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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

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Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#681

Post by sudosysgen »

zaat wrote: post #668
sudosysgen wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural rights do really require theism to be truly natural, ie, independent of morality and society. Theism avoids the is-ought problem by forgoing the ought, with theism natural law can simply be, and whether you decide you ought to abide them is no longer so important. Nozick's position on the existence natural rights is simply not grounded. He appeals to intuition and to the reader's morality to appeal for their…

> Natural rights do really require theism to be truly natural, ie, independent of morality and society. Theism avoids the is-ought problem by forgoing the ought, with theism natural law can simply be, and whether you decide you ought to abide them is no longer so important. Hume's original text describing the is-ought problem is specifically targeting justification of ethics on god. Laws that no one is ought to abide…

> Hume's original text describing the is-ought problem is specifically targeting justification of ethics on god. Laws that no one is ought to abide by are no laws but nonsense.

> Is murder immoral because god hate murder, or do god hate murder because it is immoral?

We agree here, but that isn't how religion solves the problem. Religious laws are also enforced by threats in the afterlife and violence in the present life, not merely by reason, so they do not need to solve the is-ought problem like secular laws do. Of course, religious law has other problems.

> Many will argue that no moral theory can be logically justified, and that the search for logical justification is category error

I agree completely, hence why it is impossible to derive rights that are logically justified without an appeal to God. The comment I was replying to claimed there were logically justified rights which have to follow from logically justified moral theories unless they are decreed from beyond reason, and since the latter is a category error, so is the former.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#682

Post by edmundsauto »

jeffrallen wrote: post #610
huevosabio wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From A Song of Ice and Fire: ``` Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” “So power is a mummer’s trick?” “A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” ```

If you have ever been responsible for managing the security of your team in the face of rumors, this conversation rings of truth. The humanitarian organization I worked for eradicated every last small-head US dollar from circulation in our salary payments in 24 hours because the staff brought us a rumour that was circulating in the market that small-head dollars would not be accepted by the banks anymore. Rumors can…

What is a small head dollar? Coins versus bills?

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#683

Post by bmitc »

WalterBright wrote: post #429
bmitc wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very generous. Who actually needs greater than 90% of the startups coming out of Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas? Their products just get hyped up and shoved down peoples' throat. And you're wrong. These people do have cash vaults, but they're other peoples' cash vaults. How else do you think they buy things? And they're living in their multi-million dollar mansions and yachts out of benevolence?…

Unfortunately, history provides us with examples of societies that confiscated the wealth of the wealthy, and even exterminated them, in their quest to make a utopia. They all ended up as hell-holes. I'm not really interested in repeating that history. It is not at all necessary for wealthy people to be benevolent in order to contribute to society. Nor do they need to be nice people, nor do they need to be unselfish.…

None of that really has anything to do with the discussion and is completely melodramatic, as someone else mentioned.

However, we have indeed ended up in a hell-hole. Again, as someone else mentioned, the U.S. in the early 20th century rose up against the capitalist thinking and companies coming out of the industrial revolution and implemented socialist policies, progressive tax structures, and aggressive anti-trust laws and lawsuits. But the capitalists have one out again and are stronger than ever and are indeed turning the U.S. into a hell-hole.

By many accounts, the U.S. is a hell-hole on the whole. It ranks low in several markings such as education, standard of living, healthcare and healthcare access, wealth equality, infant mortality (i.e., it's quite high in the U.S.), etc. The list goes on. Yes, someone will reply that the U.S. has some of the best education, healthcare, standard of living, etc. in the world. And that is true when looking at specific, local instances. But the gap is wide and as a whole the U.S. is struggling.

Are places like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, etc. really hell-holes? I'm not saying they are perfect, but there's a reason why they rank on top in terms of health, education, happiness, balance, etc.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#684

Post by bmitc »

benreesman wrote: post #360
bmitc wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very generous. Who actually needs greater than 90% of the startups coming out of Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas? Their products just get hyped up and shoved down peoples' throat. And you're wrong. These people do have cash vaults, but they're other peoples' cash vaults. How else do you think they buy things? And they're living in their multi-million dollar mansions and yachts out of benevolence?…

[flagged]

None of that has anything to do with anything. A person can be wrong, no matter who they are.

Saying the wealthy don't have cash vaults and instead invest it in society is explicitly and intentionally manipulative of the real situation. And it's just wrong.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#685

Post by yencabulator »

edmundsauto wrote: post #682
jeffrallen wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have ever been responsible for managing the security of your team in the face of rumors, this conversation rings of truth. The humanitarian organization I worked for eradicated every last small-head US dollar from circulation in our salary payments in 24 hours because the staff brought us a rumour that was circulating in the market that small-head dollars would not be accepted by the banks anymore. Rumors can…

What is a small head dollar? Coins versus bills?

I think they mean a $100 bill printed before 1993.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US100DollarBills-Old%2620...

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#686

Post by bmitc »

narrator wrote: post #466
bmitc wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very generous. Who actually needs greater than 90% of the startups coming out of Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas? Their products just get hyped up and shoved down peoples' throat. And you're wrong. These people do have cash vaults, but they're other peoples' cash vaults. How else do you think they buy things? And they're living in their multi-million dollar mansions and yachts out of benevolence?…

If you can figure out which 90% we need when they are in seed stage you can become a billionaire venture capitalist. It's like someone spent their whole life searching a thousand volume library of where's Waldo books for a picture of Waldo and found him and told you where to find him and then you said, the guy is an idiot, I found Waldo right here and so could just about anyone!

That's not what I was talking about. What venture capitalists do is figure out which companies and products that they can market and sell. That doesn't say anything about what people need. People can be and are marketed and sold all sorts of things they don't need. The argument of the above commenter was that society somehow needs these companies as a sort of intrinsic need to live better lives. That's simply not true.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#687

Post by pdonis »

tptacek wrote: post #676
pdonis wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're disinclined to hold businesses to higher standards than the norms of business The only reason to be so disinclined in the case of OpenAI would be that you're sure their existential risk claims are wrong. If that's the case, then I suppose you could just shrug your shoulders and ignore the whole kerfluffle, at least as long as you have no skin in the game. I personally still think the conduct of everyone i…

Ok. That makes sense. Thanks! Can I reasonably assume that people who are very riled up about OpenAI not meeting its original (weird, IMO) moral standard are revealing that they do in fact take existential AI risk seriously?

> Can I reasonably assume that people who are very riled up about OpenAI not meeting its original (weird, IMO) moral standard are revealing that they do in fact take existential AI risk seriously?

I would say many of them probably do, yes--quite possibly in large part because of OpenAI's own rhetoric on the subject.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#688

Post by WalterBright »

deepvibrations wrote: post #584
WalterBright wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has Amazon expensed your interests? Most everything I buy, other than food, comes from Amazon. The local supermarket stopped selling laundry powder detergent, so now I push a button on my computer and Amazon drops off a box of Tide the next day. And it's cheaper than what the supermarket used to sell it for, too. Even better - the AMZN stock I bought pays for it! I was looking for an unusual art print the other d…

Cognitive dissonance in action. Why not try talking to workers there who do not have money to invest. Even in the UK, I know people on zero-hour contracts (no security) who are working unhealthy hours and in unhealthy environments who will be replaced by robots soon enough. But there are few local jobs, partly because Amazon drains wealth from local communities, local businesses close and wealth is siphoned out to ri…

> who do not have money to invest

These days, anyone can buy fractional shares with robinhood.com. I.e. if you have a checking account and a phone, you can invest in AMZN. Then you'll get your share of the wealth.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#689

Post by __loam »

throw310822 wrote: post #294
__loam wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what happened is OpenAI was probably going to easily defend themselves from this suit until Altman tweeted about it. It seems like the company didn't really do anything wrong (in this case) but that tweet is actually going to give ScarJo the legal standing she needs to move forward and even win. It feels like leadership class in the valley is totally clueless sometimes.

Didn't this get everyone talking of how OpenAI basically replicated Her's Samantha? Well worth a lawsuit, right?

Not sure OpenAI wants to invite the negative press at a time when the public opinion on them is wavering.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#690

Post by WalterBright »

int_19h wrote: post #540
WalterBright wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it is not at all obvious that the best way to run them is by sociopathic megalomaniacs. I suspect you've defined a tautology by assuming that anyone running a large organization is a sociopathic megalomaniac. But let's take an example. Which do you think is better run - NASA or SpaceX?

SpaceX, naturally. But being run better than NASA is not exactly a high bar. I would actually amend it to most US federal agencies, even. It's just that Americans, for some reason, assume that the way their government works is exemplar of governments in general. That is not true, to put it mildly - US is just particularly dysfunctional in that regard. I should also note that my original point was not about a public/p…

There are countries that have discouraged big business and encouraged small business instead.

The result is low levels of prosperity, because big business drives the wealth creation in the economy. Small businesses are needed, too, as they fill in the gaps and are the future big businesses.

An economy made up of cottage businesses and local artisans handweaving baskets just cannot produce the kind of wealth that is produced from efficiencies of scale.

An artisan made car would cost $1 million each.

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