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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?

#861

Post by idontpost »

MrScruff wrote: post #829
root_axis wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than these egregious gag contracts, OpenAI benefits from the image that they are on the cusp of world-destroying science fiction. This meme needs to die, if AGI is possible it won't be achieved any time in the foreseeable future, and certainly it will not emerge from quadratic time brute force on a fraction of text and images scraped from the internet.

Clearly we don’t know when/if AGI would happen, but the expectations of many people working in the field is it will arrive in what qualifies as ‘near future’. It probably won’t result from just scaling LLMs, but then that’s why there’s a lot of researchers trying to find the next significant advancement, in parallel with others trying to commercially exploit LLMs.

[dead]

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

#862

Post by smegger001 »

smt88 wrote: post #812
spinach wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't seem have much of a filter because of his aspergers, but I think he genuinely believed those things. And they are more on the level of calling people names on the playground anyway. In the grand scheme of things, those are pretty shallow "lies".

I have multiple relatives on the spectrum. None of them baselessly accuse strangers of being pedophiles. It's not Musk's lack of filter that makes him unhinged and dangerous. It's that he's deeply stupid, insecure, racist, enamored of conspiracy theories, and powerful.

I figure its the chronic drug abuse and constant affirmation he receives from his internet fanboys and enabler yes-men on his board who are financially dependent on him. he doesn't ever receive push-back from anyone so he get more and more divorced form reality.

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

#863

Post by dclowd9901 »

cashsterling wrote: post #821

In my experience, and that of others I know, agreements of this kind are generally used to hide/cover-up all kinds of malfeasance. I think that agreements of this kind are highly unethical and should be illegal. Many year ago I signed a NDA/non-disparagement agreement as part of a severance package when I was fired from a startup for political reasons. I didn't want to sign it... but my family needed the money and I…

In all likelihood, they are illegal, just that no one has challenged them yet. I can’t imagine a sane court backing up the idea that a person can be forbidden to talk about something (not national security related) for the rest of their lives.

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

#864

Post by lazide »

staunton wrote: post #847
cashsterling wrote: post #821

In my experience, and that of others I know, agreements of this kind are generally used to hide/cover-up all kinds of malfeasance. I think that agreements of this kind are highly unethical and should be illegal. Many year ago I signed a NDA/non-disparagement agreement as part of a severance package when I was fired from a startup for political reasons. I didn't want to sign it... but my family needed the money and I…

> this is turning into huge power/money grab The power grab happened a while ago (the shenanigans concerning the board) and is now complete. Care for humanity was just marketing or a cute thought at best. Maybe humanity will survive life long enough that a company "caring about humanity" becomes possible, I'm not saying it's not worth trying or aspiring to such ideals, but everyone should be extremely surprised if an…

Well, one problem is what does ‘caring for humanity’ even mean, concretely?

One could argue it would mean pampering it.

One could also argue it could be a Skynet—analog doing the equivalent of a God Emperor like Golden Path to ensure humanity is never going to be dumb enough to allow an AGI the power to do that again.

Assuming humanity survives the second one, it has a lot higher chance of actually benefiting humanity long term too.

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

#865

Post by zzzeek »

MrScruff wrote: post #829
root_axis wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than these egregious gag contracts, OpenAI benefits from the image that they are on the cusp of world-destroying science fiction. This meme needs to die, if AGI is possible it won't be achieved any time in the foreseeable future, and certainly it will not emerge from quadratic time brute force on a fraction of text and images scraped from the internet.

Clearly we don’t know when/if AGI would happen, but the expectations of many people working in the field is it will arrive in what qualifies as ‘near future’. It probably won’t result from just scaling LLMs, but then that’s why there’s a lot of researchers trying to find the next significant advancement, in parallel with others trying to commercially exploit LLMs.

>but the expectations of many people working in the field is it will arrive in what qualifies as ‘near future’.

they think this because it serves their interests of attracting an enormous amount of attention and money to an industry that they seek to make millions of dollars personally from.

My money is well on environmental/ climate collapse wiping out most of humanity in the next 50-100 years, hundreds of years before anything like an AGI possibly could.

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

#866

Post by ornornor »

cashsterling wrote: post #821

In my experience, and that of others I know, agreements of this kind are generally used to hide/cover-up all kinds of malfeasance. I think that agreements of this kind are highly unethical and should be illegal. Many year ago I signed a NDA/non-disparagement agreement as part of a severance package when I was fired from a startup for political reasons. I didn't want to sign it... but my family needed the money and I…

That could very well be the case, OpenAI took quite a few opaque decision/changes not too long ago.

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

#867

Post by [deleted] »

lazide wrote: post #864
staunton wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is turning into huge power/money grab The power grab happened a while ago (the shenanigans concerning the board) and is now complete. Care for humanity was just marketing or a cute thought at best. Maybe humanity will survive life long enough that a company "caring about humanity" becomes possible, I'm not saying it's not worth trying or aspiring to such ideals, but everyone should be extremely surprised if an…

Well, one problem is what does ‘caring for humanity’ even mean, concretely? One could argue it would mean pampering it. One could also argue it could be a Skynet—analog doing the equivalent of a God Emperor like Golden Path to ensure humanity is never going to be dumb enough to allow an AGI the power to do that again. Assuming humanity survives the second one, it has a lot higher chance of actually benefiting humanit…

[deleted]

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

#868

Post by dclowd9901 »

root_axis wrote: post #806
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…

More than these egregious gag contracts, OpenAI benefits from the image that they are on the cusp of world-destroying science fiction. This meme needs to die, if AGI is possible it won't be achieved any time in the foreseeable future, and certainly it will not emerge from quadratic time brute force on a fraction of text and images scraped from the internet.

Ah yes, the “our brains are somehow inherently special” coalition. Hand-waving the capabilities of LLM as dumb math while not having a single clue about the math that underlies our own brains’ functionality.

I don’t know if you’re conflating capability with consciousness but frankly it doesn’t matter if the thing knows it’s alive if it still makes everyone obsolete.

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

#869

Post by tdumitrescu »

nurple wrote: post #461
Buttons840 wrote: post #214

So part of their compensation for working is equity, and when they leave thay have to sign an additional agreement in order to keep their previously earned compensation? How is this legal? Mine as well tell them they have to give all their money back too. What's the consideration for this contract?

The thing is that this is a private company, so there is no public market to provide liquidity. The company can make itself the sole source of liquidity, at its option, by placing sell restrictions on the grants. Toe the line, or you will find you never get to participate in a liquidity event. There's more info on how SpaceX uses a scheme like this[0] to force compliance, and seeing as Musk had a hand in creating bot…

Whoa. That article says that SpaceX does tender offers twice a year?! That's so much better than 99% of private companies, it makes it almost as liquid for employees as a public company.

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

#870

Post by escapecharacter »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #191
thorum wrote: post #37

Extra respect is due to Jan Leike, then: https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498174659715494

Reading that thread it’s really interesting to me. I see how far we’ve come in a short couple of years. But I still can’t grasp how we’ll achieve AGI within any reasonable amount of time. It just seems like we’re missing some really critical… something… Idk. Folks much smarter than I seem worried so maybe I should be too but it just seems like such a long shot.

People’s bar for the “I” part is widely varying, many of whom set the bar at “can it make stuff up while appearing confident”

Nobody defines what they’re trying to do as “useful AI” since that’s a much more weasily target, isn’t it?

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