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OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

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Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#791

Post by martyfmelb »

confidantlake wrote: post #784
robertlagrant wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or makes life much shittier for most humans by making most of us obsolete I'm not sure this is true. If all the things people are doing are done so much more cheaply they're almost free, that would be good for us, as we're also the buyers as well as the workers. However, I also doubt the premise.

Why would you need buyers if AI can create anything you desire?

Bingo.

The whole justification for keeping consumers happy or healthy goes right out the window.

Same for human workers.

All that matters is that your robots and AIs aren't getting smashed by their robots and AIs.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#792

Post by mindslight »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #239

I have some experience with rich people who think they can just put whatever they want in contracts and then stare at you until you sign it because you are physically dependent on eating food every day. Turns out they're right, they can put whatever they want in a contract. And again, they are correct that their wage slaves will 99.99% of the time sign whatever paper he pushes in front of them while saying "as a cond…

This is all basically true, but the problem is that retaining an attorney to confidently represent you for such negotiation is proposition with $10k table stakes (probably $15k+ these days with Trumpflation), and much more if the company sticks to their guns and doesn't settle (which is much more likely when the company is holding the cards and you have to go on the offensive). The cost isn't necessarily outright prohibitive in the context of surveillance industry compensation, but is still a chunk of change and likely to give most people pause when the alternative is to just go with the flow and move on.

Personally I'd say there needs to be a general restriction against including blatantly unenforceable terms in a contract document, especially unilateral "terms". The drafter is essentially pushing incorrect legal advice.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#793

Post by singleshot_ »

to11mtm wrote: post #162
singleshot_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under duress in the contractual world is generally interpreted as “you are about to be killed or maimed.” Economic duress is distinct.

Duress can take other forms, unless we are really trying to differentiate general 'coercion' here. Perhaps as an example of the blurred line; Pre-nup agreements sprung the day of the wedding, will not hold up in a US court with a competent lawyer challenging them. You can try to call it 'economic' duress but any non-sociopath sees there are other factors at play.

That’s a really good point. Was this a prenuptial agreement? If it wasn’t May take is section 174 would apply and we would be talking about physical compulsion — and not “it’s a preferable economic situation to sign.”

Not a sociopath, just know the law.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#794

Post by logicchains »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #776
schmidt_fifty wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a very real/significant risk that AGI either literally destroys the human race If this were true, intelligent people would have taken over society by now. Those in power will never relinquish it to a computer just as they refuse to relinquish it to more competent people. For the vast majority of people, AI not only doesn't pose a risk but will only help reveal the incompetence of the ruling class.

>> There’s a very real/significant risk that AGI either literally destroys the human race > If this were true, intelligent people would have taken over society by now The premise you're replying to - one I don't think I agree with - is that a true AGI would be so much smarter, so much more powerful, that it wouldn't be accurate to describe it as "more smart". You're probably smarter than a guy who recreationally huff…

>You're probably smarter than a guy who recreationally huffs spraypaint, but you're still within the same class as intelligence. Both of you are so much more advanced than a cat, or a beetle, or a protozoan that it doesn't even make sense to make any sort of comparison.

This is pseudoscientific nonsense. We have the very rigorous field of complexity theory to show how much improvement in solving various problems can be gained from further increasing intelligence/compute power, and the vast majority of difficult problems benefit minimally from linear increases in compute. The idea of there being a higher "class" of intelligence is magical thinking, as it implies there could be superlinear increase in the ability to solve NP-complete problems from only a linear increase in computational power, which goes against the entirety of complexity theory.

It's essentially the religious belief that AI has the godlike power to make P=NP even if P != NP.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#795

Post by justinclift »

robertlagrant wrote: post #774
yashap wrote: post #760

For a company that is actively pursuing AGI (and probably the #1 contender to get there), this type of behaviour is extremely concerning. There’s a very real/significant risk that AGI either literally destroys the human race, or makes life much shittier for most humans by making most of us obsolete. These risks are precisely why OpenAI was founded as a very open company with a charter that would firmly put the needs…

> or makes life much shittier for most humans by making most of us obsolete I'm not sure this is true. If all the things people are doing are done so much more cheaply they're almost free, that would be good for us, as we're also the buyers as well as the workers. However, I also doubt the premise.

> If all the things people are doing are done so much more cheaply they're almost free, that would be good for us ...

Doesn't this tend to become "they're almost free to produce" with the actual pricing for end consumers not becoming cheaper? From the point of view of the sellers just expanding their margins instead.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#796

Post by [deleted] »

benreesman wrote: post #668
nar001 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any stories or events you can talk about? It sounds interesting

The New Yorker piece is pretty terrifying and manages to be so while bending over backwards to present both sides of not maybe even suck up to SV a bit. Certainly no one forced Altman to say on the record that Ice Nine in the water glass was what he had planned for anyone who crossed him, and no one forced pg to say, likewise on the record that “Sam’s real talent is becoming powerful” or something to that effect. It…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#797

Post by racional »

benreesman wrote: post #668
nar001 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any stories or events you can talk about? It sounds interesting

The New Yorker piece is pretty terrifying and manages to be so while bending over backwards to present both sides of not maybe even suck up to SV a bit. Certainly no one forced Altman to say on the record that Ice Nine in the water glass was what he had planned for anyone who crossed him, and no one forced pg to say, likewise on the record that “Sam’s real talent is becoming powerful” or something to that effect. It…

“Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful” was the quote, which has a distinctly different ring to it. Not that this diminishes from the overall creep factor.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#798

Post by nextworddev »

citizen_friend wrote: post #308
nextworddev wrote: post #149

Unfortunately this is actually pretty common in Wall St, where they leverage your multiple years of clawback-able shares to make you sign non-disparagement clauses.

Sounds like a deal honestly. I’ll fast forward a few years of equity to mind my own business. I’m not trying to get into journalism

Yes, the vast vast majority of finance folks just take the money and be quiet

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#799

Post by tinyhouse »

llamaimperative wrote: post #635
tinyhouse wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, more than 90% of OpenAI employees backed him up when the board fired him. Maybe he's not the clown you claim he is.

Or they didn’t want the company, their job, and all of their equity to evaporate

Well, if he's a clown then his departure should cause the opposite, no? And you're right, more than 90% of them said we don't want the non-profit BS and openness. We want a unicorn tech company that can make us rich. Good for them.

Disclaimer: I'm Sam's best friend from kindergarten. Just joking, never met the guy and have no interest in openai beyond being a happy customer (who will switch in a heartbeat to the competitors' if they give me a good reason to)

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#800

Post by Lamad1234 »

jay-barronville wrote: post #173

It probably would be better to switch the link from the X post to the Vox article [0]. From the article: “““ It turns out there’s a very clear reason for [why no one who had once worked at OpenAI was talking]. I have seen the extremely restrictive off-boarding agreement that contains nondisclosure and non-disparagement provisions former OpenAI employees are subject to. It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, fr…

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