Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 1001 posts

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

#801

Post by FpUser »

jampekka wrote: post #772
dareobasanjo wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that OpenAI people whose focus is building an AGI that can replace humans in every viable human activity will create a more ethical outcome than Microsoft whose focus is using AI to empower workers to do more sounds extremely unlikely. People have gotten into their heads that researchers are good and corporations are bad in every case which is simply not true. OpenAI's mission is worse for humanity than Micr…

Corporations literally are maximizing profit. Researchers at least can have other motives. If Microsoft came up with a way of making trillion dollars in profit by enslaving half the planet, it kinda has to do it.

>"Researchers at least can have other motives."

I know about a man who had turned country upside down while "having people's best interests" in mind.

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

#802

Post by consumer451 »

kareaa wrote: post #794
consumer451 wrote: post #552

In my humble opinion, everyone moved way too fast in this whole thing. I can't help but imagine that emotions were involved due to the speed. Instead of a 5PM Sunday deadline, maybe it should have been "let's talk next week." Maybe it would have worked out the same in any case, but it seems like it would have been wiser.

Microsoft must have pushed for the situation to be resolved before the market opens on Monday. They couldn't afford to drag it out.

Yeah, that makes sense. If that's the case, I wonder how sweet the offer to Altman and company was to move things along.

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

#804

Post by FpUser »

vasco wrote: post #691
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…

I don't know any of these people's intentions but I definitely have an inate distrust of whoever brands themselves as "a council that actually has humanities interests in mind". Can you get any more populist than that?

>"a council that actually has humanities interests in mind".

Please fuckin don't. I do not want yet another entity to tell me how to live my life.

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

#805

Post by rg111 »

bradley13 wrote: post #574

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman have very similar backgrounds. They are both highly intelligent, both dropped out of college and lack any advanced education. They are classic Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: well-networked, great at fund raising, maybe even good managers. Potential contribution to advanced AI research: zero. What, exactly, does Microsoft want to do with them? Best guess: Use their connections and reputatio…

Yeah but Greg is not community college dropout, but (both) MIT and Harvard dropout.

Someone who could qualify to go to both Harvard and MIT will be better at anything they set their mind to than the regular grad with four year of education after the said four years.

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

#806

Post by iandanforth »

impulser_ wrote: post #118

I'm guessing this is the end of OpenAI. People aren't going to want to work at OpenAI anymore due to the value destruction that just occurred. It's going to be hard for them to raise money now because of the bad rep they have now. It going to be hard for them to hire top talent. You have two leaders, top engineers and researchers leaving the company. Google and Facebook come in a grab up any top talent that still the…

If Ilya is there many will. If Karpathy stays many more. If Alec Radford stays then ...

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

#808

Post by fevangelou »

stingraycharles wrote: post #702
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

How will they be able to continue doing their things without money? It seems like people forget that it was the investors’ money that made all this possible in the first place.

100M users perhaps?

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

#809

Post by ethanbond »

nopromisessir wrote: post #596
pyb wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to see how long Sam lasts as an employee.

It's gonna be a special unit. He's not gonna be an employee. Once you lead at that level... It's max autonomy going forward. Source: Elon. Guy hates a board with power as much as Zuckerberg. Employee? Ha .. Out of the question.

So as a result Elon actually isn’t an employee… whereas Sam will be an employee, ultimately

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

#810

Post by cyanydeez »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #578
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.

Corporate shareholder interest has been proven to be short sighted again and again throughout history. Believing such entities can properly prepare for a singularity event is more delusional than asking a fruit fly to fly an aircraft.

especially when corporate governance is basically just a stripped down social government. almost all dystopian fiction shows that they're nothing more that authority without representation to the greater good.

sure, we should have competitive bodies seeking better means to ends but ultimately there's always going to be a structure to hold them accountable.

people have a lot of faith that money is the best fitness function for humanity.

Post reply on HN