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Deepseek blowing up like this really showed how tired everyone was with the AI founders acting like they’re saving the world.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the AI founders acting like they’re saving the world They’ve literally been pitching themselves as capable of destroying it.
tensor 2y ago
Altman is not an AI founder. He's a business owner and investor. He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! The actual AI founders are the ones building the tech, and OpenAI has chased many of them away.
- Jimmc414 2y ago
  > He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! I don't either. Am I disallowed from calling myself a founder?
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Chased them away is one way to look at it...another way to look at it is tens/hundreds of millions of dollars luring them away.
- paulddraper 2y ago
  Undergrad degree is neither here nor there. Bill Gates is a tech founder.
  - tensor 2y ago
    The facts are that AI has been driven by PhD level research. There are vanishingly few cases of people who have not studied the area in depth making serious contributions. The term "AI founder" is usually used to reference the people who have made the technical and mathematical advances, not the person who hired those individuals after the fact to commercialize it. Altman is a tech founder and a business founder, but he is not an AI founder.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! There are a lot of smart people in the tech industry without undergrad degrees. The problem is, in the current generation of tech workers, there's two kinds of people without degrees: 1) The grinder who has a knack for whatever part of the field that they work in and made their name through hard work and building a portfolio of work through practical experience and 2) The (usually) guy who went to a college prep school, got into Stanford, and encountered a SV VC with exponentially more money than sense, who then told the 21-year-old that they were not a college student, but, in fact, Jesus Christ, and promised more money than the average person could comprehend to "pursue their dreams". Altman falls into the latter category. Actually, a lot of the founder set does. I say (usually) guy because Elizabeth Holmes also falls into this category.
duped 2y ago
If they're trying to act like they're "saving the world" they're doing a terrible job. It's honestly gross how much money is going into an industry that at best doesn't touch any real problems for humanity, and at worst amplifies the worst among them. And I don't really think they sound like they're trying to save the world. They sound like they're trying to get rich.
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  > an industry that at best doesn't touch any real problems for humanity I posted this yesterday, but "AI is failing the Indoor Plumbing Test": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42840785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42840785 Real innovations are often boring, but they transform human lives. So far, AI has not cleared that bar. I keep hearing that AI may go rogue and exterminate humanity, but for now I'm not even sure what it will enable me to do that I couldn't do before.
  - duped 2y ago
    One smell test for me is what the LinkedIn and Twitter "technologists" (0) are excitedly and hurriedly talking about. If they're onto it, the tech is a probably about to hit the saturation point of the s-curve as the hype lag catches up. This is the sweet spot where early adopters can find ~~bagholders~~ late series investors. Right now, this part of the internet is obsessed with genAI. Same folks that couldn't stop talking about crypto and web3 a few years ago. And I could be wrong! But everything about this industry smells wrong. NVidia boosting to obscene highs turning out to be because developers couldn't be bothered to write optimized code. Everyone and their mother talking about AI but I still can't see real world impacts, besides customer service chatbots getting worse. Meanwhile the world burns and people die of curable disease, and we spend money making sand go brr instead. (0) I really don't have a good term for this that isn't something like "posers." They're the folks you meet at conferences, always giving talks and writing blogs, mostly talking and very little doing. They're the people that are obsessed with technology but can never get below the surface level. This sounds dismissive, and it is, because this kind of person has wasted a lot of my brainpower over the last decade before learning to weed them out (aka - they're not "well aligned" as customers or coworkers).
diamond559 2y ago
Yeah there's literally no useful applications outside first drafts of code, but don't worry just a few hundred billion more and it'll cure cancer and solve physics!!
DonHopkins 2y ago
AI is all about show business, but it still requires hard work and a hell of a lot of Oompa Loompas, so Sam Altman should hire Deep Roy, the hardest working man in show business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Roy#:~:text=He%20played%20all%20165%20Oompa,and%20some%20minor%20instrument%20playing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Roy#:~:text=He%20played%2... >In referencing his workload during production, director Tim Burton called Roy the "hardest-working man in show biz". Becoming Oompa-Loompa | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J7Dg-mUJHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J7Dg-mUJHE

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> the AI founders acting like they’re saving the world They’ve literally been pitching themselves as capable of destroying it.

tensor 2y ago

Altman is not an AI founder. He's a business owner and investor. He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! The actual AI founders are the ones building the tech, and OpenAI has chased many of them away.

Jimmc414 2y ago
> He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! I don't either. Am I disallowed from calling myself a founder?
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Chased them away is one way to look at it...another way to look at it is tens/hundreds of millions of dollars luring them away.
paulddraper 2y ago
Undergrad degree is neither here nor there. Bill Gates is a tech founder.
- tensor 2y ago
  The facts are that AI has been driven by PhD level research. There are vanishingly few cases of people who have not studied the area in depth making serious contributions. The term "AI founder" is usually used to reference the people who have made the technical and mathematical advances, not the person who hired those individuals after the fact to commercialize it. Altman is a tech founder and a business founder, but he is not an AI founder.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
lenerdenator 2y ago
> He doesn't even have an undergrad degree! There are a lot of smart people in the tech industry without undergrad degrees. The problem is, in the current generation of tech workers, there's two kinds of people without degrees: 1) The grinder who has a knack for whatever part of the field that they work in and made their name through hard work and building a portfolio of work through practical experience and 2) The (usually) guy who went to a college prep school, got into Stanford, and encountered a SV VC with exponentially more money than sense, who then told the 21-year-old that they were not a college student, but, in fact, Jesus Christ, and promised more money than the average person could comprehend to "pursue their dreams". Altman falls into the latter category. Actually, a lot of the founder set does. I say (usually) guy because Elizabeth Holmes also falls into this category.

duped 2y ago

If they're trying to act like they're "saving the world" they're doing a terrible job. It's honestly gross how much money is going into an industry that at best doesn't touch any real problems for humanity, and at worst amplifies the worst among them. And I don't really think they sound like they're trying to save the world. They sound like they're trying to get rich.

ForHackernews 2y ago
> an industry that at best doesn't touch any real problems for humanity I posted this yesterday, but "AI is failing the Indoor Plumbing Test": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42840785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42840785 Real innovations are often boring, but they transform human lives. So far, AI has not cleared that bar. I keep hearing that AI may go rogue and exterminate humanity, but for now I'm not even sure what it will enable me to do that I couldn't do before.
- duped 2y ago
  One smell test for me is what the LinkedIn and Twitter "technologists" (0) are excitedly and hurriedly talking about. If they're onto it, the tech is a probably about to hit the saturation point of the s-curve as the hype lag catches up. This is the sweet spot where early adopters can find ~~bagholders~~ late series investors. Right now, this part of the internet is obsessed with genAI. Same folks that couldn't stop talking about crypto and web3 a few years ago. And I could be wrong! But everything about this industry smells wrong. NVidia boosting to obscene highs turning out to be because developers couldn't be bothered to write optimized code. Everyone and their mother talking about AI but I still can't see real world impacts, besides customer service chatbots getting worse. Meanwhile the world burns and people die of curable disease, and we spend money making sand go brr instead. (0) I really don't have a good term for this that isn't something like "posers." They're the folks you meet at conferences, always giving talks and writing blogs, mostly talking and very little doing. They're the people that are obsessed with technology but can never get below the surface level. This sounds dismissive, and it is, because this kind of person has wasted a lot of my brainpower over the last decade before learning to weed them out (aka - they're not "well aligned" as customers or coworkers).

diamond559 2y ago

Yeah there's literally no useful applications outside first drafts of code, but don't worry just a few hundred billion more and it'll cure cancer and solve physics!!

DonHopkins 2y ago

AI is all about show business, but it still requires hard work and a hell of a lot of Oompa Loompas, so Sam Altman should hire Deep Roy, the hardest working man in show business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Roy#:~:text=He%20played%20all%20165%20Oompa,and%20some%20minor%20instrument%20playing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Roy#:~:text=He%20played%2... >In referencing his workload during production, director Tim Burton called Roy the "hardest-working man in show biz". Becoming Oompa-Loompa | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J7Dg-mUJHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J7Dg-mUJHE