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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?

#881

Post by thayne »

timr wrote: post #848
MrScruff wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The same way that the expectation of many people working within the self-driving field in 2016 was that level 5 autonomy was right around the corner. Take this stuff with a HUGE grain of salt. A lot of goofy hyperbolic people work in AI (any startup, really).

The same thing happened with nuclear fusion. People working on it have been saying sustainable fusion power is right around the corner for decades, and we still don't have it.

And it _could_ be just one clever breakthrough away, and that could happen tomorrow, or it could be centuries away. There's no way to know.

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

#883

Post by golergka »

fragmede wrote: post #357
golergka wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stare at you until you sign it because you are physically dependent on eating food every day Even lowest level fast food workers can choose a different employer. An engineer working at OpenAI certainly has a lot of opportunities to choose from. Even when I only had three years in the industry, mid at best, I asked to change the contract I was presented with because non-compete was too restrictive — and they did it.…

> Even lowest level fast food workers can choose a different employer. Only thanks to a recent ruling by the FTC that non-competes are valid. in the most egregious uses, bartenders and servers were prohibited from finding another job in the same industry for two years.

You're talking about what happens after a person signs a non compete, whereas my point is about what happens before he does (or doesn't) do it.

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

#884

Post by timr »

huevosabio wrote: post #873
timr wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way that the expectation of many people working within the self-driving field in 2016 was that level 5 autonomy was right around the corner. Take this stuff with a HUGE grain of salt. A lot of goofy hyperbolic people work in AI (any startup, really).

While I agree with your point, I take self driving rides on a weekly basis and you see them all over SF nowadays. We overestimate the short term progress, but underestimate the medium, long term one.

I don't think we disagree, but I will say that "a handful of people in SF and AZ taking rides in cars that are remotely monitored 24/7" is not the drivers-are-obsolete-now, near-term future being promised in 2016. Remember the panic because long-haul truckers were going to be unemployed Real Soon Now? I do.

Back then, I said that the future of self-driving is likely to be the growth in capability of "driver assistance" features to an asymptotic point that we will re-define as "level 5" in the distant future (or perhaps: the "levels" will be memory-holed altogether, only to reappear in retrospective, "look how goofy we were" articles, like the ones that pop up now about nuclear airplanes and whatnot). I still think that is true.

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

#885

Post by loceng »

Non-disparagements need to be made illegal.

If someone shares something that's a lie and defamatory, then they could still be sued of course.

The Ben Shapiro-Daily Wire vs. Candace Owens is another scenario where the truth and conversation would benefit all of society - OpenAI and DailyWire arguably being on topics of pinnacle importance; instead the discussions are suppressed.

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

#886

Post by FireBeyond »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #781
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".

Oh so it’s ok to lie and call people a pedophile (which is far beyond playground name-calling; from a famous person a statement like that actually carries a lot of weight) if you genuinely believe it and have Asperger’s? Those might explain his behavior, but it does not excuse it.

Musk fans will contort into pretzels. He genuinely believed it. Just an insult. Just trading shots because the guy called his idea stupid.

It’s the RDF.

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

#887

Post by loceng »

borski wrote: post #512
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #459

"It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it." I find it hard to understand that in a country that tends to take freedom of expression so seriously (and I say this unironically, American democracy may have flaws but that is definitely a strength) it can be legal to silence someone for the rest of their life.

It’s all about freedom from government tyranny and censorship. Freedom from corporate tyranny is another matter entirely, and generally relies on individuals being careful about what they agree to.

Problematic when fascism forms as recently has been evident by social media working with government to censor citizens; fascism being authoritarian politicians working with industrial complexes to benefit each other.

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

#888

Post by shon »

The article mentions it briefly but Jan Leike, is talking: Reference: https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498174659715494?s=46&t=pO4...

He clearly states why he left. He believes that OpenAI leadership is prioritizing shiny product releases over safety and that this is a mistake.

Even with the best intentions , it’s easy for a strong CEO like Altman to loose sight of more subtly important things like safety and optimize for growth and winning, eventually at all cost. Winning is a super-addictive feedback loop.

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

#889

Post by thefaux »

8372049 wrote: post #696
KyleOneill wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Steve Jobs also fits this category if we are going to talk about people who aren't really worthy of genius title and used other people's accomplishments to reach their goals. We all know it as the engineers who made iPhone possible.

Someone far more deserving of the title, Dennis Ritchie, died a week after Jobs' stupidity caught up with him. So much attention to Jobs who didn't really deserve it, and so little to Dennis Ritchie who made such a profound impact on the tech world and society in general.

I think Ritchie's influence while significant is overblown and not entirely positive. I am not a fan of Steve Jobs, who had many reprehensible traits, but I find it ridiculous to dismiss his genius. Frankly, I find Jobs's ability to manipulate people more impressive than Ritchie's ability to manipulate machines.

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

#890

Post by lnsru »

punnerud wrote: post #876
punnerud wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In EU all of these are mostly illegal and void, or strictly limited. You have to pay a good salary for the whole duration (up to two years), and let the employer know months before them leave. Almost right after they are fired. Sound like a better solution?

I see that this commend jump up and down between 5 and 10 points. Guess a lot of up and downvotes.

I will not vote. But give me US salaries in Germany please. All these €100k@35 hours workweek offers are boring. It’s almost top salary for senior level developers at big companies. Mostly no stock at all. I will sign probably every shady document for one million € stock compensation.
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