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These people can’t just lay low for even a few days. It’s been one reminder after another that for some almost certainly bad reason, OpenAI wants everyone to re

These people can’t just lay low for even a few days. It’s been one reminder after another that for some almost certainly bad reason, OpenAI wants everyone to remember that some of the most scandalous revelations with a mountain of even more damning and extremely credible allegations hot on their heels is a new record for SV insanity, at least since the early 90s that I’ve been watching. The CEO was (up to a credible consensus of primary sources) fired for self-dealing in borderline criminal fraud-level ways. I’m not aware of anyone disputing this with any vigor. Then that CEO was fired again for more vague but thematically consistent allegations of flagrantly profiteering off an ostensible charity actively lobbying for de-facto regulator status. Then that CEO made a token concession by disposing of yet another in this cavalcade of personal financial gain presented as urgent imperative. And the most moderating influence is a guy who has been run out of everything from politics to finance to prestigious academic posts over scandal after scandal in print for 35 years running, and has yet to issue an apology I’m aware of. But the really high thread-count noose is that Opus is mopping the floor with GPT-4-1106 and 0125, on money that would fall out of Nadella’s couch cushions. And it’s dramatically operator-aligned. You can’t be a society-scale criminal, keep it up for over a decade, and get lapped by vastly less-resourced competitors in the Valley. You shouldn’t be able to do any of that and still wield any power. This new breed of tech titans have forgotten something their predecessors knew: it took Wall Street a century to utterly capture its regulators. Tech people who go big enough? Holmes is serving time, SBF is serving time, they’re not the first. This isn’t about corrupting the competitive landscape anymore geniuses: this is about staying out of prison.

mcenedella 3y ago
It’s been 15 years, perhaps it’s time for another dose of this?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567736 Apologize to HN: Sorry for Trolling 2 points by benreesman on April 17, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments I was reading my comment history and came to the horrible conclusion that I am a troll. In particular I'm the worst kind of troll, the kind where it's not always clear that I'm trolling. My childlike enthusiasm for debate (or maybe just my lousy social skills) have led me to say things that are nasty, inflammatory, sometimes clearly false, and ultimately that I have no desire to see appear next to my name. So if I've offended any of you then I'm really sorry. I promise to reform, effective immediately. Regards, Ben
- benreesman 3y ago
  I should have said “attempt to reform”, it’s one of the many follies of youth that habits change in a day. It’s actually pretty recently that I’ve really started to recognize the gravity of this forum, how much scope there is for causing harm or precipitating healthy change: HN is in a sense a sort of “swing state” in the conversation. It’s a small community in numbers on a national or global scale, but is overrepresented in influential posts in technology, the sciences, and the generally “logic motivated” posts in society. I really am sorry that it’s been such an uneven outcome for so many of the intervening 15 years since I wrote that. I should have started forming a coherent worldview, analyzing its ethical implications, and attempting to master my own worst instincts in the sense of translating that into a compelling argument and actionable “policy platform” in terms of how I write on the Internet. And in a sense I really owe a debt of gratitude in a perverse way to a set of people and institutions that represent such a clear and present danger to the legacy of the Enlightenment to galvanize me into beginning to get organized around what I believe in and expressing that effectively. I’m still an awfully small fish to merit a 16-year post history in a kind of tinker-toy opposition research commensurate with my tinker-toy influence. That’s a lot of effort even with modern automation for a guy who is basically a nobody with an opinion. Absent automation it wouldn’t be worth anyone’s time, and in either case, I’m really curious to know what induced you to spend yours on that?
visarga 3y ago
> Opus is mopping the floor with GPT 4 1106 and 0125 True. I only hop on GPT-4 when I finish my quota for Claude. I much prefer Claude's long form writing.
dannyw 3y ago
There are some serious allegations here. Do you have links that recap / substantiate this in more detail?
- benreesman 3y ago
  Sure. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/warning/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/warning/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-investors-were-misled-9d90b411 https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-in... https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-hype-openai-silicon-valley-venture-capital-2024-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-hype-openai-silic... https://archive.is/2023.12.02-101904/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/ https://archive.is/2023.12.02-101904/https://www.washingtonp... https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-step-down-2023-11-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ste... https://qz.com/sam-altman-openai-fund-1851380019 https://qz.com/sam-altman-openai-fund-1851380019 https://fortune.com/2023/09/20/instacart-ipo-stock-shares-ceo-fidji-simo/# https://fortune.com/2023/09/20/instacart-ipo-stock-shares-ce...
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Could you have GPT summarize all those links please? And into 3 sentences max ELI5 please.
    - benreesman 3y ago
      I’ll do it myself. Altman/Loopt, Siebel/Socialcam, Emmett/Twitch failed and got rich. The people who trusted them lost a lot. People still say they’re smart. Larry said we should put as much poison in Africa as we can. He wrote it down. He tried to get someone fired, by ratting out his friends. He made bankers angry. They never forgave him. So he moved. Also, Brooksley was going to save America. Larry said she was a woman and be quiet. Also stealing is ok. Bankers don’t go to prison. They can do anything. But it’s not because they’re rich. It’s because they know important people. Also rich. Creepy tech people aren’t like bankers. They don’t get in trouble much. But if they’re bad enough, they go to jail. Someone did the worst thing in a long time. They’ve done it a lot. He should say sorry and get a different job, because jail sucks.

mcenedella 3y ago

It’s been 15 years, perhaps it’s time for another dose of this?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567736 Apologize to HN: Sorry for Trolling 2 points by benreesman on April 17, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments I was reading my comment history and came to the horrible conclusion that I am a troll. In particular I'm the worst kind of troll, the kind where it's not always clear that I'm trolling. My childlike enthusiasm for debate (or maybe just my lousy social skills) have led me to say things that are nasty, inflammatory, sometimes clearly false, and ultimately that I have no desire to see appear next to my name. So if I've offended any of you then I'm really sorry. I promise to reform, effective immediately. Regards, Ben

benreesman 3y ago
I should have said “attempt to reform”, it’s one of the many follies of youth that habits change in a day. It’s actually pretty recently that I’ve really started to recognize the gravity of this forum, how much scope there is for causing harm or precipitating healthy change: HN is in a sense a sort of “swing state” in the conversation. It’s a small community in numbers on a national or global scale, but is overrepresented in influential posts in technology, the sciences, and the generally “logic motivated” posts in society. I really am sorry that it’s been such an uneven outcome for so many of the intervening 15 years since I wrote that. I should have started forming a coherent worldview, analyzing its ethical implications, and attempting to master my own worst instincts in the sense of translating that into a compelling argument and actionable “policy platform” in terms of how I write on the Internet. And in a sense I really owe a debt of gratitude in a perverse way to a set of people and institutions that represent such a clear and present danger to the legacy of the Enlightenment to galvanize me into beginning to get organized around what I believe in and expressing that effectively. I’m still an awfully small fish to merit a 16-year post history in a kind of tinker-toy opposition research commensurate with my tinker-toy influence. That’s a lot of effort even with modern automation for a guy who is basically a nobody with an opinion. Absent automation it wouldn’t be worth anyone’s time, and in either case, I’m really curious to know what induced you to spend yours on that?

visarga 3y ago

> Opus is mopping the floor with GPT 4 1106 and 0125 True. I only hop on GPT-4 when I finish my quota for Claude. I much prefer Claude's long form writing.

dannyw 3y ago

There are some serious allegations here. Do you have links that recap / substantiate this in more detail?

benreesman 3y ago
Sure. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/warning/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/warning/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-investors-were-misled-9d90b411 https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-in... https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-hype-openai-silicon-valley-venture-capital-2024-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-hype-openai-silic... https://archive.is/2023.12.02-101904/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/ https://archive.is/2023.12.02-101904/https://www.washingtonp... https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-step-down-2023-11-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ste... https://qz.com/sam-altman-openai-fund-1851380019 https://qz.com/sam-altman-openai-fund-1851380019 https://fortune.com/2023/09/20/instacart-ipo-stock-shares-ceo-fidji-simo/# https://fortune.com/2023/09/20/instacart-ipo-stock-shares-ce...
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Could you have GPT summarize all those links please? And into 3 sentences max ELI5 please.
  - benreesman 3y ago
    I’ll do it myself. Altman/Loopt, Siebel/Socialcam, Emmett/Twitch failed and got rich. The people who trusted them lost a lot. People still say they’re smart. Larry said we should put as much poison in Africa as we can. He wrote it down. He tried to get someone fired, by ratting out his friends. He made bankers angry. They never forgave him. So he moved. Also, Brooksley was going to save America. Larry said she was a woman and be quiet. Also stealing is ok. Bankers don’t go to prison. They can do anything. But it’s not because they’re rich. It’s because they know important people. Also rich. Creepy tech people aren’t like bankers. They don’t get in trouble much. But if they’re bad enough, they go to jail. Someone did the worst thing in a long time. They’ve done it a lot. He should say sorry and get a different job, because jail sucks.