4 ms·
It's incredible how many of you alleged tech people think that Sam just wanted a world of safe AI while his actions suggest he wanted to make dump trucks of mon
by benkarst 3y ago
It's incredible how many of you alleged tech people think that Sam just wanted a world of safe AI while his actions suggest he wanted to make dump trucks of money.
He was the one who partnered with Microsoft and turned it from a non-profit to a for-profit company.
- philovivero 3y ago[flagged]
- konschubert 3y agoConsider the possibility that people who know a thing or two technology might still think AI brings a lot of good and that kneecapping AI isn't the right move at this time.
- jonbell 3y agoImpossible challenge
- j_maffe 3y agoThere are plenty of AI experts who believe that AI will do more harm than good if it keeps being developed at this rate.
- Loughla 3y agoThis is not as strong of an argument as you think. There have been experts who believe pretty much every technological innovation, since we transitioned from rock tablets to paper, that it will do more harm than good. Context: I believe the end of humanity will be real AI and not climate change.
- j_maffe 3y agoI, myself, am a lot more worried about a few monopolists doing whatever they get to choose for the rest of humanity. AI fuels that vision more than any other piece of technology.
- concordDance 3y agoYeah, it's a big debate atm with knowledgeable people on both sides.
- jprete 3y agoOpenAI literally kicked off an AGI race, which is exactly the thing you do not want to do if you’re interested in AI safety.
- bcherny 3y agoHonest question: How would he make money if he didn’t have equity in OpenAI?
- hughesjj 3y agoWorldcoin is the mud I've seen thrown around, but I'm making absolutely zero assumptions here. This whole situation stinks.
- idrisser 3y agohis partner or parents or some trust has probably the equity for him.
- frabcus 3y agoVia his Y Combinator related holdings in companies which use the OpenAI APIs? Or just which are getting capital and exposure due to ChatGPT boosting visibility of AI.
- twoodfin 3y agoYour forward-looking value to an organization is your value whether it’s realized in equity or not. In the world where Sam Altman leads OpenAI to market dominance and eventual acquisition by Microsoft for $400B or whatever, he obviously would represent an important part of what Microsoft would be buying and would be compensated accordingly.
- n2d4 3y agoNo he wouldn't, if the CEO is substantially compensated for a $400B acquisition despite not owning equity that would be fraud. It's the CEO's fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of shareholders, if they take a $10bil cut for themselves that is $10bil that could've gone to the shareholders and hence not in their best interest. It is the reason why CEOs (not Sam, apparently) are usually compensated in stock options. Golden parachutes are some sort of severance when the CEO gets fired immediately from the new company, eg. Twitter. He's totally the guy who made OpenAI into ClosedAI, but money was clearly not his motivation.
- ramraj07 3y agoHow exactly will he make loads of money if he didn’t have any equity in OpenAI? Or should we assume that was a lie?
- computerex 3y agoYou know it's not just about the monetary compensation, that's rather short-sighted. sama is not hurting for cash. Being the CEO of OpenAI, in the climate that we are in, brings with it a lot of exposure and influence.
- isitmadeofglass 3y ago[dead]
- thawab 3y agoto add to your point: He was sitting with heads of state because of openai.
- ramraj07 3y agoThat’s just mere fashion. My dad once was good friends with the then president of India. Didn’t mean nothing to any effort or initiative he wanted. It’s not knowing or sitting with someone that matters, it was leverage. Doubt Sam had that on any leader. Didn’t even have it on his own board lol.
- l5870uoo9y 3y agoI find the close partnership with Microsoft and their vision of "Creating safe AI that benefits all of humanity" difficult to reconcile. Open source vs commercialism could definitely be a reason for the split.
- fennecbutt 3y agoHow so? Think about it, Microsoft is very risk averse. Hell, even to get the Xbox project going they had to fight so damn hard because "we're not a games company, we make Windows and Office" It's completely illogical to say that just because an AI company isn't open source it can't strive to also be "safe".
- imetatroll 3y agoMicrosoft is risk averse only in the sense that they don't want any competition.
- te_chris 3y agoYou’re almost right. Look at how easily and comfortably he engaged with world leaders. He wants power.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- junto 3y agoIsn’t the for-profit a subsidiary on the non-profit?
- benkarst 3y agoCorrect. That's why they were able to fire Sam.
- vasco 3y agoIt's a stereotypical heuristic I use and maybe wrong, but I can't ever really trust anyone with a bunch of aesthetic plastic surgery. If you're that much of a narcissist that you'd risk your health to look better, I need to take everything else you do and say with a big grain of salt.
- PoignardAzur 3y agoThis post and its replies are a contest for who can best perform enlightened cynicism. The truth is there isn't any strong evidence one way or another, only your existing worldviews. Partnering with Microsoft and closing access both have profit-driven and ideology driven explanations, and we don't have strong evidence it's one and not the other.
- benkarst 3y ago[flagged]
- nickisnoble 3y agoAzure is a color, pretty common.
- benkarst 3y agoOh, ok. Thanks for the education sir. I'm sure it's referring the color and not the second biggest cloud computing platform grossing over 50 billion per year.
- dang 3y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- cthalupa 3y agoThe poster's name is [Type Of French Knife][French Word For Azure (the color)] It is likely referring to the color, not the cloud platform.
- PoignardAzur 3y agoFWIW I picked it in high school after the diamond sword in Minecraft.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lawn 3y agoYou wouldn't have to bring up Microsoft as some kind of evidence, WorldCoin (eyeball scanning scam) is more than enough proof of what he's interested in.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoWhat was the actual endgame there?
- Waterluvian 3y agoHe wants his money and a bunch of others will follow him to whatever company he forms because they want their money.
- wand3r 3y agoYeah, an interesting point was brought up by David Sacks on the All In Podcast. While technically Altman has (reportedly) no shares in OpenAI he has significant shares/control in the weird entity the profits go. So technically he has kind of a Peter Theil 401k type loophole that allows him to amass control of a potentially massive amount of money while on paper it technically isnt his.
- reducesuffering 3y agoI’d like to see a mea culpa from the hordes of people who insist OpenAI was purely doing a regulatory capture grift, instead of the very real and very obvious existential AGI debate going on behind the scenes, as we witness now.