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

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

#981
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how easy it is, for those of us who play no part in public affairs, to sneer at the compromises required of those who do" - robert harris Not making any value judgements, but I can see how one might value their interpretability research higher than what the ceo says in a time where the corrupt, criminal executive branch is muscling in to everything from what's written on currency, to journalistic sources. I generall…

Not sure that quote has aged well from a close personal friend and spirited defender of Peter Mandelson.

if it helps it's from his novel imperium about cicero. the rest of the quote is great. "...Cicero had stuck to his principles and rejected joining pompey, crassus, and Caesar in their triumvirate to supplant the state. He denounced their criminality in public...in response, he suffered banishment, poverty, and heartbreak. "What good am i to my family or my principles, exiled here?" something like that. from memory. great little trilogy of books btw. got the rec off here actually

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

#982

Reading this makes me even happier to pay for Anthropic. Amodei and his sister saw through the behavior and called it out. " “Eighty per cent of the charter was just betrayed,” Amodei recalled. He confronted Altman, who denied that the provision existed. Amodei read it aloud, pointing to the text, and ultimately forced another colleague to confirm its existence to Altman directly. (Altman doesn’t remember this.) Amod…

If you think Amodei is significantly different you’re going to be disappointed. There is nothing he has done that can’t be adequately explained as furthering his own interests. Remember how Musk doesn’t like Altman too? It’s because they’re all the same people, competing for the same thing.

He passed on a multi-billion dollar government contract on principle, so there's that.

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

#984
post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Sam was approached on the street by a stranger, and he had a negative reaction. Which is fairly common for high profile people, especially people with a following of haters (let's not deny AI/data center general unrest). I cannot see any legitimacy to the claim besides the commentor's own interpretation of the situation. They posit this like the authors would want to know, but here I am doing the first…

It's a little weird to be scared of random strangers, famous or not. If this happened when Altman was already so well-known so as to make this a problem, maybe he shouldn't have been traveling on his own? Private security is a thing he can afford (now, at least).

I'm not famous, high-profile, or the billionaire founder of a controversial company, but I can easily imagine situations in which I'd be cautious of random strangers. Have you travelled much?

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

#985
post #356

I found it very interesting that Altman et al were worried that AI will become supremely intelligent and China will make a supervirus or some AI drones or whatnot, but not a single person was worried about destroying all jobs because we wouldn't need humans any more. Or maybe they were not so much "worried" but "hopeful" that they'd amass literally all the wealth in the world.

I also find that interesting. And not intending to defend the motives of anyone involved, but I'm hoping we can not worry about literally all jobs being destroyed, and AI companies amassing all the wealth in the world. Don't we need at least some humans working and earning to buy these AI services? Am I not being imaginative enough? Is it possible for the whole economy to consist just of AI selling services to each o…

[flagged]

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

#986
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for coming on HN and offering to answer questions.[a] This is a fantastic piece, very timely, evidently well-researched, and also well-written. Judging by the little that I know, it's accurate. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with the world. OpenAI may be in a more tenuous competitive position than many people realize. Recent anecdotal evidence suggests the company has lost its lead in the AI ra…

Many of us prefer OpenAI's Codex, because we think it's a better product. No comment on the CEO: I just find the product superior in everything but UI/UX and conversation. It's better at quality code.

Here’s a reality check.

There are two types of vaccine be coders. Those who review the code generated and those who don’t.

Either because they don’t understand code at all, or because they don’t have time and don’t care.

Code quality is only one factor. Naive vibe coders, who don’t code otherwise, rate performance based on output alone.

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

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give more details? It wouldn't particularly surprise me if Sam Altman were racist, but I'm curious what the specific incident you observed was.

Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things. 1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim. 2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer. 3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs I was working for a company called NationBuilder a…

What about your interaction makes you think he’s scared of black people, specifically?

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

#988
post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe white teenaged ("military aged") males should stop shooting up American schools. you see hoe your argument is bigoted?

[dead]

thinking of Popeye's Chicken makes me think of terrible american fast food. not everyone understands your cultural references, so please feel free to say what you mean with your whole chest, rather than cowering behind euphemism

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

#989

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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

Ah yes, the diaresis will relieve those confused chicken farmers! A thousand thanks to The New Yorker.

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

#990
post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

video link?

57:42 here: https://youtu.be/m7LvNTbaqSI That one is borderline ^. Then another dalton and Michael one can’t find.

lmao, thank God now everyone realize the glaze is too much
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