make lots of money, but don't have future unless they replace what they lost.

I don’t feel that OpenAI has a huge moat against say Anthropic. And I don’t know OpenAI needs Microsoft nearly as much as Microsoft needs OpenAI

OpenAI most definitely needs the compute from MSFT. It could certainly swap out to another service but given that microsoft invested via credits it would be problematic. They have enmeshed their future.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#685

Post by boringg »

renegade-otter wrote: post #676
nabla9 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 6 science guys are long gone. Open AI is run by marketing, business, software and productization people. When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world, Microsoft eats whats left of them. They make lots of money, but don't have future unless they replace what they lost.

"Productization". You mean "enshitification".

Depends on who is controlling product.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#686

Post by spamizbad »

ralfd wrote: post #480
nabla9 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 6 science guys are long gone. Open AI is run by marketing, business, software and productization people. When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world, Microsoft eats whats left of them. They make lots of money, but don't have future unless they replace what they lost.

How important are top science guys though? OpenAI has a thousand employees and almost unlimited money, and llm are better understood, I would guess continous development will beat singular genius heroes?

It depends on your views on LLMs

If your view is that LLMs only need minor improvements to their core technology and that the major engineering focus should be placed on productizing them, then losing a bunch of scientists might not be seen as that big of a deal.

But if your view is that they still need to overcome significant milestones to really unlock their value... then this is a pretty big loss.

I suppose there's a third view, which is: LLMs still need to overcome significant hurdles, but solutions to those hurdles are a decade or more away. So it's best to productize now, establish some positive cashflow and then re-engage with R&D when it becomes cheaper in the future and/or just wait for other people to solve the hard problems.

I would guess the dominant view of the industry right now is #1 or #3.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#687

Post by sonotathrowaway »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #642
luma wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking MSFT price, seems like the market thinks they made the right move and the shareholders are for sure seeing a return.

The market thinks Tesla is worth more than all other automakers combined, that GameStop is a reasonable investment, and laying off engineers is great!

Until it one day it doesn’t. It’s very fickle.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#688

Post by trashtester »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #678
trashtester wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That funding may have felt good at the time compared to some other academic fields. But compared to the 100s of billions (possibly trillions, globally) that is currently being plowed into AI, that's peanuts. I think the closest recent analogy to the current spending on AI, was the nuclear arms race during the cold war. If China is able to field ASI before the US even have full AGI, nukes may not matter much.

You are right about funding levels, even taking inflation into account. Some of the infrastructure, like Connection Machines and Butterfly Machines seemed really expensive at the time though.

They only seem expensive because they're not expected to generate a lot of value (or military/strategic benefit).

Compare that the 6+ trillions that were spent in the US alone on nuclear weapons, and then consider, what is of greater strategic importance: ASI or nukes?

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#689

Post by CooCooCaCha »

kinnth wrote: post #607
nabla9 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 6 science guys are long gone. Open AI is run by marketing, business, software and productization people. When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world, Microsoft eats whats left of them. They make lots of money, but don't have future unless they replace what they lost.

AI has now evolved beyond just the science and it's biggest issue is in the productization. Finding use cases for what's already available ALONG with new models will be where success lies. ChatGPT is the number 1 brand in AI and as such needs to learn what it's selling, not how its technology works. It always sucks when mission and vision don't align with the nerds ideas, but I think it's probably the best move for b…

“Its biggest issue is in the productization.”

That’s not true at all. The biggest issue is that it doesn’t work. You can’t actually trust ai systems and that’s not a product issue.

Re: Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

#690

Post by KoolKat23 »

trashtester wrote: post #666
KoolKat23 wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the AI point, but with crypto not all is what it seems. Yes you may have short term growth, this is solely due to there being less regulation. Despite what many people think regulation is a good thing, put in place to avoid the excesses that lead to lost livelihoods. It stops whales from exploiting the poor, provides tools for central banks to try avoid depressions. Costs wise, banks acting as tru…

Well, I agree with all that. The 1-3% was meant to come off as a tiny, one-time gain, and an optimistic estimate of that. Not at all worth the hype. Basically, crypto is more like gold rush than a tech breakthrough. And gold rushes rarely lead to much more than increased inflation.

Absolutely
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