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> ... I still kind of want to try to believe he's not. Asking genuinely - why?

by jjulius 5mo ago

hx8 5mo ago
What if it's actually super-intelligence and a human aligned visionary is at the helm. The good case is very good.
- latexr 5mo ago
  Come on… The guy who said he can’t imagine caring for his child without consulting ChatGPT… The guy who said he didn’t know how to make revenue with ChatGPT, and made a “soft promise” to investors they’d somehow achieve AGI then ask it how to make money… The guy who made a cryptocurrency scam that was banned in multiple countries… The guy who everyone around him says he’s a con artist and a sociopath… That guy? Really?
  - meowface 5mo ago
    Really. That guy. I'm afraid you're one side of the coin in https://paulgraham.com/fh.html https://paulgraham.com/fh.html. Paul himself would agree with me on that if he were to read your post.
    - latexr 5mo ago
      I’ve read enough Paul Graham to know he’s not someone whose opinion I care about or respect. He’s yet another rich guy tech bro out of touch with normal people who unfortunately has an army of wannabe tech and finance bro shills clinging to his every word like he’s some sort of sage. He’s not. He isn’t smarter than anyone else, he just has a bigger platform. I don’t abide by cults of personality, they’re a major reason everything is shit right now. They’re the fuel that perpetuates online and offline toxicity. Bragging that Paul Graham would agree with you is like bragging Will Smith or Kim Kardashian agrees with you: it’s not a badge of honour even if it’s true, and doesn’t make your argument stronger or mean you’re right. But since you value his opinion so much, perhaps you should inform yourself of what he has said about Altman, including “Sam had been lying to us all the time”.
      - meowface 5mo ago
        Paul has addressed this quote many times afterwards. But you've already said you don't care about his opinion, so it's not worth showing his explanation. He still likes Sam.
- estearum 5mo ago
  Uhh literally what is one thing Sam has done or said that demonstrates he's either human-aligned or visionary?
  - meowface 5mo ago
    I could write a giant response to this with dozens of quotes from him and others and various sources but you would just say it's all lies/posturing, so it would not be a good use of my time. I will say that him becoming one of the most prominent funders and promoters of UBI research/experiments 6 years before GPT-3 is probably not a coincidence, though. OpenAI releasing a paper a month ago strongly suggesting the US move towards a more socialist economic system to handle massive economic upheaval is also probably not a coincidence. He obviously founded OpenAI with the primary intent of making AI so that they could make it go well instead of poorly, and it going well means properly addressing mass unemployment, biosecurity risks, some degree of widely distributed access so that the very poorest get meaningful use of the exact same intelligence as what the very richest get to use, etc.
    - estearum 5mo ago
      This is what the most midwit milquetoast person in the country would try to do if they were in Sam's shoes and, like Sam, once they had a couple billion dollars dangled in front of them they'd abandon all regard for safety or distribution of wealth or whatever-else-they-thought-they-ought-to-care-about.
- saulpw 5mo ago
  I mean what if he's actually the second coming of Christ. We can make up "what if"s all day but it's meaningless to even discuss them if you don't have a shred of evidence to support the claim.
  - hx8 5mo ago
    Exactly. The second coming of Christ would be a very good case. Why people want to believe Altman is good is about the same reason people want to believe in the second coming.
    - hluska 5mo ago
      I’m really struggling to see how Christian apocalyptic ideas are even remotely relevant. We used to be capable of so much.
      - hx8 5mo ago
        So much of the AI Hype is religion encoded. It's relevant because the AI companies are invoking the ideas. If you go around telling people that AI is going to cure cancer, bring about global prosperity, and give you an uploaded immortality then you cannot be surprised when some people start thinking of it similarly to the second coming.
        meowface 5mo ago
        I'm consistently amused by the fact that there's still this weird faction of populists on even tech-oriented sites like HN and /r/programming and lobste.rs and Mastodon who have this almost antivax-level stance on AI. I'm not precisely sure what explains it, because many of them actually are smart people and good programmers. AI very likely will cure many cancers and very possibly (assuming combined with good politicians) will bring about global prosperity. A high percentage of AI company employees and executives and open source developers and researchers sincerely believe it will and so they say they believe it will. They have good reason to believe it, and they will likely be proven correct. If 400 (or 40, or 4) years pass and it's still mostly just creating spreadsheets, I will concede, though.
- deaton 5mo ago
  If he's our representative in the era of superintelligence, we are all screwed.
- yifanl 5mo ago
  If you give me a hundred dollars, I promise I'll come back tomorrow and hand you thirty trillion dollars.

> ... I still kind of want to try to believe he's not. Asking genuinely - why?

by jjulius 5mo ago

> ... I still kind of want to try to believe he's not. Asking genuinely - why?

hx8 5mo ago

What if it's actually super-intelligence and a human aligned visionary is at the helm. The good case is very good.

latexr 5mo ago
Come on… The guy who said he can’t imagine caring for his child without consulting ChatGPT… The guy who said he didn’t know how to make revenue with ChatGPT, and made a “soft promise” to investors they’d somehow achieve AGI then ask it how to make money… The guy who made a cryptocurrency scam that was banned in multiple countries… The guy who everyone around him says he’s a con artist and a sociopath… That guy? Really?
- meowface 5mo ago
  Really. That guy. I'm afraid you're one side of the coin in https://paulgraham.com/fh.html https://paulgraham.com/fh.html. Paul himself would agree with me on that if he were to read your post.
  - latexr 5mo ago
    I’ve read enough Paul Graham to know he’s not someone whose opinion I care about or respect. He’s yet another rich guy tech bro out of touch with normal people who unfortunately has an army of wannabe tech and finance bro shills clinging to his every word like he’s some sort of sage. He’s not. He isn’t smarter than anyone else, he just has a bigger platform. I don’t abide by cults of personality, they’re a major reason everything is shit right now. They’re the fuel that perpetuates online and offline toxicity. Bragging that Paul Graham would agree with you is like bragging Will Smith or Kim Kardashian agrees with you: it’s not a badge of honour even if it’s true, and doesn’t make your argument stronger or mean you’re right. But since you value his opinion so much, perhaps you should inform yourself of what he has said about Altman, including “Sam had been lying to us all the time”.
    - meowface 5mo ago
      Paul has addressed this quote many times afterwards. But you've already said you don't care about his opinion, so it's not worth showing his explanation. He still likes Sam.
estearum 5mo ago
Uhh literally what is one thing Sam has done or said that demonstrates he's either human-aligned or visionary?
- meowface 5mo ago
  I could write a giant response to this with dozens of quotes from him and others and various sources but you would just say it's all lies/posturing, so it would not be a good use of my time. I will say that him becoming one of the most prominent funders and promoters of UBI research/experiments 6 years before GPT-3 is probably not a coincidence, though. OpenAI releasing a paper a month ago strongly suggesting the US move towards a more socialist economic system to handle massive economic upheaval is also probably not a coincidence. He obviously founded OpenAI with the primary intent of making AI so that they could make it go well instead of poorly, and it going well means properly addressing mass unemployment, biosecurity risks, some degree of widely distributed access so that the very poorest get meaningful use of the exact same intelligence as what the very richest get to use, etc.
  - estearum 5mo ago
    This is what the most midwit milquetoast person in the country would try to do if they were in Sam's shoes and, like Sam, once they had a couple billion dollars dangled in front of them they'd abandon all regard for safety or distribution of wealth or whatever-else-they-thought-they-ought-to-care-about.
saulpw 5mo ago
I mean what if he's actually the second coming of Christ. We can make up "what if"s all day but it's meaningless to even discuss them if you don't have a shred of evidence to support the claim.
- hx8 5mo ago
  Exactly. The second coming of Christ would be a very good case. Why people want to believe Altman is good is about the same reason people want to believe in the second coming.
  - hluska 5mo ago
    I’m really struggling to see how Christian apocalyptic ideas are even remotely relevant. We used to be capable of so much.
    - hx8 5mo ago
      So much of the AI Hype is religion encoded. It's relevant because the AI companies are invoking the ideas. If you go around telling people that AI is going to cure cancer, bring about global prosperity, and give you an uploaded immortality then you cannot be surprised when some people start thinking of it similarly to the second coming.
      - meowface 5mo ago
        I'm consistently amused by the fact that there's still this weird faction of populists on even tech-oriented sites like HN and /r/programming and lobste.rs and Mastodon who have this almost antivax-level stance on AI. I'm not precisely sure what explains it, because many of them actually are smart people and good programmers. AI very likely will cure many cancers and very possibly (assuming combined with good politicians) will bring about global prosperity. A high percentage of AI company employees and executives and open source developers and researchers sincerely believe it will and so they say they believe it will. They have good reason to believe it, and they will likely be proven correct. If 400 (or 40, or 4) years pass and it's still mostly just creating spreadsheets, I will concede, though.
deaton 5mo ago
If he's our representative in the era of superintelligence, we are all screwed.
yifanl 5mo ago
If you give me a hundred dollars, I promise I'll come back tomorrow and hand you thirty trillion dollars.