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The situation at Cruise is so similar to OpenAI (political removal due to prioritizing success over safety) that the coincidental timing is almost contrived. A

The situation at Cruise is so similar to OpenAI (political removal due to prioritizing success over safety) that the coincidental timing is almost contrived. At least in this case, Vogt is doing a clear resignation on his own terms.

babl-yc 3y ago
I don't see the situations similar at all. Cruise is an extremely tough spot right now after its handling of the San Francisco accident, and it's nationwide pause of testing. OpenAI has been extremely successful but is having strategic disagreements within its non-profit board.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  Growing-too-fast ended up being the root cause in both cases.
  - kuchenbecker 3y ago
    What makes you come to that conclusion?
  - ssnistfajen 3y ago
    Adding the words "integrity" and "honesty" to the dictionary of many tech companies could do them a lot of good, really.
- sillysaurusx 3y ago
  Is this the SF accident you mean? I hadn’t heard of it, but this seems not at all worrisome: > At approximately 9:30 p.m. on October 2, a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV. The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene, and at the request of the police the AV was kept in place. Why was cruise under fire for this?
  - alain94040 3y ago
    You are missing what happened next, which Cruise tried to cover up.
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    The accident was one thing, but Cruise's response to regulators about the accident escalated the heat. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/board-gms-cruise-reviewing-regulatory-response-technology-2023-11-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/board-...
    - sillysaurusx 3y ago
      I don’t understand, but I suppose I’ll have to accept not understanding. The article vaguely gestures towards some sort of misrepresentation, but doesn’t elaborate. Thank you for pointing it out though.
      - neuronerdgirl 3y ago
        They cut the video they first showed the DMV of the accident to remove the last error made by the car, which was arguably the worst aspect of the accident as far as Cruise's default behavior failures. The DMV found out about the cut segment from the news.
  - minwcnt5 3y ago
    Dig deeper, dude. I'm not sure if you're serious or being disingenuous, but the fallout over that incident has been in tech news including several HN threads for the past 6+ weeks.
  - ra7 3y ago
    https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/dmv-immediately-suspends-cruises-robotaxi-permit-in-california/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/dmv-immediately-suspends-c...
    - sillysaurusx 3y ago
- mcmcmc 3y ago
  If you’ll excuse the tinfoil hat, the OpenAI disagreement could very well stem from a dangerous accident or near miss covered up by Altman that we just haven’t learned about yet since the board didn’t publicly state how he deceived them. And that would be pretty analogous to the Cruise situation. Anyway Altman gives me the ick, serious lizard person vibes.
  - Exoristos 3y ago
    "OpenAI ... dangerous accident." Like what, giving a freshman wrong dates for the Garfield presidency?
    - mcmcmc 3y ago
      Like giving instructions on how to mix mustard gas to a potential school shooter. Or a manual on how to kill yourself to a depressed teen. Or a blueprint for how to build a bomb to a domestic terrorist.
gumballindie 3y ago
In openai’s case it feels like perhaps safety is not the issue - a chatbot doesnt think and doesnt take over the world. But rater speed over quality. All chat bots released so far appeared less useful and less competent each passing month. As if there are serious product quality flaws and it takes a little bit of time to catch on.
jsnell 3y ago
> political removal due to prioritizing success over safety I don't really see the parallel. It seems impossible to have success in self-driving without safety. Cars that are unsafe will literally kill people, which will then kill the program as seen with Uber. The AI safety/success tradeoff seems far more nuanced. The threats are abstract, largely hypothetical, and safety seems to be directly in opposition with success. So it's easy to see why product-oriented people would feel justified in making a call to ignore or down-prioritize safety, in a way that nobody running a self-driving car program can afford to.

babl-yc 3y ago

I don't see the situations similar at all. Cruise is an extremely tough spot right now after its handling of the San Francisco accident, and it's nationwide pause of testing. OpenAI has been extremely successful but is having strategic disagreements within its non-profit board.

minimaxir 3y ago
Growing-too-fast ended up being the root cause in both cases.
- kuchenbecker 3y ago
  What makes you come to that conclusion?
- ssnistfajen 3y ago
  Adding the words "integrity" and "honesty" to the dictionary of many tech companies could do them a lot of good, really.
sillysaurusx 3y ago
Is this the SF accident you mean? I hadn’t heard of it, but this seems not at all worrisome: > At approximately 9:30 p.m. on October 2, a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV. The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene, and at the request of the police the AV was kept in place. Why was cruise under fire for this?
- alain94040 3y ago
  You are missing what happened next, which Cruise tried to cover up.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  The accident was one thing, but Cruise's response to regulators about the accident escalated the heat. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/board-gms-cruise-reviewing-regulatory-response-technology-2023-11-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/board-...
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
    I don’t understand, but I suppose I’ll have to accept not understanding. The article vaguely gestures towards some sort of misrepresentation, but doesn’t elaborate. Thank you for pointing it out though.
    - neuronerdgirl 3y ago
      They cut the video they first showed the DMV of the accident to remove the last error made by the car, which was arguably the worst aspect of the accident as far as Cruise's default behavior failures. The DMV found out about the cut segment from the news.
- minwcnt5 3y ago
  Dig deeper, dude. I'm not sure if you're serious or being disingenuous, but the fallout over that incident has been in tech news including several HN threads for the past 6+ weeks.
- ra7 3y ago
  https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/dmv-immediately-suspends-cruises-robotaxi-permit-in-california/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/dmv-immediately-suspends-c...
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
mcmcmc 3y ago
If you’ll excuse the tinfoil hat, the OpenAI disagreement could very well stem from a dangerous accident or near miss covered up by Altman that we just haven’t learned about yet since the board didn’t publicly state how he deceived them. And that would be pretty analogous to the Cruise situation. Anyway Altman gives me the ick, serious lizard person vibes.
- Exoristos 3y ago
  "OpenAI ... dangerous accident." Like what, giving a freshman wrong dates for the Garfield presidency?
  - mcmcmc 3y ago
    Like giving instructions on how to mix mustard gas to a potential school shooter. Or a manual on how to kill yourself to a depressed teen. Or a blueprint for how to build a bomb to a domestic terrorist.

gumballindie 3y ago

In openai’s case it feels like perhaps safety is not the issue - a chatbot doesnt think and doesnt take over the world. But rater speed over quality. All chat bots released so far appeared less useful and less competent each passing month. As if there are serious product quality flaws and it takes a little bit of time to catch on.

jsnell 3y ago

> political removal due to prioritizing success over safety I don't really see the parallel. It seems impossible to have success in self-driving without safety. Cars that are unsafe will literally kill people, which will then kill the program as seen with Uber. The AI safety/success tradeoff seems far more nuanced. The threats are abstract, largely hypothetical, and safety seems to be directly in opposition with success. So it's easy to see why product-oriented people would feel justified in making a call to ignore or down-prioritize safety, in a way that nobody running a self-driving car program can afford to.