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Good for those involved being offered such packages, but it really does raise the question of what exactly those offering them are so afraid of. For example, M

Good for those involved being offered such packages, but it really does raise the question of what exactly those offering them are so afraid of. For example, Meta seem to be spending so much so they don't later have to fight a war against an external Facebook-as-chatbot style competitor, but it's hard to see how such a thing could emerge from the current social media landscape.

MichaelZuo 1y ago
They just want the best, and they’re afraid of having second rates, B-players, etc., causing a bozo explosion. That seems like all the motivation that’s needed. Why why would they need fears about a quasi-facebook chatbot?
- lores 1y ago
  Just like in football, buying all the best players pretty much guarantees failure as egos and personal styles clash and take precedence over team achievement. The only reasons one would do that are fear, vanity, and stupidity, and those have to be more important than getting value for the extraordinary amounts of money invested.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
    Yeah, pretty much agree. The only case where this may have made sense - but more for an individual rather than a team - is Google's aqui-rehire of Noam Shazeer for $1B. He was the original creator of the transformer architecture, had made a number of architectural improvements while at Character.ai, and thus had a track record of being able to wring performance out of it, which at Google-scale may be worth that kind of money.
    - dekhn 1y ago
      Noam was already one of Google's top AI researchers and a personal friend of Jeff Dean (head of Google AI, at least in title). He worked on some of the early (~2002) search systems at Google and patented some of their most powerful technoloigies at the time- which were critical in making Google Search a product that was popular, and highly profitable.
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    First rate A-players are beyond petty ego clashes, practically by definition… otherwise they wouldn’t be considered so highly (and thus fall into the bozo category).
    - saagarjha 1y ago
      If you're the only one considering them, sure.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Coming from Meta, I have to wonder if the reason for this isn't more down to Zuck's ego and history. He seems to have somewhat lost interest in FaceBook, and was previously all-in on the Metaverse as the next big thing, which has failed to take off as a concept, and now wants to go all-in on "super-intelligence" (seems to lack ambition - why not "super-duper extra special intelligence"?) with his new vision being smart glasses as the universal AI interface. He can't seem to get past the notion that people want to wear tech on their head and live in augmented reality. Anyhow, with the Metaverse as a flop, and apparently having self-assessed Meta's current LLM efforts as unsatisfactory, it seems Zuck may want to rescue his reputation by throwing money at it to try to make his next big gamble a winner. It seems a bit irrational given that other companies, and countries, have built SOTA LLMs without needing to throw NBA/NFL/rockstar money around.
  - turnsout 1y ago
    This rings true. Zuck wants to go down in the history books like Jobs—as a visionary who introduced technology that changed the world. He's not there yet, and he knows it. Jobs gave us GUIs and smartphones. Facebook is not even in the same universe, and Instagram is just something he bought. He went all in on the metaverse, but the technology still needs at least 10-15 years to fully bake. In the meantime, there's AGI/super-intelligence. He needs to beat Sam Altman. The sad thing is, even if he does beat Sam to AGI, Sam will still probably get the credit as the visionary.
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      > Jobs gave us GUIs and smartphones. Steve Jobs neither gave/invented GUIs nor smartphones. :-D
      - turnsout 1y ago
        He didn’t have to be the first to be the one most associated with popularizing the technology.
        1y ago
InterviewFrog 1y ago
Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. The talent pool is extremely small and the companies want the absolute best. It is the same thing in sports as well. There will only ever be one Michael Jordan one Lionel Messi one Tiger Woods one Magnus Carlsen. And they are paid a lot because they are worth it. >> Meta seem to be spending so much so they don't later have to fight a war against an external Facebook-as-chatbot style competitor Meta moved on from facebook a while back.It has been years since I last logged into facebook and hardly anybody I know actually post anything there. Its a relic of the past.
- klabb3 1y ago
  > Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. […] It is the same thing in sports as well. It’s not just uncomfortable but might not be true at all. Sports is practically the opposite type of skills: easy to measure, known rules, enormous amount of repetition. Research is unknown. A researcher that guarantees result is not doing research. (Coincidentally, the increasing rewards in academia for incrementalist result driven work is a big factor in the declining overall quality, imo.) I think what’s happening is kind of what happened in Wall Street. Those with a few documented successes got disproportionately more business based to a large part on initial conditions and timing. Not to take away from AI researchers specifically, I’m sure they’re a smart bunch. But I see no reason to think they stand out against other academic fields. Occam’s razor says it’s panic in the C-suites and they perceive it as an existential race. It’s not important whether it actually is, but rather that’s how they feel. And they have such enormous amount of cash that they’re willing to play many risky bets at the same time. One of them being to hire/poach the hottest names.
  - ujkiolp 1y ago
    [dead]
- TrackerFF 1y ago
  Hot fucking take - but if these 100 (or whatever small number is being thrown around these days) elite researchers disappeared overnight, the world would go on and little of it would be noticed. New people in the field would catch up, and things would be up to speed quick enough. It is not a question of exquisitely rare intellect, but rather the opportunity and funding/resources to prosper.
amelius 1y ago
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, but now with AI researchers.
rfw300 1y ago
It has nothing to do with Meta's social media business. Zuckerberg, like many other top tech executives, has concluded AGI/ASI is in striking distance. If he could somehow win the race, he becomes god (or so he thinks, anyway). And from the perspective of a man whose idol is Julius Caesar, what wouldn't you spend for that chance?
- AYBABTME 1y ago
  This seems like it lands in the "most uncharitable" side of the "guess why someone is doing something I don't understand" spectrum. My razors tell me this is usually not the most plausible answer.

MichaelZuo 1y ago

They just want the best, and they’re afraid of having second rates, B-players, etc., causing a bozo explosion. That seems like all the motivation that’s needed. Why why would they need fears about a quasi-facebook chatbot?

lores 1y ago
Just like in football, buying all the best players pretty much guarantees failure as egos and personal styles clash and take precedence over team achievement. The only reasons one would do that are fear, vanity, and stupidity, and those have to be more important than getting value for the extraordinary amounts of money invested.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Yeah, pretty much agree. The only case where this may have made sense - but more for an individual rather than a team - is Google's aqui-rehire of Noam Shazeer for $1B. He was the original creator of the transformer architecture, had made a number of architectural improvements while at Character.ai, and thus had a track record of being able to wring performance out of it, which at Google-scale may be worth that kind of money.
  - dekhn 1y ago
    Noam was already one of Google's top AI researchers and a personal friend of Jeff Dean (head of Google AI, at least in title). He worked on some of the early (~2002) search systems at Google and patented some of their most powerful technoloigies at the time- which were critical in making Google Search a product that was popular, and highly profitable.
- MichaelZuo 1y ago
  First rate A-players are beyond petty ego clashes, practically by definition… otherwise they wouldn’t be considered so highly (and thus fall into the bozo category).
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    If you're the only one considering them, sure.
HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
Coming from Meta, I have to wonder if the reason for this isn't more down to Zuck's ego and history. He seems to have somewhat lost interest in FaceBook, and was previously all-in on the Metaverse as the next big thing, which has failed to take off as a concept, and now wants to go all-in on "super-intelligence" (seems to lack ambition - why not "super-duper extra special intelligence"?) with his new vision being smart glasses as the universal AI interface. He can't seem to get past the notion that people want to wear tech on their head and live in augmented reality. Anyhow, with the Metaverse as a flop, and apparently having self-assessed Meta's current LLM efforts as unsatisfactory, it seems Zuck may want to rescue his reputation by throwing money at it to try to make his next big gamble a winner. It seems a bit irrational given that other companies, and countries, have built SOTA LLMs without needing to throw NBA/NFL/rockstar money around.
- turnsout 1y ago
  This rings true. Zuck wants to go down in the history books like Jobs—as a visionary who introduced technology that changed the world. He's not there yet, and he knows it. Jobs gave us GUIs and smartphones. Facebook is not even in the same universe, and Instagram is just something he bought. He went all in on the metaverse, but the technology still needs at least 10-15 years to fully bake. In the meantime, there's AGI/super-intelligence. He needs to beat Sam Altman. The sad thing is, even if he does beat Sam to AGI, Sam will still probably get the credit as the visionary.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > Jobs gave us GUIs and smartphones. Steve Jobs neither gave/invented GUIs nor smartphones. :-D
    - turnsout 1y ago
      He didn’t have to be the first to be the one most associated with popularizing the technology.
      - 1y ago

InterviewFrog 1y ago

Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. The talent pool is extremely small and the companies want the absolute best. It is the same thing in sports as well. There will only ever be one Michael Jordan one Lionel Messi one Tiger Woods one Magnus Carlsen. And they are paid a lot because they are worth it. >> Meta seem to be spending so much so they don't later have to fight a war against an external Facebook-as-chatbot style competitor Meta moved on from facebook a while back.It has been years since I last logged into facebook and hardly anybody I know actually post anything there. Its a relic of the past.

klabb3 1y ago
> Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. […] It is the same thing in sports as well. It’s not just uncomfortable but might not be true at all. Sports is practically the opposite type of skills: easy to measure, known rules, enormous amount of repetition. Research is unknown. A researcher that guarantees result is not doing research. (Coincidentally, the increasing rewards in academia for incrementalist result driven work is a big factor in the declining overall quality, imo.) I think what’s happening is kind of what happened in Wall Street. Those with a few documented successes got disproportionately more business based to a large part on initial conditions and timing. Not to take away from AI researchers specifically, I’m sure they’re a smart bunch. But I see no reason to think they stand out against other academic fields. Occam’s razor says it’s panic in the C-suites and they perceive it as an existential race. It’s not important whether it actually is, but rather that’s how they feel. And they have such enormous amount of cash that they’re willing to play many risky bets at the same time. One of them being to hire/poach the hottest names.
- ujkiolp 1y ago
  [dead]
TrackerFF 1y ago
Hot fucking take - but if these 100 (or whatever small number is being thrown around these days) elite researchers disappeared overnight, the world would go on and little of it would be noticed. New people in the field would catch up, and things would be up to speed quick enough. It is not a question of exquisitely rare intellect, but rather the opportunity and funding/resources to prosper.

amelius 1y ago

Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, but now with AI researchers.

rfw300 1y ago

It has nothing to do with Meta's social media business. Zuckerberg, like many other top tech executives, has concluded AGI/ASI is in striking distance. If he could somehow win the race, he becomes god (or so he thinks, anyway). And from the perspective of a man whose idol is Julius Caesar, what wouldn't you spend for that chance?

AYBABTME 1y ago
This seems like it lands in the "most uncharitable" side of the "guess why someone is doing something I don't understand" spectrum. My razors tell me this is usually not the most plausible answer.