4 ms·

imo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778 https://news.ycombina

by neom 3y ago

imo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778

baking 3y ago
I assume you mean Exhibit 2, the email from Sam to Elon.
- alickz 3y ago
  From: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We have a nice extra building in Mountain View they can have. 3. I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you,[blank] and me. The technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide. The researchers would have significant financial upside but ti would be uncorrelated to what they build, which should eliminate some of the conflict (we'll pay them a competitive salary and give them YC equity for the upside). We'd have an ongoing conversation about what work should be open-sourced and what shouldn't. At some point we'd get someone to run the team, but he/she probably shouldn't be on the governance board. 4. Will you be involved somehow in addition to just governance? Ithink that would be really helpful for getting work pointed in the right direction getting the best people to be part of it. Ideally you'd come by and talk to them about progress once a month or whatever. We generically call people involved in some limited way ni YC "part-time partners" (we do that with Peter Thiei for exampie, though at this point he's very involved) but we could call ti whatever you want. Even fi you can't really spend time on ti but can be publicly supportive, that would still probably be really helpful for recruiting. 5. I think the right plan with the regulation letter is to wait for this to get going and then! can just release ti with a message like "now that we are doing this, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of constraints the world needs for safefy." Im' happy to leave you of as a signatory. Ialso suspect that after it's out more peopie will be willing to get behind it. Sam
  - sroussey 3y ago
    Wait, Peter Thiel is/was heavily involved in YC?
    - ep103 3y ago
      Sauron does have a habit of consistently appearing, and consistently appearing where least expected.
      - paulddraper 3y ago
        Thiel is....Sauron? I missed something.
        ep103 3y ago
        I was saying this as a tounge-in-cheek way of calling Thiel evil. But also, Thiel is a LoTR geek, who took all of the wrong lessons from the novels, literally writing fan pieces that argued that Sauron was the good guy in LoTR to justify his personal authoritarian and fascist ideologies. Its literally why he named his company Palantir.
    - lenerdenator 3y ago
      They're all buddies. It's a industry/regional oligarchy. Part of the system is you cut the rest of "the club" in on deals. If you don't, you get what's happening here: lawsuits.
      - Zanneth 3y ago
        Maybe a better way to say it is: when you’re investing millions of dollars in risky ventures, reputation is very important.
        lenerdenator 3y ago
        I'm thinking their reputations are a bit different in their heads than in reality.
dang 3y ago
(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559597, but we merged that thread hither.)
Jun8 3y ago
"I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and me. Technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." You can find the number of letters of the redacted text and then guess who they are. It's fun!
- emodendroket 3y ago
  > "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." It's hard not to be a bit cynical about such an arrangement.
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    It's a very pre-2016 view of the tech industry, for sure. Back when the public at least somewhat bought the idea that SV was socially progressive and would use its massive accumulation of capital for the good of humanity.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    They all genuinely believe themselves to be benign gods over the rest of us. They drink their own KoolAid. At a certain point, influence breaks your brain. Hairless monkeys with a Dunbar number of 150 can't cope with that amount of control over others, so the brain tells itself stories about how everything bad is not it's fault and everything good is. Here's a hint: If you ever think "I can't trust anyone else with this", you are probably doing something wrong.
    - fireflash38 3y ago
      It's always funny how true the Silicon Valley show turns out to be. Over, and over again.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Do you have a better suggestion? At the end of the day, someone has to make decisions. Who wouldn't nominate themselves?
scintill76 3y ago
Off-topic, but what are the  doing there? I gather it's some MSOffice HTML stuff, but did it actually show up in the rendered email, or is it some artifact of the archival process(?) for legal discovery?
- neom 3y ago
  Looks like it's about html to pdf: https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-to-test-the-html-pasting/77661/14 https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-to-test-the-html-pastin...

by neom 3y ago

imo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778

baking 3y ago

I assume you mean Exhibit 2, the email from Sam to Elon.

alickz 3y ago
From: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We have a nice extra building in Mountain View they can have. 3. I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you,[blank] and me. The technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide. The researchers would have significant financial upside but ti would be uncorrelated to what they build, which should eliminate some of the conflict (we'll pay them a competitive salary and give them YC equity for the upside). We'd have an ongoing conversation about what work should be open-sourced and what shouldn't. At some point we'd get someone to run the team, but he/she probably shouldn't be on the governance board. 4. Will you be involved somehow in addition to just governance? Ithink that would be really helpful for getting work pointed in the right direction getting the best people to be part of it. Ideally you'd come by and talk to them about progress once a month or whatever. We generically call people involved in some limited way ni YC "part-time partners" (we do that with Peter Thiei for exampie, though at this point he's very involved) but we could call ti whatever you want. Even fi you can't really spend time on ti but can be publicly supportive, that would still probably be really helpful for recruiting. 5. I think the right plan with the regulation letter is to wait for this to get going and then! can just release ti with a message like "now that we are doing this, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of constraints the world needs for safefy." Im' happy to leave you of as a signatory. Ialso suspect that after it's out more peopie will be willing to get behind it. Sam
- sroussey 3y ago
  Wait, Peter Thiel is/was heavily involved in YC?
  - ep103 3y ago
    Sauron does have a habit of consistently appearing, and consistently appearing where least expected.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Thiel is....Sauron? I missed something.
      - ep103 3y ago
        I was saying this as a tounge-in-cheek way of calling Thiel evil. But also, Thiel is a LoTR geek, who took all of the wrong lessons from the novels, literally writing fan pieces that argued that Sauron was the good guy in LoTR to justify his personal authoritarian and fascist ideologies. Its literally why he named his company Palantir.
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    They're all buddies. It's a industry/regional oligarchy. Part of the system is you cut the rest of "the club" in on deals. If you don't, you get what's happening here: lawsuits.
    - Zanneth 3y ago
      Maybe a better way to say it is: when you’re investing millions of dollars in risky ventures, reputation is very important.
      - lenerdenator 3y ago
        I'm thinking their reputations are a bit different in their heads than in reality.

dang 3y ago

(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559597, but we merged that thread hither.)

Jun8 3y ago

"I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and me. Technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." You can find the number of letters of the redacted text and then guess who they are. It's fun!

emodendroket 3y ago
> "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." It's hard not to be a bit cynical about such an arrangement.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  It's a very pre-2016 view of the tech industry, for sure. Back when the public at least somewhat bought the idea that SV was socially progressive and would use its massive accumulation of capital for the good of humanity.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  They all genuinely believe themselves to be benign gods over the rest of us. They drink their own KoolAid. At a certain point, influence breaks your brain. Hairless monkeys with a Dunbar number of 150 can't cope with that amount of control over others, so the brain tells itself stories about how everything bad is not it's fault and everything good is. Here's a hint: If you ever think "I can't trust anyone else with this", you are probably doing something wrong.
  - fireflash38 3y ago
    It's always funny how true the Silicon Valley show turns out to be. Over, and over again.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Do you have a better suggestion? At the end of the day, someone has to make decisions. Who wouldn't nominate themselves?

scintill76 3y ago

Off-topic, but what are the  doing there? I gather it's some MSOffice HTML stuff, but did it actually show up in the rendered email, or is it some artifact of the archival process(?) for legal discovery?

neom 3y ago
Looks like it's about html to pdf: https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-to-test-the-html-pasting/77661/14 https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-to-test-the-html-pastin...