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Amazing 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:

by bbor 2y ago

Amazing 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).

whimsicalism 2y ago
> 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/accelerationis 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. I think you would be shocked at how much these philosophical trends actually are part of the discussion in these SF circles. Sam Altman is also absolutely not a normal MBA-type, having met many of those.
rmbyrro 2y ago
I'm sorry, there are 10,000 individuals on Earth worth ~$3b or more? Wow, I would imagine this club was a lot smaller
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
I'm not sure I can even blame Altman here. I think it's quite easy to move into a mode where all forward 'progress' is perceived as unequivocally good. It is so difficult to move the ball, once the ball starts rolling, it's absolutely exhilarating. He's the person on the crest of the wave at the moment, and it's either Sam or someone else is there. Is he a moral man? Can he dare to pause and ask if these features should exist? I doubt it. Perhaps his request for regulation was in earnest: He maybe knows that only governments can slow down a market that is cresting, and only governments can stop and ask questions. Since I believe in government (I know that many do not!) I think we must immediately create a Department of AI and a President's commission. This shit is about to become very real.
gom_jabbar 2y ago
I think focusing on Nick Land's provocations rather than confronting the predictive validity of Accelerationism, which the Guardian article highlights, is just a nice coping strategy for people who are low on decoupling. I'm doing a primary literature review of Land's core thesis that AI and capitalism are teleologically identical at https://retrochronic.com/ https://retrochronic.com/ and I hope it will show that there is at least some substance to his work, such as his perspective on AI in the context of capital autonomization.

by bbor 2y ago

whimsicalism 2y ago

> 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/accelerationis 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. I think you would be shocked at how much these philosophical trends actually are part of the discussion in these SF circles. Sam Altman is also absolutely not a normal MBA-type, having met many of those.

rmbyrro 2y ago

I'm sorry, there are 10,000 individuals on Earth worth ~$3b or more? Wow, I would imagine this club was a lot smaller

jaybrendansmith 2y ago

I'm not sure I can even blame Altman here. I think it's quite easy to move into a mode where all forward 'progress' is perceived as unequivocally good. It is so difficult to move the ball, once the ball starts rolling, it's absolutely exhilarating. He's the person on the crest of the wave at the moment, and it's either Sam or someone else is there. Is he a moral man? Can he dare to pause and ask if these features should exist? I doubt it. Perhaps his request for regulation was in earnest: He maybe knows that only governments can slow down a market that is cresting, and only governments can stop and ask questions. Since I believe in government (I know that many do not!) I think we must immediately create a Department of AI and a President's commission. This shit is about to become very real.

gom_jabbar 2y ago

I think focusing on Nick Land's provocations rather than confronting the predictive validity of Accelerationism, which the Guardian article highlights, is just a nice coping strategy for people who are low on decoupling. I'm doing a primary literature review of Land's core thesis that AI and capitalism are teleologically identical at https://retrochronic.com/ https://retrochronic.com/ and I hope it will show that there is at least some substance to his work, such as his perspective on AI in the context of capital autonomization.