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Sam Altman Goes Full Emperor
- stadia42 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoWhich of Altman's credentials do we consider relevant to global-scale wielding of AI?
- hluska 2y agoI’d interview someone who had been President of Y Combinator and most likely offer them my job by the end of the conversation. Kidding aside, it’s at least in the same world. I’m not even sure what qualified to lead the scaling of AI would look like.
- akira2501 2y agoAltman has the job. Dozens of people are writing about him. Not all of that writing is relevant or useful in analysis. In particular, writing an article that contains a worry that people are "hating on the wrong part of Altman," is a bit of a giveaway that the author lacks the ability to a deep technical analysis of the problem and has instead decided to focus on personality.
- KaiserPro 2y ago> a deep technical analysis of the problem Altman isn't a deep technical problem to be solved. flood management is a deep technical problem Energy policy is a deep technical problem Altman is a dude whos wildly rich, in charge of a darling company, and having the same smoke blown up his arse as the other silicon valley darlings. Like Musk, he's deeply predictable. What he does next depends on how much money he thinks he can burn in the next year. He will lobby for extension of copyright for fair use (or similar). He will lobby against any kind of data protections law (that fucks up the training pipeline) He will dabble with custom silicon.
- akira2501 2y ago> Altman isn't a deep technical problem to be solved. He's running a company that has created one. > What he does next depends on how much money he thinks he can burn in the next year. Which is why personality analysis is entirely the wrong tool here. It offers you absolutely zero predictions. Why you would double down on this is beyond me.
- KaiserPro 2y ago> Which is why personality analysis is entirely the wrong tool here I mean its not really. What is his attitude to risk, how well does he understand people's motivations? what narrative is he selling his investors? what is he aiming for? what's his personal goal? All of this shape the outcome of the company, and those are dependent on his personality. In the same way that Musk is short sighted and thin skinned, means that twitter is the way it is. Zuck is happy to burn billions so long as the research looks promising. Bezos is all about market share.
- rmbyrro 2y agoHum.. he led OpenAI to their achievements? Like him or not, the guy is competent.
- drawkward 2y agoOppenheimer therefore has the right to wield nuclear weapons?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iLoveOncall 2y agoNot saying he's making a good point (or not), but you don't need specific credentials to write an article on your blog about an opinion you have.
- stadia42 2y agoOf course you don't. I thought, however, that you may need some credentials to be upvoted by an audience of highly technical readers.
- drawkward 2y agoThe argument itself is the currency, not the credentials of the person making it.
- ur-whale 2y agoThere's also the other approach: actually reading the content and judging it on its own merit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- dekhn 2y agothe criticism of argument from authority is really only valid for logic-based arguments (which only exist in math). In nearly every argument online, the topic is not logic-based, but more a combination of fuzzy reason and rhetoric. In such situations, we normally allow for some prior belief that people who obtained education and have worked in an area have some level of expertise that makes their arguments carry more weight. While you can argue whether this makes sense, it certainly seems reasonable to me- although I still apply skepticism to expert opinions.
- mattgreenrocks 2y agoNothing says hacker culture like needing sufficient credentials to even consider someone’s ideas. Edit: I hope you can see from the sea of replies that this sort of credential check is not welcome here.
- 2y ago
- AshamedCaptain 2y agoAnd from which worldwide schools of fashion you need credentials to even dare to remark that the emperor has no clothes?
- stadia42 2y agoTo remark - none. To be taken seriously -- probably some, otherwise the noise of millions of bloggers is too much to handle. Which credentials, I'm not sure, hence my question. FWIW, the author has university education and is currently a Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary, New York. I personally don't find it relevant to the topic, but was curious to see what others thought.
- justin_oaks 2y agoWhat are your credentials?
- stadia42 2y agoNone, and that's exactly how many blog articles I wrote on this topic.
- tux3 2y agoThis guy writing longform articles and publishing books doesn't know what he's talking about. Take it from me, a random internet commenter with no discernable credentials.
- scyzoryk_xyz 2y agothis is the orange site though, so you never know
- lrvick 2y agoWhen you resort to ad hominem attacks, it makes it seem as though you were unable form any specific objection to the actual content.
- stadia42 2y agoThis is not an ad hominem attack. It's fair to ask about an author's credentials when they write a public article. (I do believe he lacks the credentials, but happy to hear a counter-argument.)
- drawkward 2y agoThe author's credentials might help us understand their motivation for writing something, or help us understand any implicit bias they carry, but in no way do they indicate the quality of the argument myself. Trust me, I went to Yale.
- ndr 2y agoWhich parts you credential do we consider relevant to rate the expertise on the topic at hand? Seriously though, I think the author is overworried about accelerationism but correctly rates sama power grab inclinations. What's your thought re TFA rather than the author?
- stadia42 2y agoThe non-paywalled start of the article reads like a ChatGPT answer to a high school essay question (i.e., no new insight beyond things anyone knows).
- stadia42 2y agoBTW, why is the article now flagged? Is it because it's paywalled?
- loceng 2y agoIt appears the establishment and "big tech" - not all but those toeing the same line, are happy for him to be there, and protective of him.
- apsec112 2y agoIs there a non-paywalled version?
- snek_case 2y agoCan we petition for HN to block paywalled and ad-riddled content? As it is there's an incentive to spam paywalled content around social media websites to earn yourself more money. Additional point: we can't have a balanced community discussion if only a small percentage of viewers have access to the full article. This is a community website, so we should favor content that is openly shareable.
- dang 2y agoRe paywalls: if there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=paywalls%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 The converse is also true: if there's not a workaround, it's not ok.
- OutOfHere 2y agoIs there a link to an unpaywalled version?
- dang 2y agoAs far as I know, there is no workaround in this case.
- bbor 2y agoWell Mr. Dang, we've got a new edge case for you lol: An article with substantive content before the paywall, but that doesn't have any workarounds for the rest of the article. I would love to be proven wrong, but AFAICT we'd need a subscriber to this particular person's Substack to host a version for us.
- jon309 2y agoSave yourself the read. This article started strong, but never ended up making a logical point about why Sam is dangerous.
- dmitrygr 2y agoGrifters in position of power always are. I don’t think anybody needs proof of this. If you do, I can recommend a few good history books.
- alurgyro 2y agoI believe the implication is that it's irrelevant whom has the power, just the someone can attain a lot of it.
- deepfriedchokes 2y agoAnyone who seeks power is dangerous.
- preommr 2y ago> His boundless ambition is putting AI, and the world, on a dangerous path. Has the narrative really become that Sam Altman is single-handedly responsible for the massive leap in AI? I really don't think that Altman is even close to being in the top 5 worrying techbros. At best, he enabled OpenAI researchers to get their work done 1-5 years sooner. This stuff was going to happen with or without Altman. The advancements to come will happen with or without Altman. These kinds of articles are alarmist nonsense.
- eikenberry 2y agoThe article doesn't even attempt to explain why "accelerationism" is a dangerous path. I'm not sure if I share that assumption or not as I don't even know what exactly the author thinks it is.
- sanex 2y agoI am curious who your top 5 is now.
- yesbabyyes 2y agoMe too, so I tried to get an objective list. After some prodding, these are the top 5 worrying techbros according to ChatGPT: 1. Elon Musk 2. Mark Zuckerberg 3. Sam Altman 4. Peter Thiel 5. Jeff Bezos
- breck 2y ago[flagged]
- rationalfaith 2y ago[dead]
- lackoftactics 2y agoThe rest of the article is behind a paywall. I'm still on the fence about Sam Altman, and as someone who lives in Poland rather than Silicon Valley, it's difficult to form a solid judgment about him. It's much easier for me to see through Elon Musk's facade in his interviews, where he only plays at being an expert. Altman has some mystique surrounding him, though I think his frequent appearances on podcasts are ruining it. I sometimes wonder how he finds time to appear even on minor podcasts.
- AIFounder 2y ago[dead]
- AlexandrB 2y agoInteresting that Worldcoin[1,2] isn't mentioned (at least in the non-paywalled portion). It's another example of world-spanning ambition masquerading as egalitarianism while riding the latest tech trend. [1] https://worldcoin.org https://worldcoin.org [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
- whimsicalism 2y ago> It's another example of world-spanning ambition masquerading as egalitarianism this reflexive distaste for ambition is exactly what Nietzsche talked about in his Genealogy of Morality
- karmakurtisaani 2y agoI for one don't understand what you're saying, but get the feeling it's in defense of Altman. I'd like to point out that the key here is the world-spanning ambition, which to me reads like an unhealthy megalomania.
- piva00 2y agoYou can't bring Nietzsche's view of ambition and consider it as truth without even bringing more contemporary criticisms of it, even if you'd like to see it through Virtue Ethics it should be considered as a virtue in a diverse set of virtues, ambition shouldn't trump other moral values. As entertaining as it was to read "On The Genealogy of Morality" when I was 20 years old I'd say it's rather... Reductionist, at least. Sloterdijk updates on it even bring up how to consider "will to power" not as an individual ambition but as a holistic way to actualise oneself to give something back to the world, not as a power over others which is the main way corporations are run. Pursuing your ambitions at the expense of the rest of the globe is not moral. Please update your philosophical repertoire, you're stuck in the 1800s.
- whimsicalism 2y agoI'm not going to engage further because you're coming from a condescending angle that doesn't invite discussion, but I can't help but laugh at a virtue ethicist telling me I'm stuck in the philosophical past. Something something glass houses and stones.
- whimsicalism 2y agoI miss the era when the chattering class didn't know anything about tech. So nice to not be the product of think-pieces and in the ire of NYT readers. The funniest bit is that the previous villains -- financiers and oil barons, etc. etc. - haven't gone away. I don't understand why the high-powered critics have completely pivoted to hating on tech. Say what you will about Google, OpenAI, etc. but we're not funding mass killings in the Niger river delta or foreclosing on people's homes.
- drawkward 2y agoI, too, like gatekeeping!
- whimsicalism 2y agoNot wanting everything to become politicized - and, beyond that, politicized in a very ressentiment-leaning direction - is not gatekeeping.
- drawkward 2y agoAt no point did your original post say anything about the politicization of tech; you literally were upset about the "chattering class" (definitely apolitical, unloaded term there) simply knowing about tech.
- whimsicalism 2y agoChattering class strongly connotes politicization that is detached from material reality, it is basically the purpose of the word. I can tell that this is not going to be a productive back-and-forth, so I'll just leave it there.
- piva00 2y agoEverything with power is political. Tech is extremely powerful, and even if not directly inflicting harm it does in reality inflict harm, if not by intent then by carelessness or omission. Tech hasn't pursued wars like the oil or food industry but enabled hybrid warfare by omission, it hasn't killed people directly but has created even more leverage for elites to dehumanise processes, e.g. customer support, setting rental prices, showing ads, etc. There's no way for tech to not become politicised, it's wishful thinking, and wishing it away doesn't change the reality, the further tech embeds into our lives the more power it has, the more political it becomes.
- bbor 2y agoAmazing article, thanks for posting! I don't know this author, but they've definitely got a solid understanding of the relevant facts, IMO/AFAICT. That said: Altman could now get equity in OpenAI—around $10 billion worth He claimed to employees last week that he won't be following through on this. See: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-employees-he-didnt-get-giant-equity-stake.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-emp... Do I believe he won't pull a "whoops who knows" or a "it's not giant equity stake, just a big one"? Meh. But it's at least in doubt now. What’s scary about him isn’t that he’s good at getting rich (he’s a billionaire even without any OpenAI equity) This surprised me when I first learned it, but appearently it's true. Wikipedia has this (uncited!!) language on the topic: "Sam Altman has recently expanded his investment portfolio to include stakes in over 400 companies, valued at around $2.8 billion. Some of these investments intersect with companies doing business with OpenAI, which has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest, though Altman and OpenAI maintain that these are managed transparently." Friendly reminder that a billion is a thousand times a million... $2.8B is not a number to glance past like it's normal. According to Statista, he's one of ~10,000 in the entire world: https://www.statista.com/statistics/621447/billionaires-total-wealth-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/621447/billionaires-tota... Though Altman (wisely) wouldn’t use this term for it, I’d say it boils down to accelerationism Eh, that term has a lot of loaded meaning among academic circles (or just hacker / e/acc ones...) that I don't think Altman openly subscribes to -- especially if you include its founder Nick Land, who's now a "Hyper-fascist" with some appearent brain damage. Long story short it involves burning down the current system, not just building a new one. See this amazing Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationis... I'd call Altman simply... arrogant. I don't think he subscribes to any academic trend, simply because he doesn't seem interested in reading any academia. Case in point is his recent decision to try to be the one to name the new era of human development, a task for which he chose "Intelligence Age" (https://ia.samaltman.com/); https://ia.samaltman.com/); that's some serious confidence, at the very least. IMO he is a normal MBA-type who's been caught up in something that feels world-changing, and he's at the point where any amount of deceit or malice is worth it to keep his influence over that. In this way, I see him as a much more well-spoken Elon Musk; they both are true believers in the power of AGI, and their defining purpose is to be credited with the benefits it'll bring about. As I said in an old post on Altman: made-in-house bias is strongest when the house is your own skull. [ETA in response to a comment below, b/c deleting a long paragraph feels like abandoning a project!]: Fair enough! I myself have limited working experience with executives and have never met Altman, so I'm going off his blog posts mostly, along with the negative personality pieces that have popped up over the past year (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_openai_employee_describes_sam_altman_as/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_open... , https://mashable.com/article/open-ai-board-why-fired-sam-altman-helen-toner-podcast https://mashable.com/article/open-ai-board-why-fired-sam-alt... , https://www.techspot.com/news/103176-lies-psychological-abuse-former-openai-board-members-reasons.html https://www.techspot.com/news/103176-lies-psychological-abus... ). I agree that he's quintessential Silicon Valley rather than the traditional image of "MBA type"--a white man in a fancy suit in New York or Chicago, mostly--but he seems to otherwise fit the bill. Namely: - Personal overconfidence/hubris, as I discuss above. - Tendency to overpromise his organization's capabilities, as a rule. "Move fast and break things" type vibes. - Prioritizing growth/scale over other concerns -- I think the switch to for-profit makes this objectively accurate. - A noted aversion to transparency in general, as best embodied by OpenAI's approach to opensource. - A history of dodging accountability, namely in the ouster fiasco. - A charismatic but potentially manipulative leadership style (the main gist of this article).
- dottjt 2y agolol post flagged
- minimaxir 2y agoLikely more due to the paywall than the fact it's anti-Altman.
- dymk 2y agoProbably not, every paywalled article gets an archive.is link
- whimsicalism 2y agonot substack
- bitcharmer 2y agoThis is the new norm on HN. Gang-flagging is rampart but the mods are ok with it most of the time. Altman is a YCombinator darling so of course this post won't stay up long.
- OutOfHere 2y agoIn this case the flagging was because of the paywall that could not be bypassed.
- miki123211 2y agoIt's worth keeping in mind that Altman likely neither wants nor needs the equity in Open AI, but investors are forcing him to take some to align incentives.[1][2][3] [1] [see the Open AI section] https://archive.is/S9rwj https://archive.is/S9rwj [2] https://archive.is/0To6q https://archive.is/0To6q [3] [and the Open AI section again] https://archive.is/ejoOx https://archive.is/ejoOx
- Gud 2y agoWell if he doesn’t want it, he can give it to me!