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It's also a great example of why tech executives shouldn't be trusted, at all. "My thing will break our entire economy. I'm still gonna build it, though." - st

It's also a great example of why tech executives shouldn't be trusted, at all. "My thing will break our entire economy. I'm still gonna build it, though." - statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged

some_random 1y ago
If you believe that breaking the economy is good you're obviously going to do it. If you believe that if you don't break the economy one of your many competitors will, you're obviously going to do it.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  If it's good, why's Altman (reportedly) bragging about the preps he's making for societal collapse?[0] [0]https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper
  - hooverd 1y ago
    At least I can rest assured the billionaires would probably kill each other in a mad scramble to be king of the ashes.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum? I don't. The cat is out of the bag. The only thing that would accomplish is giving Google and others less competition. Personally I don't have much trust in any tech companies, including OpenAI, but I'd much rather there be a field of competition than one dominant and (unchecked) leader.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      > If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum? Oh, I know it wouldn't, but I know he won't, because there's too much financial incentive to do so, and Altman and his ilk think that all human endeavors can be judged as a net good or net bad by whether or not they make number go bigger.
- freejazz 1y ago
  If you're a tech ceo, then maybe yeah.... I've seen bankers that are more reflective about their actions than these tech leaders. Tech would kill the goose laying golden eggs just because they could find enough people to believe their BS marketing to get their VC funded startup sold.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  At this point it’s going to break the economy anyway if it doesn’t end up breaking the economy as investors are going to retreat and pop the bubble.
yoyohello13 1y ago
It’s as mask off as a business man can get. “This is bad, but I want money.” That is our society in a nutshell.
saubeidl 1y ago
Capitalism is a doomsday cult and these people are its prophets.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I have no problem with capitalism. I have problem with that there are people who have so much money that they can't even spend yet most people live paycheck to paycheck. Maybe the solution might be socialism except you can own money till 10 million I guess. But I am not sure if its effective or not. Definitely loop holes. Idk
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    I think the phenomenon in your second sentence is a direct result of unbridled capitalism. Maybe the solution is a simple as a social market economy, maybe it takes something a bit more radical - but the extreme techno capitalism that our industry's leaders are trying to advance is definitely a step in the wrong direction.
xeromal 1y ago
You could say that about a number of things we've benefited from. The cotton gin, the plow, industrialization, the car, electricity, alarm clocks, etc.
- roywiggins 1y ago
  Uh, not everyone benefited from the cotton gin, to put it mildly. Though I suppose it depends how tightly or loosely you define "we." It probably wasn't even a net good for the South, being blamed for locking it into an agrarian plantation economy and stunting manufacturing in the states that depended on cotton.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
Sam altman literally said something like this, i forgot the youtube video. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1axkvns/sam_altman_ai_will_most_likely_lead_to_the_end_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1axkvns/sam_altman... Its crazy. Idk what else to say because my jaw gets dropped every time I hear something like this. Humanity is a mess sometimes.
ergonaught 1y ago
They shouldn't be trusted for any number of reasons, but the need for social systems to adapt to reality isn't their fault.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  It wouldn't be their fault if the economic class that they were a part of weren't actively opposed to changing those social systems. I wouldn't care nearly as much about AI were there a stronger social safety net in the US. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon, because that requires taxes to pay for, and the very wealthy do not like paying those because it reduces their wealth.
- const_cast 1y ago
  It kind of is their fault when they're simultaneously lobbying against those social systems and designing their platforms in a way to further align with that propaganda. It seems very intentional to me.
Ozarkian 1y ago
You can't constrain an idea whose time has come. China will continue developing AI regardless of whether we will. We have to do it just to stay in the race. It's the same thing with the atomic bomb. There wasn't really a choice not to do it. All the theoretical physicists at the time knew that it was possible to develop the thing. If the United States hadn't done it, someone else would have. Perhaps a few years or a decade later, but it would have happened somewhere.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  > It's the same thing with the atomic bomb. There wasn't really a choice not to do it. There is always a choice. "Someone else will do this if I don't" does not absolve one from moral responsibility. Even if it is inevitable (which things generally are not, claiming they are is a rationalization most of the time), you still are culpable if you're the one who pulls the trigger.
msgodel 1y ago
I like to call most of this stuff "executive sounds." My favorite recent example is the Nvidia CEO talking about how they're going to use quantum computing for ML.
mplanchard 1y ago
This is a popular meme[0] about our industry, in fact: > Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale > Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus, from [the] classic sci-fi novel, Don’t Create the Torment Nexus [0]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

some_random 1y ago

If you believe that breaking the economy is good you're obviously going to do it. If you believe that if you don't break the economy one of your many competitors will, you're obviously going to do it.

lenerdenator 1y ago
If it's good, why's Altman (reportedly) bragging about the preps he's making for societal collapse?[0] [0]https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper
- hooverd 1y ago
  At least I can rest assured the billionaires would probably kill each other in a mad scramble to be king of the ashes.
- freedomben 1y ago
  If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum? I don't. The cat is out of the bag. The only thing that would accomplish is giving Google and others less competition. Personally I don't have much trust in any tech companies, including OpenAI, but I'd much rather there be a field of competition than one dominant and (unchecked) leader.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    > If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum? Oh, I know it wouldn't, but I know he won't, because there's too much financial incentive to do so, and Altman and his ilk think that all human endeavors can be judged as a net good or net bad by whether or not they make number go bigger.
freejazz 1y ago
If you're a tech ceo, then maybe yeah.... I've seen bankers that are more reflective about their actions than these tech leaders. Tech would kill the goose laying golden eggs just because they could find enough people to believe their BS marketing to get their VC funded startup sold.
spacemadness 1y ago
At this point it’s going to break the economy anyway if it doesn’t end up breaking the economy as investors are going to retreat and pop the bubble.

yoyohello13 1y ago

It’s as mask off as a business man can get. “This is bad, but I want money.” That is our society in a nutshell.

saubeidl 1y ago

Capitalism is a doomsday cult and these people are its prophets.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I have no problem with capitalism. I have problem with that there are people who have so much money that they can't even spend yet most people live paycheck to paycheck. Maybe the solution might be socialism except you can own money till 10 million I guess. But I am not sure if its effective or not. Definitely loop holes. Idk
- saubeidl 1y ago
  I think the phenomenon in your second sentence is a direct result of unbridled capitalism. Maybe the solution is a simple as a social market economy, maybe it takes something a bit more radical - but the extreme techno capitalism that our industry's leaders are trying to advance is definitely a step in the wrong direction.

xeromal 1y ago

You could say that about a number of things we've benefited from. The cotton gin, the plow, industrialization, the car, electricity, alarm clocks, etc.

roywiggins 1y ago
Uh, not everyone benefited from the cotton gin, to put it mildly. Though I suppose it depends how tightly or loosely you define "we." It probably wasn't even a net good for the South, being blamed for locking it into an agrarian plantation economy and stunting manufacturing in the states that depended on cotton.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

Sam altman literally said something like this, i forgot the youtube video. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1axkvns/sam_altman_ai_will_most_likely_lead_to_the_end_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1axkvns/sam_altman... Its crazy. Idk what else to say because my jaw gets dropped every time I hear something like this. Humanity is a mess sometimes.

ergonaught 1y ago

They shouldn't be trusted for any number of reasons, but the need for social systems to adapt to reality isn't their fault.

lenerdenator 1y ago
It wouldn't be their fault if the economic class that they were a part of weren't actively opposed to changing those social systems. I wouldn't care nearly as much about AI were there a stronger social safety net in the US. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon, because that requires taxes to pay for, and the very wealthy do not like paying those because it reduces their wealth.
const_cast 1y ago
It kind of is their fault when they're simultaneously lobbying against those social systems and designing their platforms in a way to further align with that propaganda. It seems very intentional to me.

Ozarkian 1y ago

You can't constrain an idea whose time has come. China will continue developing AI regardless of whether we will. We have to do it just to stay in the race. It's the same thing with the atomic bomb. There wasn't really a choice not to do it. All the theoretical physicists at the time knew that it was possible to develop the thing. If the United States hadn't done it, someone else would have. Perhaps a few years or a decade later, but it would have happened somewhere.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
> It's the same thing with the atomic bomb. There wasn't really a choice not to do it. There is always a choice. "Someone else will do this if I don't" does not absolve one from moral responsibility. Even if it is inevitable (which things generally are not, claiming they are is a rationalization most of the time), you still are culpable if you're the one who pulls the trigger.

msgodel 1y ago

I like to call most of this stuff "executive sounds." My favorite recent example is the Nvidia CEO talking about how they're going to use quantum computing for ML.

mplanchard 1y ago

This is a popular meme[0] about our industry, in fact: > Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale > Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus, from [the] classic sci-fi novel, Don’t Create the Torment Nexus [0]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus