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You didn't address my key criticism, maybe I didn't make it terribly clear. If I bought my friend a house, it was specifically for that person to live, not bec
You didn't address my key criticism, maybe I didn't make it terribly clear. If I bought my friend a house, it was specifically for that person to live, not because I want to make a competing housing project or something. I don't think it maps because the intent is different; I am not a businessman, my goal isn't to make profits, this would have been purely an act of charity and yeah I would be annoyed if they burned down the house I gave him.
But maybe the main reason that it doesn't map is because your analogy involves a transaction between two people.
Organizations are not people. Let me repeat: organizations are not people. Businesses aren't people, charities aren't people, churches aren't people. A transaction from one organization to another organization is not the same as a transaction between me and a friend.
An organization is comprised of people but that's not the same thing. Most individual people have empathy, companies are sociopathic. Most people wouldn't kick their family member out of the house because they don't meet a "bottom line", but a company will do it without blinking.
As I said, Elon is a businessman and he has absolutely no excuse for not knowing this.
> this would have been purely an act of charity
Right, OpenAI was founded with the intent of being a charity. Specifically, to give all the people of the world access to AI that he (and other founding members) felt would otherwise end up in the hands of a small number of people.
Which is why Musk saw a conflict of interest when he at Tesla also wanted to develop AI for non-charitable purposes. As such, he stepped away from OpenAI to ensure that OpenAI was able to continue in its mission without being clouded by Tesla thoughts.
But then OpenAI locked up the AI in the hands of a small few anyway. This is where Musk became unhappy about the state of affairs.
> But maybe the main reason that it doesn't map
There is no reason to think it doesn't map. Perhaps the struggle here is in not realizing that OpenAI was intended to be a charity?
> Organizations are not people. Let me repeat: organizations are not people. Businesses aren't people, charities aren't people, churches aren't people.
In fact, they are just people. Remove the people and everything represented by those labels completely disappears.
> There is no reason to think it doesn't map. Perhaps the struggle here is in not realizing that OpenAI was intended to be a charity?
It was opened to be a non-profit, not a charity.
It doesn't map, I'm not sure what else there is to tell you. If I had a conversation with any non-profit (e.g. a church or a university or an AI non-profit) I wouldn't assume that anything they tell me is completely honest.
If I had a conversation with a friend I would be more likely to believe him. It really doesn't map at all.
> In fact, they are just people. Remove the people and everything represented by those labels completely disappears.
They really aren't. Like, they fundamentally are not people.
A person would feel bad about firing 12,000 people in an afternoon, but Google the company did exactly that (while still giving the executives bonuses no less). If you want to call a corporation people, then they are the most sociopathic monsters imaginable.
I think it's much simpler, a corporation is an entity that is composed of people, but in the same way I wouldn't consider a skin cell "a person", I wouldn't consider an organization "people".
> It was opened to be a non-profit, not a charity.
It is legally structured as a non-profit, but the directional intent was to offer charity. There is no onus for it to forever hold that intent – it is quite free to tear down the house, metaphorically, if it wants - but it would be quite natural for someone instrumental in funding it to be a charitable endeavour would be unhappy about the change in direction.
> If I had a conversation with a friend I would be more likely to believe him.
Are you under the impression that Musk has no familiarity with the remaining board? They are, for all intents and purposes, friends. Feel free to split hairs between BFFL and Facebook friends if you must, but you wouldn't offer anything of value in doing so.
> Like, they fundamentally are not people.
Like, they well and truly are fundamentally people. Groups of people, to be sure, but people all the same.
> A person would feel bad about firing 12,000 people in an afternoon, but Google the company did exactly that
The person who fired those 12,000 people almost certainly did feel bad.
Google, if you want to think of it as some kind of distinct entity, absolutely did not fire anyone. It has no capability to fire anyone – or do anything. It has no tangible existence. How could it possible fire someone? Only people can fire other people.
> Are you under the impression that Musk has no familiarity with the remaining board?
These weren't just discussions between friends at a bar or something. These were business meetings and should have been treated as such.
If I were giving my friend a house, it would have likely been done considerably more informally.
> Like, they well and truly are fundamentally people. Groups of people, to be sure, but people all the same.
You're handwaving away an important distinctions; a group of people is not the same as a person.
A group of people is much more capable of working non-empathetically than an individual. This is why we have the term "mob mentality".
> The person who fired those 12,000 people almost certainly did feel bad.
It wasn't a "person". It was certainly a group of people. This might seem like splitting hairs but it's a distinction that I really do think needs to be emphasized.
> Google, if you want to think of it as some kind of distinct entity, absolutely did not fire anyone.
"Google", as defined as the board of executives that run the company, did fire 12,000 people. I seriously doubt a "person" did it, the group did. A group is not a person, even if every single individual in that group felt bad for the 12,000 people they fired, the group still made the decision to do it.
A collective seems to lack empathy. An individual doesn't.
> These weren't just discussions between friends at a bar or something. These were business meetings and should have been treated as such.
With respect, I take it you have never been involved in business before? Discussions between friends at the bar (or, stereotypically, the golf course) is exactly how this kind of thing usually gets going. Perhaps you have the more intimate details of OpenAI's establishment, in which I'd love to hear it, but it is quite likely that it happened exactly like that.
Again, I think we agree that Musk has no logical basis for being unhappy, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't become unhappy. Humans become unhappy about things that are logically not upsetting all the time. Feelings are not based in any kind of rationality.
> It wasn't a "person".
It was almost certainly an individual person who did the firing – maybe alongside another person for the sake of legal accountability, but the hundreds of thousands of people still working under the Google banner sitting around the table to enact the firing would have been a pointless waste of time and did not happen.
> "Google", as defined as the board of executives that run the company, did fire 12,000 people.
A board overseeing something at Google scale absolutely would not concern themselves with firing anyone who isn't in the C-suite. That would not be an effective use of time.
It is possible they recognized that 12,000 people needed to go, and they almost certainly would have negative feelings towards it. How could they not have negative feelings towards it?
> Discussions between friends at the bar (or, stereotypically, the golf course) is exactly how this kind of thing usually gets going.
Fair enough. Then they should have been treated as business from the get-go. Again, this wasn't a bunch of 20 year olds with VC money, if most business is conducted at bars and/or the golf course then they should have been aware of it.
> It was almost certainly an individual person who did the firing – maybe alongside another person for the sake of legal accountability, but the hundreds of thousands of people still working under the Google banner sitting around the table to enact the firing would have been a pointless waste of time and did not happen.
I guess I assumed that they voted on it based on budgeting requirements. Sure, a single person probably signed the papers but I don't really think that's a distinction with a difference.
> A board overseeing something at Google scale absolutely would not concern themselves with firing anyone who isn't in the C-suite. That would not be an effective use of time.
I didn't think that the executive board was looking over reviews and saying "John Smith in DevOps needs to go" or anything like that, I figured that they had financial numbers for the quarter and said something like "we need to lay off N% of the staff in order to stay profitable". I doubt that Sundar Pichai just decided to do that on his own, if nothing else a decision like that probably required some oversight.
> It is possible they recognized that 12,000 people needed to go, but they almost certainly would have negative feelings towards it. How could they not have negative feelings towards it?
I'm sure that the individuals responsible for the firing feel bad, I never disputed that (and I mentioned that in the comment you are responding to), but that's kind of my point. They feel bad about it but they were able to rationalize it and do it anyway because it's "just business", which is why I don't think businesses (or any large organization) are people. I doubt all the people managing Google are sociopaths, I'm sure that they have some degree of empathy, but I think large organizations are exceptionally good at overriding individual empathy.
I mean, extreme example, but I doubt most of the people managing the Catholic church are onboard with child sexual abuse, but the group running it still worked hard on covering this stuff up as a means of protecting the group. I'm sure each individual involved in those coverups felt bad about it, but they still did it, and I don't know that it's something that they would do outside of the organization.
> Then they should have been treated as business from the get-go.
There was no doubt some legal council involved, if that's what you are implying. Business doesn't really get any more formal than that. It's not some magical place where life is completely different. It's just people being people like any and ever other. Likewise, if that is what you mean, I'm sure you'd retain legal representation in the purchase of the house as well. I've never heard of anyone buying a house without a lawyer.
> this wasn't a bunch of 20 year olds with VC money, if most business is conducted at bars and/or the golf course then they should have been aware of it.
Aware of what? I think we agree that Musk knew full well that OpenAI abandoning its mandate was possible, if that's what you're referring to. That doesn't mean he has to be happy about it.
The 12,000 people let go from Google always knew that they could end up on the chopping block. All employees understand that. That doesn't mean they cannot be unhappy about it. Logically, there is no reason why they should be unhappy about it. But I fully expect most, if not all, of them were unhappy anyway - understandably so.
> I guess I assumed that they voted on it based on budgeting requirements.
And then probably went to bed crying, because who is happy about being up against such budget constraints? It's a terrible situation to be in. I don't think this picture that they are unfeeling monsters holds any merit. There is some small chance that they truly are all emotionless autists, but probably not.
> I don't know that it's something that they would do outside of the organization.
If it were one of those individual's child that committed the same act, you don't think they would try and excuse what their child did in much the same manner? They might not be happy about it, but there is, indeed, value in protecting the group (in this case the family unit). I think we can point to all kinds of cases where individuals have tried to do just that.
Unless an individual truly lives off in the woods all by themselves, never seen by another human, there will always be groups. While you may technically have a point in a vacuum that groups can command certain behaviour, I'm not sure there is a meaningful distinction to be made. A group-less society doesn't happen.