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Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

#3

Post by utdiscant »

A lot of tech people seems to have changed their mind on this. Some ways to reason about that are:

1) They are doing it for opportunistic reasons. They can't afford to be enemies with Trump.

2) They legitimately changed their opinion about a wide array of things they used to believe enough to outspoken about.

3) They believe that while Trump's core beliefs are not aligned to theirs, the alternative is worse. And potentially they believe there is a need for some sorm of over-correction to fix what has happened over the last 4 years.

Re: Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

#4

Post by ipunchghosts »

Lets ignore these fickle minded people. There is room in the ai/ML space to transform dozens of fields that are completely out of the scope of these larger companies simply because they can't make large enough profit margins to gain thier attention.

We need a 90s google like company that is in the ai ml business, not the ads business. It may not make billions, but it will surely make millions and push our society together in a meaningful way.

Re: Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

#5

Post by robertlagrant »

utdiscant wrote: post #3

A lot of tech people seems to have changed their mind on this. Some ways to reason about that are: 1) They are doing it for opportunistic reasons. They can't afford to be enemies with Trump. 2) They legitimately changed their opinion about a wide array of things they used to believe enough to outspoken about. 3) They believe that while Trump's core beliefs are not aligned to theirs, the alternative is worse. And pote…

I think the fourth is quite a few people spotted what appeared to be happening in big tech, where if you have the right activists in only a few companies you could cover and (to some extent) control a lot of digit communication. The moment whatever issue du jour came up that they did not align with the big tech decision on, they noticed and started to distrust what they were seeing. It's possible that being a benevolent gatekeeper only works if you are extremely nonpartisan.

Re: Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

#6

Post by davidt84 »

ipunchghosts wrote: post #4

Lets ignore these fickle minded people. There is room in the ai/ML space to transform dozens of fields that are completely out of the scope of these larger companies simply because they can't make large enough profit margins to gain thier attention. We need a 90s google like company that is in the ai ml business, not the ads business. It may not make billions, but it will surely make millions and push our society tog…

> and push our society together in a meaningful way.

This seems like magical thinking.

Re: Time to Take a Stand – Sam Altman (2017)

#8

Post by piva00 »

davidt84 wrote: post #6
ipunchghosts wrote: post #4

Lets ignore these fickle minded people. There is room in the ai/ML space to transform dozens of fields that are completely out of the scope of these larger companies simply because they can't make large enough profit margins to gain thier attention. We need a 90s google like company that is in the ai ml business, not the ads business. It may not make billions, but it will surely make millions and push our society tog…

> and push our society together in a meaningful way. This seems like magical thinking.

More than that, it's religious thinking.

David F. Noble's "The Religion of Technology" is a good read to understand how this whole tenet of "salvation by technology" has been a thing for a very long time...

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