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> What are they thinking over there at OpenAI? I know this is rhetorical, but luckily we don't have to speculate. OpenAI filters for a very specific philosophy

> What are they thinking over there at OpenAI? I know this is rhetorical, but luckily we don't have to speculate. OpenAI filters for a very specific philosophy when hiring, and they don't try to hide it. This is not me passing judgement on whether said philosophy is right or wrong, but it does exist and it's not hidden.

sebzim4500 3y ago
>OpenAI filters for a very specific philosophy when hiring, and they don't try to hide it. Do you have evidence for this? I know two people who work at OpenAI and I don't think they have much in common philosophically.
- skepticATX 3y ago
  > It’s not fair to call OpenAI a cult, but when I asked several of the company’s top brass if someone could comfortably work there if they didn’t believe AGI was truly coming—and that its arrival would mark one of the greatest moments in human history—most executives didn’t think so. Why would a nonbeliever want to work here? they wondered. The assumption is that the workforce—now at approximately 500, though it might have grown since you began reading this paragraph—has self-selected to include only the faithful. At the very least, as Altman puts it, once you get hired, it seems inevitable that you’ll be drawn into the spell. From https://archive.ph/3zSz6 https://archive.ph/3zSz6. Of course there is much more evidence - just follow OpenAI employees on Twitter to see for yourself.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    >I asked several of the company’s top brass if someone could comfortably work there if they didn’t believe AGI was truly coming—and that its arrival would mark one of the greatest moments in human history—most executives didn’t think so. No shit? How many people worked on the apollo program and believed that (i) Getting to the moon is impossible or (ii) Landing on the moon is no big deal
    - skepticATX 3y ago
      It is notable considering that there are plenty of excellent researchers who don’t believe that AGI is imminent. OpenAI is also openly transhumanist based on comments from Sam, Ilya, and others. Again, many excellent researchers don’t hold transhumanist beliefs.
      - sebzim4500 3y ago
        It is definitely not the case that all OpenAI employees are transhumanist. It is probably the case that they all believe AGI is possible, because otherwise they would not work at a company whose stated goal is to build an AGI.
    - tessierashpool 3y ago
      that's completely apples to oranges. OpenAI is in the business of leveraging the utility of large language models. that's their moon. if they think instead that they're in the business of creating some kind of ridiculous robot god, that is definitely interesting information about them. because that's no moon.
      - famouswaffles 3y ago
        >OpenAI is in the business of leveraging the utility of large language models. No Open AI is in the business of creating their vision of Artificial General Intelligence (which they define as that is generally smarter than humans ) and they believe LLMs are a viable path. This has always been the case. It's not some big secret and they have many posts which talk upon their expectations and goals in this space. https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment GPT as a product comes second and it shows. These are the guys that sat on by far the most performant Language Model for 8 months red teaming before even saying anything about it.
        3y ago
clbrmbr 3y ago
Actually, can you expand on this? What philosophy leads one to put the bedtime story example on top? I’m genuinely curious about the different political/spiritual views that are growing up around AI. So maybe my question was not so rhetorical.
- michaelt 3y ago
  Hypothetically, if you believe there's no such thing as a soul or consciousness, it's all just neurons and they can be simulated, and we're close to being able to simulate them - you're much more likely to think lofty AI goals can be achieved. If you follow a religious tradition like Shinto where even things like rocks can have spirits - the idea of your phone having a certain, limited form of intelligence might already be cool with you. If you think, much like a camera does most of the work in photography but it's the photographer that takes the credit, that when a person uses AI the output is nobody's work but the user - you might be completely fine with an AI-written wedding speech. If you think the relentless march of technology can't be stopped and can barely be directed, you might think advanced AIs are coming anyway, and if we don't invent it the Chinese will - you might be fine with pretty much whatever. If you're extremely trusting of big corporations, who you see as more moral than the government; or you think that censorship is vital to maintain AI safety and stamp out deep fakes; you might think it a great thing for these technologies to be jealously guarded by a handful of huge corporations. Or hell, maybe you're just a parent who's had their kid want to hear the same Peppa Pig book 90 nights in a row and you've got a hankering for something that would introduce a bit of variety. Of course these are all things reasonable people could disagree on - but if you didn't like openai's work, would you end up working at openai?

sebzim4500 3y ago

>OpenAI filters for a very specific philosophy when hiring, and they don't try to hide it. Do you have evidence for this? I know two people who work at OpenAI and I don't think they have much in common philosophically.

skepticATX 3y ago
> It’s not fair to call OpenAI a cult, but when I asked several of the company’s top brass if someone could comfortably work there if they didn’t believe AGI was truly coming—and that its arrival would mark one of the greatest moments in human history—most executives didn’t think so. Why would a nonbeliever want to work here? they wondered. The assumption is that the workforce—now at approximately 500, though it might have grown since you began reading this paragraph—has self-selected to include only the faithful. At the very least, as Altman puts it, once you get hired, it seems inevitable that you’ll be drawn into the spell. From https://archive.ph/3zSz6 https://archive.ph/3zSz6. Of course there is much more evidence - just follow OpenAI employees on Twitter to see for yourself.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  >I asked several of the company’s top brass if someone could comfortably work there if they didn’t believe AGI was truly coming—and that its arrival would mark one of the greatest moments in human history—most executives didn’t think so. No shit? How many people worked on the apollo program and believed that (i) Getting to the moon is impossible or (ii) Landing on the moon is no big deal
  - skepticATX 3y ago
    It is notable considering that there are plenty of excellent researchers who don’t believe that AGI is imminent. OpenAI is also openly transhumanist based on comments from Sam, Ilya, and others. Again, many excellent researchers don’t hold transhumanist beliefs.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      It is definitely not the case that all OpenAI employees are transhumanist. It is probably the case that they all believe AGI is possible, because otherwise they would not work at a company whose stated goal is to build an AGI.
  - tessierashpool 3y ago
    that's completely apples to oranges. OpenAI is in the business of leveraging the utility of large language models. that's their moon. if they think instead that they're in the business of creating some kind of ridiculous robot god, that is definitely interesting information about them. because that's no moon.
    - famouswaffles 3y ago
      >OpenAI is in the business of leveraging the utility of large language models. No Open AI is in the business of creating their vision of Artificial General Intelligence (which they define as that is generally smarter than humans ) and they believe LLMs are a viable path. This has always been the case. It's not some big secret and they have many posts which talk upon their expectations and goals in this space. https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment GPT as a product comes second and it shows. These are the guys that sat on by far the most performant Language Model for 8 months red teaming before even saying anything about it.
      - 3y ago

clbrmbr 3y ago

Actually, can you expand on this? What philosophy leads one to put the bedtime story example on top? I’m genuinely curious about the different political/spiritual views that are growing up around AI. So maybe my question was not so rhetorical.

michaelt 3y ago
Hypothetically, if you believe there's no such thing as a soul or consciousness, it's all just neurons and they can be simulated, and we're close to being able to simulate them - you're much more likely to think lofty AI goals can be achieved. If you follow a religious tradition like Shinto where even things like rocks can have spirits - the idea of your phone having a certain, limited form of intelligence might already be cool with you. If you think, much like a camera does most of the work in photography but it's the photographer that takes the credit, that when a person uses AI the output is nobody's work but the user - you might be completely fine with an AI-written wedding speech. If you think the relentless march of technology can't be stopped and can barely be directed, you might think advanced AIs are coming anyway, and if we don't invent it the Chinese will - you might be fine with pretty much whatever. If you're extremely trusting of big corporations, who you see as more moral than the government; or you think that censorship is vital to maintain AI safety and stamp out deep fakes; you might think it a great thing for these technologies to be jealously guarded by a handful of huge corporations. Or hell, maybe you're just a parent who's had their kid want to hear the same Peppa Pig book 90 nights in a row and you've got a hankering for something that would introduce a bit of variety. Of course these are all things reasonable people could disagree on - but if you didn't like openai's work, would you end up working at openai?