4 ms·

> The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe. People are misinterpreting this as the research goal. No, it's an implicit negation of an e

> The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe. People are misinterpreting this as the research goal. No, it's an implicit negation of an ethos - AI Ethics, Trust & Safety, ESG, Politically Correct - that have dominated decision making in product and hiring in tech for the past decade. Whether or not you agree with him, it's hard to deny that Musk is the only one offering researchers an escape from the bowing to the orthodoxy while also offering an A+ pedigree institution.

sterlind 3y ago
are the researchers allowed to disagree with Musk? if the supposedly-objective AI they produce contradicts Musk's views, will he accept that he's wrong? or will he call it a bug, or pressure his researchers into training it to support his ideologies? in short: do you really believe this is Musk producing an objective truth-aligned AI and not just a Musk-aligned AI?
- andreygrehov 3y ago
  What makes you believe that one cannot disagree with Musk?
  - sterlind 3y ago
    his conduct at Twitter, primarily, as he rapidly abandoned his promises of free-speech absolutism and started to micromanage its moderation to benefit himself.
    - andreygrehov 3y ago
      > he rapidly abandoned his promises of free-speech Hm, I don't think that's true. How does that manifest itself? > started to micromanage its moderation to benefit himself Has anyone been banned from the platform? + we are talking about Twitter, right? Elon uses Twitter for fun, it's pretty obvious from many of his troll tweets. Do you have any evidence that people cannot disagree with him when working directly in a professional environment (eg office, zoom call, etc)?
      - sterlind 3y ago
        > Has anyone been banned from the platform? Yes, evidently: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/media/twitter-musk-journalists-hnk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/media/twitter-musk-journalist... > Do you have any evidence that people cannot disagree with him when working directly in a professional environment (eg office, zoom call, etc)? Seems so: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twit... But I admit I don't follow Musk and his controversies very closely, I just looked these up. If you consider yourself disinterested and not a Musk supporter, and you think your take on Musk is representative of the general consensus, I'm happy to learn from you.
        andreygrehov 3y ago
        https://twitter.com/donie https://twitter.com/donie https://twitter.com/RMac18 https://twitter.com/RMac18 The accounts are doing just fine. Stop reading the news. Especially the ones who are consistently attacking Elon to get their portion of ad revenue.
- stillsut 3y ago
  Me sense is its more permissible to publicly disagree with Musk on ideology than any other CEO of a large company in the world. I can't imagine that working at Google, Disney, ESPN, OpenAI, even Y-combinator! What ideological belief does Musk hold that would create friction with his employees?
  - dudeinhawaii 3y ago
    Is this sarcasm? Right here on HN there's been many articles and discussions that are in complete opposition to what you've written with respect to both being able to disagree with musk as an employee and employee friction based on beliefs.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    You didn't see the twitter fire drama
- machdiamonds 3y ago
  You think SpaceX, Tesla, etc. All succeeded because people weren't allowed to disagree with him?
numbers_guy 3y ago
There is literally nothing wrong with ethics in AI, or any other field of science. What is wrong is this woke supremacist nonsense, that some imbecile in Silicon Valley can dictate the truth about the world according to the woke bible, that's where the problem lies. Americans have gotten really intolerant of other cultures and ways of life. There's 8 billion people on this planet, ffs. We don't need the heavy handed paternalistic nonsense of OpenAI. If a study is published in a research journal why should ChatGPT not be allowed to give you a summary of it? Why should it be censored because the woke cultists find it too icky?
- wyager 3y ago
  > There is literally nothing wrong with ethics in... any other field of science. When you start putting "ethics" in fields like biology (not medicine or bioengineering, just inductive biology) you end up with nonsense like Lamarckism. Reality has an underlying structure independently of how this structure interacts with our constructed ethical systems.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    [flagged]
- dudeinhawaii 3y ago
  Stop using woke as shorthand because honestly I don't know what it's shorthand for. What other cultures and ways of life are Americans intolerant of? This seems to be at odds with the previous woke statement. This is why you need to use actual words that contain detail and specifics. This entire statement is market speak for twitter gen, a sound-bite to engender emotion that says nothing at all. It is itself a symptom of woke culture. Congrats.
jjaken 3y ago
Does Musk still attract A+ pedigree? I wouldn’t be caught dead working for someone so tech illiterate.
- simondotau 3y ago
  Do you have a specific example? I know there were certainly a number of enterprise high-availability types who expressed scorn for Elon's move-fast-and-break-things approach to tearing away at the bloat of Twitter (both technical and corporate). Personally my observations of his handling of Twitter has made me more impressed at his tech literacy, not less. I don't know a single person on earth who can speak on the full gamut of "tech" topics without revealing themselves "illiterate" on at least some of them. I've no doubt Musk is not some singular exception to this rule.
systemvoltage 3y ago
You nailed it. This is a cultural statement affirming rationalism and countering post-modernism.

sterlind 3y ago

are the researchers allowed to disagree with Musk? if the supposedly-objective AI they produce contradicts Musk's views, will he accept that he's wrong? or will he call it a bug, or pressure his researchers into training it to support his ideologies? in short: do you really believe this is Musk producing an objective truth-aligned AI and not just a Musk-aligned AI?

andreygrehov 3y ago
What makes you believe that one cannot disagree with Musk?
- sterlind 3y ago
  his conduct at Twitter, primarily, as he rapidly abandoned his promises of free-speech absolutism and started to micromanage its moderation to benefit himself.
  - andreygrehov 3y ago
    > he rapidly abandoned his promises of free-speech Hm, I don't think that's true. How does that manifest itself? > started to micromanage its moderation to benefit himself Has anyone been banned from the platform? + we are talking about Twitter, right? Elon uses Twitter for fun, it's pretty obvious from many of his troll tweets. Do you have any evidence that people cannot disagree with him when working directly in a professional environment (eg office, zoom call, etc)?
    - sterlind 3y ago
      > Has anyone been banned from the platform? Yes, evidently: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/media/twitter-musk-journalists-hnk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/media/twitter-musk-journalist... > Do you have any evidence that people cannot disagree with him when working directly in a professional environment (eg office, zoom call, etc)? Seems so: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twit... But I admit I don't follow Musk and his controversies very closely, I just looked these up. If you consider yourself disinterested and not a Musk supporter, and you think your take on Musk is representative of the general consensus, I'm happy to learn from you.
      - andreygrehov 3y ago
        https://twitter.com/donie https://twitter.com/donie https://twitter.com/RMac18 https://twitter.com/RMac18 The accounts are doing just fine. Stop reading the news. Especially the ones who are consistently attacking Elon to get their portion of ad revenue.
stillsut 3y ago
Me sense is its more permissible to publicly disagree with Musk on ideology than any other CEO of a large company in the world. I can't imagine that working at Google, Disney, ESPN, OpenAI, even Y-combinator! What ideological belief does Musk hold that would create friction with his employees?
- dudeinhawaii 3y ago
  Is this sarcasm? Right here on HN there's been many articles and discussions that are in complete opposition to what you've written with respect to both being able to disagree with musk as an employee and employee friction based on beliefs.
- fomine3 3y ago
  You didn't see the twitter fire drama
machdiamonds 3y ago
You think SpaceX, Tesla, etc. All succeeded because people weren't allowed to disagree with him?

numbers_guy 3y ago

There is literally nothing wrong with ethics in AI, or any other field of science. What is wrong is this woke supremacist nonsense, that some imbecile in Silicon Valley can dictate the truth about the world according to the woke bible, that's where the problem lies. Americans have gotten really intolerant of other cultures and ways of life. There's 8 billion people on this planet, ffs. We don't need the heavy handed paternalistic nonsense of OpenAI. If a study is published in a research journal why should ChatGPT not be allowed to give you a summary of it? Why should it be censored because the woke cultists find it too icky?

wyager 3y ago
> There is literally nothing wrong with ethics in... any other field of science. When you start putting "ethics" in fields like biology (not medicine or bioengineering, just inductive biology) you end up with nonsense like Lamarckism. Reality has an underlying structure independently of how this structure interacts with our constructed ethical systems.
mullingitover 3y ago
[flagged]
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  [flagged]
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  [flagged]
dudeinhawaii 3y ago
Stop using woke as shorthand because honestly I don't know what it's shorthand for. What other cultures and ways of life are Americans intolerant of? This seems to be at odds with the previous woke statement. This is why you need to use actual words that contain detail and specifics. This entire statement is market speak for twitter gen, a sound-bite to engender emotion that says nothing at all. It is itself a symptom of woke culture. Congrats.

jjaken 3y ago

Does Musk still attract A+ pedigree? I wouldn’t be caught dead working for someone so tech illiterate.

simondotau 3y ago
Do you have a specific example? I know there were certainly a number of enterprise high-availability types who expressed scorn for Elon's move-fast-and-break-things approach to tearing away at the bloat of Twitter (both technical and corporate). Personally my observations of his handling of Twitter has made me more impressed at his tech literacy, not less. I don't know a single person on earth who can speak on the full gamut of "tech" topics without revealing themselves "illiterate" on at least some of them. I've no doubt Musk is not some singular exception to this rule.

systemvoltage 3y ago

You nailed it. This is a cultural statement affirming rationalism and countering post-modernism.