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Sam Altman and his buddies are incredibly out of touch with the real world. In a related tweet, he said [0]: > A version of college replacement I'm super inter

by shafyy 5y ago

Sam Altman and his buddies are incredibly out of touch with the real world. In a related tweet, he said [0]: > A version of college replacement I'm super interested in: Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Completely agree with your statement: > I'll add to this that it's generally a bad idea to make big predictions outside of areas that you have strong domain knowledge in. I doubt Sam Altman has strong domain knowledge around US higher education. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley culture is full of people who feel that because they've succeeded in one domain they have some kind of hidden insight into others. It's a cognitive biased called halo effect [1]. Although, in this case, I would question if Altman is good at anything except somehow convincing Paul Graham to lead YC (as a sister comment points out). [0]: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1505599701864701954 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1505599701864701954 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Didn't he also make a lot of money already? So at least also good at making money.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  When Howard Hughes was at his most batshit crazy and generally out of touch with anything resembling humanity his businesses kept being profitable, perhaps once you have a lot of money it is difficult to really screw it up.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    So your claim is that Altman used to be capable of making money, but is not anymore? Why? He doesn't come across as crazy and out of touch to me.
    - shafyy 5y ago
      He does not seem out of touch to you? He recently announced WorldCoin [0]: > To address it, we built a new device called the Orb. It solves the problem through biometrics: the Orb captures an image of a person’s eyes, which is converted into a short numeric code, making it possible to check whether the person has signed up already. If not, they receive their free share of Worldcoin. He thinks that launching a global coin owned by VCs and collecting everyone's biometric data will make the world a better place. If that's not out of touch, I don't know what is. [0]: https://worldcoin.org/ https://worldcoin.org/
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        If you think about crypto for a bit, it is not such a far fetched idea. It tackles the issue of a fair initial distribution.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      >So your claim is that Altman used to be capable of making money, but is not anymore? No, the parent comment to yours was that Altman was out of touch. Your reply was that he makes money, which caused me to infer that you thought he could not be out of touch because of a general belief that people who are out of touch cannot be making money. My reply gave an example of someone that was definitely out of touch but still made money, thus showing that one cannot reason that the ability to make money proves that one is in touch. So in response to your last comment - I don't have an opinion on Altman, I just have an example of someone who made money while out of touch. That actually would mean the opposite of what you seem to think I meant, if I thought that Howard Hughes at his craziest could make money why would you assume I thought Altman could not?
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        OK but presumably Howard Hughes built his empire while he was not yet crazy and incapable, so it is not a good example for what you wanted to say.
        5y ago
- astrange 5y ago
  Probably not that much after repaying other parties. His only demonstrated skill is that time he wore like 7 shirts at once at an Apple keynote.
eterevsky 5y ago
> I would question if Altman is good at anything He leads OpenAI > Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Why do you think this is a bad idea?
- shafyy 5y ago
  > He leads OpenAI And OpenAI has strayed away from their initial "vision" considerably. > Why do you think this is a bad idea? Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life and society should work. It's very one dimensional. 18-year-olds should not be put in an environment where their goal is to make money for a sicko in Silicon Valley who then takes a percentage of their future earnings. 18-year-olds should be encouraged to take time to enjoy their youth, travel, learn about a lot of different things and about themselves.
  - eterevsky 5y ago
    > And OpenAI has strayed away from their initial "vision" considerably. It's still very successful. > It's very one dimensional. It doesn't pretend to solve multiple problems. From what I understand, Altman wants to boost innovation by incentivising talented young people. > 18-year-olds should not be put in an environment If anything like this program were implemented, 99% of 18-year-olds wouldn't be affected by it. There are 18-year-olds that want to enjoy youth and travel and there are others that are driven to achieve things. I don't see why is it bad to boost some of the latter ones.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    “ Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life” Why that bad? Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? Seems like a bias rather than factually supported.
    - stingraycharles 5y ago
      > Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? For what it’s worth, it’s not as binary as you suggest: if one doesn’t like a capitalist idea, it doesn’t automatically imply a communist alternative. I think at the very least, Sam’s suggestion here is fairly capitalist: students are considered resources to be invested in, with a certain ROI, and capital would automatically be allocated to just those students that are the brightest of all, and/or have the best connections. This implies that only a very narrow group of students would receive this funding, and it’s (ideally) based purely on their potential financial contribution to society. But for a country, there are lots of other reasons why you would want better educated students: crime reduction being a good example.
tsol 5y ago
>Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world And how do you even do that? Who's more driven, the white honor roll student, the Asian honor roll student with the tiger mom pushing them, or the African student who isn't on the honor roll but came from an environment with fewer opportunities and who is raising their younger siblings alongside school? Just defining what intelligence is, is really difficult and there isn't any universally accepted measure. He just assumes these problems can be solved easily, when that question is unanswered. If it's so easy to find those the smartest and hardest working people, then you can just turn schooling into a tier system-- these schools are for the smartest and these and for everyone else. Because right now, that's akin to saying let's give everyone at Harvard a bunch of money and resources to do whatever they want. Which, I don't think will end well as there are plenty of immature people at Harvard
- kylewpppd 5y ago
  In your hypothetical, why did you choose to have the African kid raising siblings, the Asian kid have a Tiger mom, and the white kid be on honor roll with no external factors?

by shafyy 5y ago

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

Didn't he also make a lot of money already? So at least also good at making money.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
When Howard Hughes was at his most batshit crazy and generally out of touch with anything resembling humanity his businesses kept being profitable, perhaps once you have a lot of money it is difficult to really screw it up.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  So your claim is that Altman used to be capable of making money, but is not anymore? Why? He doesn't come across as crazy and out of touch to me.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    He does not seem out of touch to you? He recently announced WorldCoin [0]: > To address it, we built a new device called the Orb. It solves the problem through biometrics: the Orb captures an image of a person’s eyes, which is converted into a short numeric code, making it possible to check whether the person has signed up already. If not, they receive their free share of Worldcoin. He thinks that launching a global coin owned by VCs and collecting everyone's biometric data will make the world a better place. If that's not out of touch, I don't know what is. [0]: https://worldcoin.org/ https://worldcoin.org/
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      If you think about crypto for a bit, it is not such a far fetched idea. It tackles the issue of a fair initial distribution.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >So your claim is that Altman used to be capable of making money, but is not anymore? No, the parent comment to yours was that Altman was out of touch. Your reply was that he makes money, which caused me to infer that you thought he could not be out of touch because of a general belief that people who are out of touch cannot be making money. My reply gave an example of someone that was definitely out of touch but still made money, thus showing that one cannot reason that the ability to make money proves that one is in touch. So in response to your last comment - I don't have an opinion on Altman, I just have an example of someone who made money while out of touch. That actually would mean the opposite of what you seem to think I meant, if I thought that Howard Hughes at his craziest could make money why would you assume I thought Altman could not?
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      OK but presumably Howard Hughes built his empire while he was not yet crazy and incapable, so it is not a good example for what you wanted to say.
      - 5y ago
astrange 5y ago
Probably not that much after repaying other parties. His only demonstrated skill is that time he wore like 7 shirts at once at an Apple keynote.

eterevsky 5y ago

> I would question if Altman is good at anything He leads OpenAI > Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Why do you think this is a bad idea?

shafyy 5y ago
> He leads OpenAI And OpenAI has strayed away from their initial "vision" considerably. > Why do you think this is a bad idea? Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life and society should work. It's very one dimensional. 18-year-olds should not be put in an environment where their goal is to make money for a sicko in Silicon Valley who then takes a percentage of their future earnings. 18-year-olds should be encouraged to take time to enjoy their youth, travel, learn about a lot of different things and about themselves.
- eterevsky 5y ago
  > And OpenAI has strayed away from their initial "vision" considerably. It's still very successful. > It's very one dimensional. It doesn't pretend to solve multiple problems. From what I understand, Altman wants to boost innovation by incentivising talented young people. > 18-year-olds should not be put in an environment If anything like this program were implemented, 99% of 18-year-olds wouldn't be affected by it. There are 18-year-olds that want to enjoy youth and travel and there are others that are driven to achieve things. I don't see why is it bad to boost some of the latter ones.
- newsclues 5y ago
  “ Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life” Why that bad? Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? Seems like a bias rather than factually supported.
  - stingraycharles 5y ago
    > Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? For what it’s worth, it’s not as binary as you suggest: if one doesn’t like a capitalist idea, it doesn’t automatically imply a communist alternative. I think at the very least, Sam’s suggestion here is fairly capitalist: students are considered resources to be invested in, with a certain ROI, and capital would automatically be allocated to just those students that are the brightest of all, and/or have the best connections. This implies that only a very narrow group of students would receive this funding, and it’s (ideally) based purely on their potential financial contribution to society. But for a country, there are lots of other reasons why you would want better educated students: crime reduction being a good example.

tsol 5y ago

>Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world And how do you even do that? Who's more driven, the white honor roll student, the Asian honor roll student with the tiger mom pushing them, or the African student who isn't on the honor roll but came from an environment with fewer opportunities and who is raising their younger siblings alongside school? Just defining what intelligence is, is really difficult and there isn't any universally accepted measure. He just assumes these problems can be solved easily, when that question is unanswered. If it's so easy to find those the smartest and hardest working people, then you can just turn schooling into a tier system-- these schools are for the smartest and these and for everyone else. Because right now, that's akin to saying let's give everyone at Harvard a bunch of money and resources to do whatever they want. Which, I don't think will end well as there are plenty of immature people at Harvard

kylewpppd 5y ago
In your hypothetical, why did you choose to have the African kid raising siblings, the Asian kid have a Tiger mom, and the white kid be on honor roll with no external factors?