12 ms·
I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are sole
by Imnimo 7mo ago
I think the problem for xAI is that it can really only hire two types of researchers - people who are philosophically aligned with Elon, and people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work, and those philosophies are often completely at odds with Elon. OpenAI and Anthropic have philosophical niches that are much better at attracting the current cream of the crop, and I don't really see how xAI can compete with that.
- PunchTornado 7mo agoSorry, but what is the philosophical niche of openai really? Obtain money at all cost? No red lined when using your modele in war? Work for scam altman?
- zeroCalories 7mo agoIt's worse than that. Elon is a notoriously bad employer, and the only people that put up with him were the people that shared his vision. Pretty much the only people that will work for him now are second rate researchers and people that think gooner AI and racism is a worthwhile mission.
- LZ_Khan 7mo agoAfter seeing the type of people he hired for doge.. yikes.
- GeorgeTirebiter 7mo agoKarparthy worked for Elon for, what, 5 years? How did he do it, if Elon is Ivan the Terrible?
- jazzpush2 7mo agoKarpathy makes great educational content. It's not clear what industry (or academic) research he did even now, five years later.
- cmorgan31 7mo agoMate, wouldn’t it make sense that these rules are applied via hierarchy? If Elon respects Karparthy he almost certainly gave him a longer leash and Karparthy’s output was strong enough to not warrant intervention. It’s clear he did not want to stay long term so I’m not sure this is a strong line of thinking.
- GeorgeTirebiter 7mo agoIt's possible. I don't know. My tone comes off as support Elon, and I do not, at all. I've seen first-hand almost all of these tactics while I was at <Elon Company>. I'm observing that some people seem to do OK at Elon's companies, and for many years, and never seem to get the boot or be abused in other ways. Therefore, Elon is probably not quite as bad a manager as he is made out to be. This is all I am saying. Since I have firsthand knowledge, I believe my opinion has value. Those that disagree? Show me your Source of Truth. Thank you.
- cmorgan31 7mo agoI don’t believe Elon is even remotely related to a people manager. He’s a stakeholder and operator which require different skill sets. He finds folks who will manage to o bring the empathy he tends to lose in his pursuit of his next project. I believe your evidence may be anecdotally valuable but let’s be clear about the dynamic of a founder/ceo.
- hooch 7mo agoWas doge ever anything more than a "get root, grab the data, and run" operation?
- joquarky 7mo agoIt's pretty obvious now.
- yoyohello13 7mo agoIt was obvious at the time too.
- pstuart 7mo agoDon't forget the destruction of USAID and countless projects that had the word "diversity" in its work.
- markdown 7mo agoI think more important than that was shutting down all investigations into Musk's companies.
- boc 7mo agoMaybe, but destroying USAID was an unforgivable sin. Short of nukes, rapidly turning off direct medical and food aid that people in critical need have relied on for years is objectively one of the fastest way to kill millions of people.
- vessenes 7mo agoThere's some texture here. Elon's enriched pretty much everybody who's ever worked for and invested with him. He makes money for people throughout his orgs. Many ex-employees have said to me: "incredible opportunity, made great money, worked insanely hard, once is plenty".
- jamespo 7mo agoThere's probably a lot of survivor bias going on there
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoAsk the people at Twitter..
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago> Ask the people at Twitter The ones with stock options in, now, SpaceX?
- sroussey 7mo agoPoor SpaceX employees whose options got diluted by Twitter. :/
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoStock options aren’t magic. I bet you that the remaining Twitter employees won’t see a higher comp than equivalent employees at BigTech companies between their cash + RSUs when SpaceX IPOs. Aren’t employees also subject to a lock out period where they still can’t sell their stock until $x number of months after an IPO unlike employees of public companies that can sell as soon as they vest? Honest question, I’ve worked for public $BigTech but haven’t been at a company pre IPO
- vibeprofessor 7mo ago[dead]
- ai_critic 7mo agoGooning and racism have been a cornerstone of humanity since we descended from the trees, for better or worse.
- refulgentis 7mo ago[dead]
- jazzpush2 7mo agoIn an interview with xAI I was literally told that certain parts of the model have to align with Elon, and that Elon can call us and demand anything at anytime. No thanks!
- jarrettcoggin 7mo agoFrom my time at Tesla, this is 100% the case. When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deliver the thing you were already working on against the original timeline before the interrupt.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- exe34 7mo agoyeah that wouldn't work for me. when my boss asks me to do something unexpected, I ask, what do you want me to drop this week? if he doesn't want to pick, I ask, so what do you want first?
- jarrettcoggin 7mo agoAgreed. Tesla taught me the hard way about work/life boundaries. I spent a lot of time working a full 8-9 hours during the day, then doing deployments during the nights, weekends, and on “vacations”. A 60-hour week was a “light” week at Tesla. Didn’t have kids or friends at the time and was going through a breakup, so I was okay with throwing myself at the job for a while. Once my situation got better, all those hours didn’t make as much sense, so I started looking for another job. The very next job was an immediate pay bump of 20% for half the amount of work. These days, I clearly restate what is being asked (per my understanding), what I’m currently working on, if the thing is being asked is more important or not, and if the requestor is willing to delay the original timeline by the amount of time the interrupt will take plus context switching time. Most often, the answer is no.
- dgxyz 7mo ago
- dan-robertson 7mo agoWhy does being a top AI researcher so often come with this philosophical bent you describe?
- hermanzegerman 7mo agoBecause they can afford it, they are very sought after. And smart people usually have moral convictions. I know for some people on this website it's hard to understand, but not everything in life is about $$$
- siva7 7mo agoI'm smart and you can buy my morals. So what?
- refulgentis 7mo agoSo what, indeed (not sure what you mean)
- hermanzegerman 7mo agoThose people get paid so much anyway that they don't have to compromise their morals. I guess that's not the case for you and me
- exe34 7mo agoso do oil and tobacco people, no?
- yoyohello13 7mo agoTrue, many smart people will gladly (or even begrudgingly) do evil for money. That's why there is so much suffering in the world, because of people like you.
- 0x3f 7mo agoIs ad tech and the like really causing so much suffering? The government work, mass surveilance, killing people etc. doesn't actually pay that much, typically.
- lich_king 7mo agoAnthropic, maybe, but what is the philosophical niche of OpenAI? Their only consistent philosophical position about AI is "let's make more money".
- tibbar 7mo agoI think OpenAI is more of an aesthetic. Very... Apple-like, polished, with an eye towards making really cool stuff. And aesthetics are a type of philosophy. This is less noble than how Anthropic presents themselves but still much more attractive to many than XAI.
- j_maffe 7mo ago> aesthetics are a type of philosophy. What philosophy is that?
- hoppyhoppy2 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics
- dbspin 7mo agoIt's literally called aesthetics, the philosophical approach is the original meaning of the word - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics Properly, focusing on aesthetics as an ethic would be practicing the philosophy of aestheticism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism
- tokioyoyo 7mo agoThe feeling on the street is that Anthropic IS the Apple of the AIs.
- tibbar 7mo agoCome now, surely Anthropic is a premium Linux distribution.
- mattbillenstein 7mo agoThis is becoming the problem with all of his businesses - Tesla has a crazy valuation and it really seems like they're having huge trouble getting Robotaxi going in Austin given the very slow progress there.
- etchalon 7mo agoVery few people down here want to ride in them, and I have multiple friends with hilariously disastrous stories. Most of the Waymo stories are "Well, it took 15 minutes to arrive, but then it was fine, if a little slow."
- boc 7mo agoWamyos in SF are nearly indistinguishable from ubers/lyfts at this point. Maybe a bit slower if you don't have the highway mode enabled on your account, but they are everywhere and arrive within 5min most of the time I order one. I've ridden them so often I've lost count. You'd have to pay me to ride in a Tesla robotaxi. That tech isn't anywhere near the same as Waymo.
- oceanplexian 7mo ago> But frontier AI research is a field with a lot of top talent who have strong philosophical motivation for their work The "top researchers" in AI are Chinese. And I am skeptical that they even remotely have the philosophical or political alignment you are attempting to project on to them. Neither is a letter published by a few disgruntled employees of a San Francisco based company any kind of evidence or form of consensus.
- squidbeak 7mo ago> The "top researchers" in AI are Chinese. And I am skeptical that they have even remotely the philosophical or political alignment you are attempting to project on to them. What an ugly trope. Idealism motivates Chinese workers just as often as any other nationality.
- oceanplexian 7mo agoIdealism of what? That the government shouldn't use AI for surveillance or the military? You really think the average Chinese worker thinks their government should stop working on AI because of liberal western values or something? This is nothing short of delusional.
- dminik 7mo agoI have my doubts that top Chinese AI researchers want to work for an AI company with direct tires to the white house and zero morals. Not for any great ethical concerns mind you. Simply because the US is a geological rival to China.
- TheEzEzz 7mo ago> The "top researchers" in AI are Chinese. And I am skeptical that they even remotely have the philosophical or political alignment you are attempting to project on to them. I assure you that Chinese researchers have a diversity of philosophical and political alignment, much the same as other researchers. I also assure you that top researchers as a whole are not all Chinese, though the ones that are that I know are all very thoughtful.
- yoyohello13 7mo ago> people who are solely money-motivated (not a judgment). Honestly, we should judge. There should be judgment for people who are solely money motivated and making the world a worse place. I know, blah blah privilege, something something mouths to feed. Platitudes to help the rich assholes sleep at night. If you are wealthy and making stuff that hurts people, you are a piece of shit and should be called out, simple.
- awesome_dude 7mo ago>> If you are wealthy Then.. you wouldn't be working...
- yoyohello13 7mo agoWhy is Elon still working then?
- awesome_dude 7mo agoAt the risk of drawing moderation ire.. When does Elon work?
- timacles 7mo agoHe works pretty hard to destabilize democracy
- rsynnott 7mo agoI'm not sure that posting deranged tweets at three in the morning _really_ qualifies as work.
- smith7018 7mo agoI completely agree. The tech industry has long been overrun by people sacrificing morals for money and it's destroyed society and presumably the world. We've given people a free pass to work for companies we've all known are harming the fabric of society and look where it's gotten us. I'm sorry, I would rather be poor and switch careers if my only option was xAI and making image generation models that explicitly allow people to undress others. At X's scale, technology like that harms an unfathomable amount of people. I could never have that on my conscience. All so I could make more money than a job at another tech company? I'd rather work somewhere innocuous like Figma, Cloudflare, Notion, Jetbains, Linear, etc. Hell, if you only wanted to work for an AI company then at least go to Anthropic.
- tyleo 7mo agoIt’s interesting because for a long time people wanted to work for Elon because he held the moral high ground. “I’ll bring electric cars and space colonization online or die trying.” It’s sad to see the shift.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- mdgrech23 7mo agoI can't say I know the AI research community well but I'd imagine OpenAIs alignment w/ the military would not align w/ the the personal philosophy of many.
- general_reveal 7mo agoWhat do you mean “philosophical”? Ethics and morals are not required, Elon can get whatever type of asshole he needs. Something else is up.
- kstrauser 7mo agoI’ve heard the haha-but-serious joke numerous times that you can’t have a security department that’s not trans and furry friendly. Thing is, I completely believe that. Those groups are disproportionately represented among the security community, and I personally would not work somewhere that my friends in those groups would feel unwelcome. That’s a quite common sentiment even among us straight cis non-furry men. Well, I don’t think it’s a stretch that the kind of highly educated data scientists and engineers who have the experience to work in high-end AI labs also don’t want to work somewhere that their friends and associates would feel unwelcome, let alone have their friends question why they’d be willing to. Turns out opinions have consequences and freedom of speech goes hand in hand with freedom of association. People have the right to say whatever they wish. Others have the right not to want to work with them.
- bobsmooth 7mo agoThat's only because autism is common amongst those groups and you can't build anything worthwhile these days without a lot of autism.
- kstrauser 7mo agoI don't believe that for a second. More likely, infosec tends to attract more results-oriented personalities. To generalize, "who cares what you look like as long as you're good?" As a consequence of that, infosec tends to be a lot more welcoming than other groups I've been around. As long as you act nicely, people generally don't care if you're man, women, both, neither, or a gay horse. And it seems like there's been a feedback loop over many years: that acceptance drew more out-of-the-norm folks, which made it more accepting. Lather, rinse, repeat. But in any case, I thoroughly believe the "joke": turn people away because they don't look / act / think like most others, and soon the very best infosec talent will want nothing to do with you. And based on this article, I'm guessing that's true for other extremely technical fields, too.
- sph 7mo agoThis is the first time I hear someone equate furries and trans with “results-oriented personalities.” [1] Not saying they necessarily are not, but it’s finding correlation where there absolutely isn’t one just to disagree with actual evidence. Yeah, I’m gonna go with Occam’s razor on this one. 1: where is the trans furries representation in senior management and other “results-oriented” fields?
- GardenLetter27 7mo agoThe main issue is the requirement for relocation tbh.
- tim-tday 7mo agoEven people who are purely money motivated have an instinct for self-preservation.