53 ms·

Remember when GPT was "too dangerous" to release into the world and unless you were twitter-famous you had to apply and wait for months to even get access? Time

Remember when GPT was "too dangerous" to release into the world and unless you were twitter-famous you had to apply and wait for months to even get access? Times sure have changed

matusp 2y ago
I remember when GPT-2 was "too dangerous" to release. I am confused why people still take these clown claims seriously.
- FeepingCreature 2y ago
  GPT-2 was never too dangerous to release, that's made up. OpenAI were trying to set a precedent to delay releases in anticipation of more dangerous models. This was and remains a good thing.
  - notarobot123 2y ago
    Maybe "too dangerous" is mainly a PR strategy to hype up the power of the tool. It's either PR or religious ideology (or both if you drink your own Kool-Aid)
    - winternewt 2y ago
      It is now, I don't think it was then. OpenAI's moral compass has taken a sharp turn.
  - llamaenters 2y ago
    Not sure about remains. The Llama is out of the bag with that one! OpenAI models aren't the best all-round anymore - there are plenty of faster models to choose from. Claude seems faster. Groq is stupid fast in serving Llama. gpt4 still has the smarts edge, but it isn't much of an edge any longer. OpenAI is iPhone, it is 2019 and people are realizing the Androids are better value and just as good
    - FeepingCreature 2y ago
      I don't exactly see Llama as a counterexample. Not much wisdom coming from Facebook in this matter. Like, yay we got Sydney back! Everybody gets their own death threats. It's an open-weights wonderland. Why people think it's a good idea to reinstantiate the BPD AI I am afraid I will never understand.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Made up? From the GPT-2 announcement: https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ "Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model." OpenAI said specifically they didn't release it because they thought it was too dangerous to release. There was nothing about precedent setting in there. The idea that this "was and remains" a good thing is hard to understand, given there are dozens of companies that have made much more powerful models available to anyone who signs up and nothing bad has happened. But if you're willing to ascribe intentions to AI companies they never demonstrated having, of course you can argue anything you want. Doesn't mean it's real.
- EGreg 2y ago
  Because the trend is the other way. Only a clown would claim GPT-2 is “too dangerous” too release, but not so for GPT-4 or GPT-5
- probably_wrong 2y ago
  I've come to think that they were more or less correct. GPT-2 is the grandfather of the AI-generated garbage under which we are currently drowning. Of course there's an argument to be made that this was inevitable, but that doesn't mean that the early OpenAI crew were necessarily wrong when they said "this model may make things significantly worse".
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
You’re reading a bit too much into The Verge’s hard-hitting reporting, which essentially amounts to “companies are groups of people and any group of more than a handful of people is very likely to disagree about quite a bit”. Congratulations on getting engagement baited. May as well rename HN to Facebook at this point.
aurareturn 2y ago
Did people say GPT from OpenAI was too dangerous to release? Or was it the fact that OpenAI has demonstrated how good LLMs can get and that bad actors can train their own, uncensored, unaligned LLMS to do "dangerous" things?
- kolinko 2y ago
  I knew some people from OpenAI at the time of GPT2 development, and indeed that was their rationale - dangerous and needs to be released responsibly. Never before could people produce so much spam and fake news at once - I think this was the first and main worry.
  - EGreg 2y ago
    was? I guess it’s less of a worry now? Why?
    - sva_ 2y ago
      The GPT2 weight have later been released which made some people suspect the 'too dangerous to release' stuff was mostly hype/marketing.
      - EGreg 2y ago
        Well, if things get more and more powerful then it becomes more true, not less. Like giving everyone nuclear weapons. Or machine guns. Or bazookas. Or slaughterbots. Or labs to create any sort of virus.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  OpenAI themselves said that. https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/

Remember when GPT was "too dangerous" to release into the world and unless you were twitter-famous you had to apply and wait for months to even get access? Times sure have changed

matusp 2y ago

I remember when GPT-2 was "too dangerous" to release. I am confused why people still take these clown claims seriously.

FeepingCreature 2y ago
GPT-2 was never too dangerous to release, that's made up. OpenAI were trying to set a precedent to delay releases in anticipation of more dangerous models. This was and remains a good thing.
- notarobot123 2y ago
  Maybe "too dangerous" is mainly a PR strategy to hype up the power of the tool. It's either PR or religious ideology (or both if you drink your own Kool-Aid)
  - winternewt 2y ago
    It is now, I don't think it was then. OpenAI's moral compass has taken a sharp turn.
- llamaenters 2y ago
  Not sure about remains. The Llama is out of the bag with that one! OpenAI models aren't the best all-round anymore - there are plenty of faster models to choose from. Claude seems faster. Groq is stupid fast in serving Llama. gpt4 still has the smarts edge, but it isn't much of an edge any longer. OpenAI is iPhone, it is 2019 and people are realizing the Androids are better value and just as good
  - FeepingCreature 2y ago
    I don't exactly see Llama as a counterexample. Not much wisdom coming from Facebook in this matter. Like, yay we got Sydney back! Everybody gets their own death threats. It's an open-weights wonderland. Why people think it's a good idea to reinstantiate the BPD AI I am afraid I will never understand.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Made up? From the GPT-2 announcement: https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ "Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model." OpenAI said specifically they didn't release it because they thought it was too dangerous to release. There was nothing about precedent setting in there. The idea that this "was and remains" a good thing is hard to understand, given there are dozens of companies that have made much more powerful models available to anyone who signs up and nothing bad has happened. But if you're willing to ascribe intentions to AI companies they never demonstrated having, of course you can argue anything you want. Doesn't mean it's real.
EGreg 2y ago
Because the trend is the other way. Only a clown would claim GPT-2 is “too dangerous” too release, but not so for GPT-4 or GPT-5
probably_wrong 2y ago
I've come to think that they were more or less correct. GPT-2 is the grandfather of the AI-generated garbage under which we are currently drowning. Of course there's an argument to be made that this was inevitable, but that doesn't mean that the early OpenAI crew were necessarily wrong when they said "this model may make things significantly worse".

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

You’re reading a bit too much into The Verge’s hard-hitting reporting, which essentially amounts to “companies are groups of people and any group of more than a handful of people is very likely to disagree about quite a bit”. Congratulations on getting engagement baited. May as well rename HN to Facebook at this point.

aurareturn 2y ago

Did people say GPT from OpenAI was too dangerous to release? Or was it the fact that OpenAI has demonstrated how good LLMs can get and that bad actors can train their own, uncensored, unaligned LLMS to do "dangerous" things?

kolinko 2y ago
I knew some people from OpenAI at the time of GPT2 development, and indeed that was their rationale - dangerous and needs to be released responsibly. Never before could people produce so much spam and fake news at once - I think this was the first and main worry.
- EGreg 2y ago
  was? I guess it’s less of a worry now? Why?
  - sva_ 2y ago
    The GPT2 weight have later been released which made some people suspect the 'too dangerous to release' stuff was mostly hype/marketing.
    - EGreg 2y ago
      Well, if things get more and more powerful then it becomes more true, not less. Like giving everyone nuclear weapons. Or machine guns. Or bazookas. Or slaughterbots. Or labs to create any sort of virus.
mike_hearn 2y ago
OpenAI themselves said that. https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/ https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/