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> 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 wa

> 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.
    - tessierashpool 3y ago
      > No Open AI is in the business of creating their vision of Artificial General Intelligence that's a project, not a business. > GPT as a product comes second and it shows we can agree on that, at least.

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.
  - tessierashpool 3y ago
    > No Open AI is in the business of creating their vision of Artificial General Intelligence that's a project, not a business. > GPT as a product comes second and it shows we can agree on that, at least.