4 ms·
I agree, but I might phrase it a little bit differently. I recommend thinking about corporate stances as actions and interests, not moral intentions. Don’t expe
by xpe 2y ago
I agree, but I might phrase it a little bit differently. I recommend thinking about corporate stances as actions and interests, not moral intentions. Don’t expect a corporation to do things for moral reasons. Trust them only to the extent that their actions are in their self interest. To be fair, some organizations do have charters and interests that make them more palatable than others.
One takeaway to startups that hope to stand for something even after tremendous growth and leadership changes: you have to build governance and accountability structures into your organizational DNA if you truly want specific values to persist over the long run.
- Tarq0n 2y agoSadly the openAI debacle has undermined faith in those kinds of structures as well.
- Wobbles42 2y agoThis is probably a good thing -- faith in such structures was never justified. Any relationship with a corporate entity is transactional in nature. A great deal of effort is often expended to manipulate us into feeling otherwise, but that is all it is. Companies don't have feelings. They aren't conscious entities with a capacity for guilt or morality. They are, in essence, software applications designed to execute on systems composed of human employees. In a sense they are the original AI agents.
- syndeo 2y agoThe end of that comment took me pretty quickly from "software applications?? nah" to "oh wow, y'know that's actually a pretty apt analogy"
- xpe 2y agoYes, OpenAI demonstrated one way not-for-profits can be commandeered. Altman appears to be quite astute at gaining power. Every organizational design and structure has the potential to be subverted. Like cybersecurity, there are many tradeoffs to consider: continuity, adaptability, mission flexibility, and more. And they don’t exist in isolation. People are often going to seek influence and power one way or the other. One more thing. Just because it is hard doesn’t mean we should work less hard on building organizations with durable values.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- amelius 2y agoTherefore it's better to stay the hell away from companies who actively seek to take away your freedom.
- Wobbles42 2y agoI don't think there are any companies that care one way or the other about taking away your freedom. Companies are revenue maximizers, period. The ones that aren't quickly get displaced by ones that are. The simpler test is to stay away from any company that has anything to gain by taking away your freedom. THAT unfortunately is most of them. The depressing reality in consumer tech is that anything with a CPU doesn't belong to you, doesn't work for you, and will never do more than pretend to act in your best interest.
- amelius 2y agoI've been running Linux on Intel/AMD boxes for decades without any such problems.
- syndeo 2y agoHeard of the Intel Management Engine? https://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-operating-system/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-op... Little doubt AMD has something similar.
- FMecha 2y agoAMD brands it AMD Secure Technology/Platform Security Processor, and the same backdoor concern is there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processo...
- amelius 1y agoYeah but ultimately it's the US government doing that, not Intel. There is no business model behind it.
- 2y ago