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I see OpenAI's original form as the last gasp of a kind of liberal tech; in a world where "doing good" was seen as very important, the non-profit approach made

• sneak 1y ago
  Is it reasonable to assign the descriptor “authoritarian” to anyone who simply does not subscribe to the common orthodoxy of one faction in the american culture war? That is what it seems to me is happening here, though I would love to be wrong. I have not seen anything from sama or pmarca that I would classify as “authoritarian”.
  • blibble 1y ago
    are you aware of worldcoin? altman building a centralised authority of who will be classed as "human" is about as authoritarian as you could get
    • sneak 1y ago
      Worldcoin is opt-in, which is the opposite of authoritarian. Nobody who doesn’t like it is required to participate.
      • fsndz 1y ago
        it's always opt-in until it isn't
      • amdsn 1y ago
        it is opt in until they manage to convince some government to allow them to be the contracted provider of "humanness verification" that is then made a prerequisite to access services.
      • sholladay 1y ago
        Comcast is also opt-in. Except, in many areas there are no real alternatives. I doubt Worldcoin will actually manage to corner the market. But the point is, if it did, bad things would happen. Though, that’s probably true of most products.
  • bee_rider 1y ago
    I’m not sure exactly what they meant by “liberal” in this case, but since they put it in contrast with authoritarianism, I assume they meant it in the conventional definition of the word (where it is the polar opposite of authoritarianism). Instead of the American politics-as-sports definition that makes it a synonym for “team blue.”
    • drewbeck 1y ago
      correct. "liberal" as in the general ideas that ie expanding the franchise is important, press freedoms are good, that government can do good things for people and for capital etc. Wikipedia's intro paragraph does a good job of describing what I was getting at (below). In prior decades Republicans in the US would have been categorized as "liberal" under this definition; in recent years, not so much. >Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.
  • drewbeck 1y ago
    No I don't think it is. I DO think those two people want to be in charge (along with other billionaires) and they want the rest of us to follow along, which is in my book an authoritarian POV. pmarca's recent "VC is the only job that can't be done by AI" is a good example of that; the rest of us are to be managed and controlled by VCs and robots.
  • tastyface 1y ago
    Donating millions to a fascist president (in Altman’s case) seems pretty authoritarian to me. And he seems happy enough hanging out with Thiel and other Yarvin groupies.
    • sidibe 1y ago
      Yup, if Elon hadn't gotten so jealous and spiteful to him I'm sure he'd be one of Elon's leading sycophants.
    • sneak 1y ago
      I think this is more a symptom of the level of commonplace corruption in the American regulatory environment than any indication of the political views of the person directing such donations. Tim Apple did it too, and we don’t assume he’s an authoritarian now too, do we? I imagine they would probably have done similarly regardless of who won the election. It sure seems like an endorsement, but I think it’s simply modern corporate strategy in the American regulatory environment, same as when foreign dignitaries stay in overpriced suites in the Trump hotel in DC. Those who don’t kiss the ring are clearly and obviously punished. It’s not in the interest of your shareholders (or your launch partners) to be the tall poppy.
      • tastyface 1y ago
        I do feel that way about every CEO in those cheery inauguration day photos (https://apnews.com/article/trump-inauguration-tech-billionaires-zuckerberg-musk-wealth-0896bfc3f50d941d62cebc3074267ecd https://apnews.com/article/trump-inauguration-tech-billionai...). Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Cook, Altman, Musk, Thiel: enablers of fascism, every one. However, it should be noted that Cook donated from his own name and not Apple. Guess he didn't want his shittiness to rub off on his company. As for the shareholders, Cook was more than happy to "do the right thing" in the past, even when under pressure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute).
        • sneak 1y ago
          As far as “enablers” of fascism - would we have the same amount of fascism if they didn’t participate? I posit that the answer is yes. Furthermore, you are dead wrong on the last point. The “dispute” between the FBI and Apple is a fiction designed to restore public trust in Apple’s privacy stance following the Snowden revelations about FAA702 (aka PRISM) that shows that companies allow the USG warrantless access to their data in realtime via special APIs or portals. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... The tech executives came to DC to meet with Obama in the wake of the whole Snowden thing to discuss it, though it was widely reported as being a consult on fixing healthcare.gov (lol) a few outlets reported it correctly. There are photos of the meeting kicking around. I imagine the Apple-vs-the-FBI narrative (which is widely regarded as true and has resulted in mainstream false belief, such as yours demonstrated here) was borne directly out of these meetings. Apple intentionally maintains access to the majority of their users’ data by the USG and the CCP (in their respective zones). It is required for them to continue operating in their current fashion. Every iMessage and (basically) every file in iCloud (photos included) is readable by Apple and the government. Apple has the technical capability to prevent this by migrating their userbase to e2ee systems, and they do not. I firmly believe that this is by design, and that they would be very severely punished, legally or extralegally, if they changed the status quo.
  • sanderjd 1y ago
    No, "authoritarian" is a word with a specific meaning. I'm not sure about applying it to Sam Altman, but Marc Andreessen has expressed views that I consider authoritarian in his victory lap tour since last year's presidential election.
• ignoramous 1y ago
  > They want to be the kings they always thought of themselves as, and now they get to do so without couching it in "doing good". You mean, AGI will benefit all of humanity like War on Terror spread democracy?
  • nickff 1y ago
    Why are you changing the subject? The “War on Terror” was never intended to spread democracy as far as I know; democracy was a means by which to achieve the objective of safety from terrorism.
    • danans 1y ago
      > The “War on Terror” was never intended to spread democracy as far as I know; Regardless of intent, it was most definitely sold to the American public on that premise.
• ballooney 1y ago
  Hopelessly over-idealistic premise. Sama and pg have never been anything other than opportunistic muck. This will be my last ever comment on HN.
  • byearthithatius 1y ago
    I feel this so hard, I think this may be my last time using the site as well. They don't care about advancement, they only care about money.
    • stego-tech 1y ago
      Like everything, it's projection. Those who loudly scream against something are almost always the ones engaging in it. Google screamed against service revenue and advertising while building the world's largest advertising empire. Facebook screamed against misinformation and surveillance while enabling it on a global scale. Netflix screamed against the overpriced cable TV industry while turning streaming into modern overpriced cable television. Uber screamed against the entrenched taxi industry harming workers and passengers while creating an unregulated monster that harmed workers and passengers. Altman and OpenAI are no different in this regard, loudly screaming against AI harming humanity while doing everything in their capacity to create AI tools that will knowingly harm humanity while enriching themselves. If people trust the performance instead of the actions and their outcomes, then we can't convince them otherwise.
  • gallerdude 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • drewbeck 1y ago
    Oh I'm not saying they every believed more than their self-centered views, but that in a world that leaned more liberal there was value in trying to frame their work in those terms. Now there's no need to pretend.
    • kmacdough 1y ago
• stego-tech 1y ago
  That world never existed. Yes, pockets did - IT professionals with broadband lines and spare kit hosting IRC servers and phpBB forums from their homes free of charge, a few VC-funded companies offering idealistic visions of the net until funding ran dry (RIP CoHost) - but once the web became privatized, it was all in service of the bottom line by companies. Web 2.0 onwards was all about centralization, surveillance, advertising, and manipulation of the populace at scale - and that intent was never really a secret to those who bothered to pay attention. While the world was reeling from Cambridge Analytica, us pre-1.0 farts who cut our teeth on Telnet and Mosaic were just kind of flabbergasted that ya'll were surprised by overtly obvious intentions. That doesn't mean it has to always be this way, though. Back when I had more trust in the present government and USPS, I mused on how much of a game changer it might be for the USPS to provide free hosting and e-mail to citizens, repurposing the glut of unused real estate into smaller edge compute providers. Everyone gets a web server and 5GB of storage, with 1A Protections letting them say and host whatever they like from their little Post Office Box. Everyone has an e-mail address tied to their real identity, with encryption and security for digital mail just like the law provides for physical mail. I still think the answer is about enabling more people to engage with the internet on their selective terms (including the option of disengagement), rather than the present psychological manipulation everyone engages in to keep us glued to our screens, tethered to our phones, and constantly uploading new data to advertisers and surveillance firms alike. But the nostalgic view that the internet used to be different is just that: rose-tinted memories of a past that never really existed. The first step to fixing this mess is acknowledging its harm.
  • dgreensp 1y ago
    I don’t think the parent was saying that everyone’s intentions were pure until recently, but rather that naked greed wasn’t cool before, but now it is. The Internet has changed a lot over the decades, and it did used to be different, with the differences depending on how many years you go back.
    • jon_richards 1y ago
      As recently as the Silicon Valley tv show, the joke was that every startup pitch claimed they were “making the world a better place”.
• deleted 1y ago
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• jimbokun 1y ago
  They deeply believe in the Ayn Rand mindset that the system that brings them the most individual wealth is also the best system for humanity as a whole.
  • mandmandam 1y ago
    When people that wealthy are that delusional... With few checks or balances from politics, media, or even social media... I don't think humanity as a whole is in for a great time.
    • jimbokun 1y ago
      They are roughly as delusional as everyone else. There is an image human bias to convince yourself that what benefits you is also best for everyone else. It’s just that their biases have much more capacity to cause damage as their wealth gives them so much power.
      • mandmandam 1y ago
        Yes, people are generally delusional; importantly though, some people are much less so (and some more so). Being connected to reality, being grounded, are learnable traits (but not very valuable to CEOs and narcissists). > They are roughly as delusional as everyone else. I would bet serious money that people who believe in Ayn Rand are generally more delusional than others, and the same goes for the ultra-wealthy living in a bubble of sycophants. And their wealth gives them much more capacity - and motive - to cause damage.
      • drewbeck 1y ago
        I disagree with this. I think there's probably a baseline "capacity for delusion" we all share, but the very wealthy are insulated from the negative repercussions of their actions in a way everyday folks are not. They also hold so much power by virtue of their wealth that they end up surrounded by sycophants, creating the conditions for a level of self-belief that is deeply delusional, and that only the most narcissistic among the rest of us could ever dream of attaining.