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There are many examples through history proving you wrong. * Frederick Banting sold the patent for insulin to the University of Toronto for just $1. * Tim Ber

There are many examples through history proving you wrong. * Frederick Banting sold the patent for insulin to the University of Toronto for just $1. * Tim Berners-Lee decided not to patent the web, making it free for public use. * Jonas Salk refused to patent the polio vaccine - "can you patent the sun?" * Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds could have easily sold humanity out for untold billions. * Chuck Feeny silently gave away $8bn, keeping only a few million. ... And in any case, this is an extreme situation. AI is an existential threat/opportunity. Allowing it to be sidestepped into the hands of Sam "sell me your retinal scans for $50" Altman is fucking insane, and that's putting it lightly.

arlcode 2y ago
I'm very happy that the EU got into the game early and started regulating AI. It's way easier to adapt an existing framework one way or the other if the political part is already done. I don't trust the AI industry to be a good stewart even less then the tech industry in general and when the area where I live has a chance at avoiding the worst outcome (even if at a price) in this technological transition I'm taking it.
Clubber 2y ago
Also, most of the robber barons of the early Industrial Revolution gave away all or most their wealth. https://factmyth.com/factoids/the-robber-barons-gave-most-of-their-fortunes-to-charity https://factmyth.com/factoids/the-robber-barons-gave-most-of... https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/ https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  Giving away much of one’s wealth is very different than choosing not to accumulate it in the first place. It’s hard to find someone who has gotten to a position where they might have a reasonable shot at becoming the world’s wealthiest person who doesn’t think they’d be a great steward of the wealth. It makes much more sense for a titan of industry to make as much as they can and then give much away than it does to simply not make it.
mattmaroon 2y ago
These are all examples of people who were not even remotely looking at the sums of money involved in AGI, both in terms of investment required and reward. I used “trillions” rather than “billions” for a reason. Inflation adjust it all you want, none of these passed up 1/10th of this opportunity.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  It's possible Tim Berners-Lee gave up hundreds of billions. Regardless, you've missed the point. Some people value their integrity over $trillions, and refuse to sell humanity out. Others would sell you out for $50. Or to put it another way: Some people have enough, and some never will.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    It is not possible he could have thought that in 1992. It’s probably not even possible that he passed up one billion. Had he tried he’d likely have lost out to open standards like so many others did. You could prove me wrong easily. Find someone who raised (inflation adjusted) tens of billions, had the opportunity to make trillions, and declined. You can’t. You can likely take that down two orders of magnitude and still not succeed. People who did some work on their own and open sourced something small that turned into something huge are not even close to what we’re talking here. They didn’t turn down a trillion, they turned down $100k that turned into a trillion later. It isn’t about integrity. It’s about how humans rationalize. “Nobody is being hurt here.” “This can improve humanity.” “I’ll do good things with the money.” It’s easy to say people have “integrity” when you just define it as adhering to your belief system when the stakes seem low, not their belief system when the stakes are clearly high.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      > It isn’t about integrity. Oh, but it is. That's exactly what this is about. As pointed out much earlier in the thread, it's generally the people who lack integrity that fail to acknowledge or recognize it in others. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - You don't have to be Jesus to understand the sense of this quote. Just be honest and observant.

arlcode 2y ago

I'm very happy that the EU got into the game early and started regulating AI. It's way easier to adapt an existing framework one way or the other if the political part is already done. I don't trust the AI industry to be a good stewart even less then the tech industry in general and when the area where I live has a chance at avoiding the worst outcome (even if at a price) in this technological transition I'm taking it.

Clubber 2y ago

Also, most of the robber barons of the early Industrial Revolution gave away all or most their wealth. https://factmyth.com/factoids/the-robber-barons-gave-most-of-their-fortunes-to-charity https://factmyth.com/factoids/the-robber-barons-gave-most-of... https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/ https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/

mattmaroon 2y ago
Giving away much of one’s wealth is very different than choosing not to accumulate it in the first place. It’s hard to find someone who has gotten to a position where they might have a reasonable shot at becoming the world’s wealthiest person who doesn’t think they’d be a great steward of the wealth. It makes much more sense for a titan of industry to make as much as they can and then give much away than it does to simply not make it.

mattmaroon 2y ago

These are all examples of people who were not even remotely looking at the sums of money involved in AGI, both in terms of investment required and reward. I used “trillions” rather than “billions” for a reason. Inflation adjust it all you want, none of these passed up 1/10th of this opportunity.

mandmandam 2y ago
It's possible Tim Berners-Lee gave up hundreds of billions. Regardless, you've missed the point. Some people value their integrity over $trillions, and refuse to sell humanity out. Others would sell you out for $50. Or to put it another way: Some people have enough, and some never will.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  It is not possible he could have thought that in 1992. It’s probably not even possible that he passed up one billion. Had he tried he’d likely have lost out to open standards like so many others did. You could prove me wrong easily. Find someone who raised (inflation adjusted) tens of billions, had the opportunity to make trillions, and declined. You can’t. You can likely take that down two orders of magnitude and still not succeed. People who did some work on their own and open sourced something small that turned into something huge are not even close to what we’re talking here. They didn’t turn down a trillion, they turned down $100k that turned into a trillion later. It isn’t about integrity. It’s about how humans rationalize. “Nobody is being hurt here.” “This can improve humanity.” “I’ll do good things with the money.” It’s easy to say people have “integrity” when you just define it as adhering to your belief system when the stakes seem low, not their belief system when the stakes are clearly high.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    > It isn’t about integrity. Oh, but it is. That's exactly what this is about. As pointed out much earlier in the thread, it's generally the people who lack integrity that fail to acknowledge or recognize it in others. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - You don't have to be Jesus to understand the sense of this quote. Just be honest and observant.