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Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

newyorker.com

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Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#891

Post by dmitrygr »

next_xibalba wrote: post #819
ronanfarrow wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is always the case with incredibly precise and rigorously fact-checked reporting like this, where every word is chosen carefully (the initial closing meeting for this one was nearly eight hours long, with full deliberation about each sentence), there is more out there on that subject than is explicitly on the page.

> ... where every word is chosen carefully... In light of that... > "Texts from this period show Altman coördinating closely with Nadella" Why did you make the odd choice of a diaresis on this word?

It is how you properly tell apart a coop which houses chickens from a coöp which is a business entity owned by its members

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#892

Post by Lerc »

giwook wrote: post #755
Lerc wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From time to time I have been accused of being an apologist for Sam Altman, but I have always tried to assess information based upon what it says instead of whether it matches an existing narrative. You list a number of distortions in your article which show the problem. If you are a good person, bad stories about you may be fake. If you are a bad person, bad stories about you may still be fake. My prima facie view o…

> My prima facie view on Altman has been that he presents as sincere. That is how pathological liars present.

What kind of situation would I choose to use the word presents in that context without being aware of that fact?

I am also aware that sincere people present that way.

I don't believe there is any rational way to consider the appearance of innocence as evidence of guilt.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#893

Post by kazinator »

Altman cannot control anything because he doesn't have any secret sauce. Everything he has has been replicated by others.

He doesn't have anything comparable to, say, the operating system platform dominance of Microsoft Windows, or service platform dominance of YouTube.

The entire value proposition of OpenAI is that billions of people don't know that anything other exists than ChatGPT, which is rather tenuous and volatile.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#894

Post by a515throw »

throwaway132448 wrote: post #812
AdamN wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can go with the thesis that individuals need community control (boards, regulations, laws) in order to be accountable but is there some specific evidence that Amodei is the same? It seems like a "both sides" argument.

I don’t need to convince you, we’ve been through enough cults of personality, time will tell. But I’ve been right enough times to back myself. Maybe it’s because I grew up around a lot of people like them? They can’t hide that they would say whatever they think you want to hear. Actually it’s funny: Their lack of empathy/emotional intelligence would also make them susceptible to thinking that talking to an LLM is lik…

This comment rings a bell quite a bit. It’s easy enough to see these kinds of people. I just was fired earlier this year for made up performance reasons after multiple years at Apple due to a guy like this.

These soulless people exist out there and they don’t care that your dog just passed away or your close family member gets cancer.

They just move forward with their agenda and are experts at telling you what they think you want to hear. 200%

Sam seems like a fun guy to be around. /s

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#895

Post by Lerc »

empath75 wrote: post #822
rglullis wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what information would significantly change your views Quite simple: show me any single action took by Sam Altman which can not be construed as an attempt to get him more power/money/influence. You can't find it. The difference between what he claims to believe and what he actually does is a textbook example of sociopathy.

When people are described as sociopathic it’s not about any particular lie, but the relationship that the person has with the truth, which is that they will lie when it suits them and tell the truth when it suits them and they don’t seem to distinguish morally between them. And more than that, they treat people the same way, and will use them while it suits them and then dispose of them when they are inconvenient.

Perhaps that is some of the problem. That is not what a sociopath is. There are specific criteria, and while it may come as a shock to some, there are ethical sociopaths out there. They do the right thing not because they feel it to be the right thing to do, but because they think it is a rational way to live their lives.

What you are thinking of are people who do bad things. Most of those people are not sociopaths. Often they are hurting in some way, sometimes they are just living the only life they know. Most of them feel they are doing the best they can. It is extremely comforting to pathologize these people because then it's not something we could have prevented by providing a better society. It rules out the hard options of empathising with them, or reasoning with them to find common ground.

The term othering has come into use in recent years. The concept has existed through the ages, but that's the latest label for it.

This is what it looks like.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#896

Post by trinsic2 »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #545
fblp wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got it! Any recommendations on who to subscribe to? Any personal links for you? In developer communities often you can support individual developers or groups through a monthly subscription / donation on their github page or similar.

Drop Site News, 404 Media, Boston Review, The Intercept, and Atavist are all very worth supporting.

Yes I support 404 media.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#897

Post by trinsic2 »

fwipsy wrote: post #505
root_axis wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, every engineer in the bay area has a way of framing the business they work for as a benign force for good... Until they find themselves working somewhere else, then suddenly they have a lot to say about the unacceptable things going on there. From the outside, I find Anthropic's hyperbolic marketing to be an indication that they are basically the same as every other bay area tech startup - more or less nice fol…

My model is that Anthropic was founded by OpenAI engineers who self-selected for safety-consciousness. However, it's still subject to the same problem: power corrupts. I think they are better than OpenAI but they are definitely sliding.

Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals. (Im pretty sure this is a Stoic axiom).

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#898

Post by keepamovin »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #807
keepamovin wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were in charge of the deciding what should be done with Sam Altman, what would you choose?

I mean, its a fair question, though it does make some wonder how extreme the answers could be, so I could see why you're being downvoted. The problem is sometimes on paper everything people like Sam Altman do is legal, despite it harming so many. We've literally had a major RAM producer pull off the consumer RAM market. I feel like Sam Altman should be investigated and heavily scrutinized. He kind of is the biggest b…

Totally. Lying about others can be so harmful. But lying to hostiles in order to protect? Acceptable.

I guess my question was more, if the article author was the judge of fate or morality, what should happen?

As to AI and Sam, I think it’s too early to tell what effects will be. So we should adopt non judgement, build good ourselves and see what unfolds.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#899

Post by trinsic2 »

surajrmal wrote: post #710
Bolwin wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it bizarre even the public image of Anthropic is seen as ethical after the Department of War debacle, in which they themselves admitted they had basically no qualms with their tech being used for war and slaughter at all except two very very thin lines, namely mass surveillance of American citizens and fully automated weaponry with their current models. It only showed they were marginally more ethical than Ope…

The idea that it's not okay to arm the military is a position of privilege. The ethical issues are around how the military chooses to use its abilities, not around giving them the tools to do their jobs. We're talking about folks who are willing to give their lives up for others. If you're not going to serve yourself you should at least be willing to help them live. This has nothing to do with whether or not you supp…

I'd feel much better about supporting military actions of the people that are becoming part of that system if they exercised some fucking free will and not follow criminals in our government into wars that do not support our people, or our country. We have a serious problem in our government and it being connected in anyway with what is happening in that institution gives me great pause in believing in people of this country. People are stupid to not be fight this government tooth and nail.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#900

Post by trinsic2 »

DirkH wrote: post #517
solenoid0937 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whether the company that branded itself as the ethical AI lab actually is one FWIW I have two(!!) close friends working for Anthropic, one for nearly two years and one for about 4 months. Both of them tell me that this is not just marketing, that the company actually is ethical and safety conscious everywhere, and that this was the most surprising part about joining Anthropic for them. They insist the culture is ac…

I have multiple friends at Anthropic. I can second this. One thing I notice about Anthropic culture is that it is unusually kind. So much so that I worry they won't be Machiavellian enough to survive. Hope I am wrong.

You can still be kind and guard against idiot strong men. Do the right thing, for the right reasons always brings peace. There will always be people that take advantage of that, but if you stay in the right frame, eventually people that matter will see it. And, at the same time, thats not always the case and then I just chalk it up to divine intervention or some larger purpose I am unable to see with my limited mind.
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