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OpenAI's Sam Altman to Brief UN Security Council Next Week
- ahartmetz 6d agoA great marketing opportunity for Grifty McGriftface.
- verdverm 6d agoA friend him called Uncle Sam Alternative-man, thought it was accurate and clever
- wg0 6d agoThe private equity debt time bomb is here. Then there is the bond market. And then guaranteed bust of AI bubble. 2000 billion dollars for a single company? That too when bottom of the boat has been drilled by open weight Chinese models that are cheaper and good enough but can even be deployed locally? In face of all that - that kind of return is not realistic. However - good gimmick scaring UN asking for a ban on Chinese models perhaps.
- tracerbulletx 6d agoThe UN is not a body that would be involved in banning models from a specific country, and even if they were China is one of 5 members with permanent veto power.
- stogot 6d agoThe permanent veto power is the worst part of the UN
- api 6d agoOnly way to justify those valuation is if they can achieve regulatory capture and outlaw competitors and open models. Expect the fear mongering to escalate to a fever pitch. The UN has no authority to ban anything but it's a good platform.
- einarfd 6d agoHe will probably tell them exactly what they want him to say. If he means it or not. That is hard to say.
- deleted 6d ago[deleted]
- mlnj 6d agoWhen has anyone faced scrutiny over their lies to these politicians?
- edoceo 6d agoIf governments regulate AI and make it slow down, does that let one get out of data center contracts?
- dgellow 6d agoIf OpenAI voids its spending commitment, the bubble has to pop. I know the market is irrational, but that would be the clearest top signal ever
- ares623 6d agoYes, except this way they can say it's not their fault nuh-uh mom said I don't have to pay you.
- edoceo 6d agoRight, that's what I'm thinking. These folk (ai operators) know they are overvalued, see the open model threats and the performance improvement on lower-end hardware. So, no need for all these data centers. The "force majure" or whatever that lets them exit those commitments. So all that accrual based revenue is gone. Is ads in the AI gonna drive that revenue valuation? Are buyers going to lock in contracts when a new model in 120 days is ever better and cheaper?
- ks2048 6d agoThe founder of Loopt is now ruling the world.
- cloche 6d agoThe guy had a failed startup and somehow leveraged that into the situation today.
- IncreasePosts 6d agoI imagine his time at ycombinator as Gríma Wormtongue whispering into theoden's(paulg's) ear
- wewewedxfgdf 6d agoI find it very hard to understand the things these AI CEO's say. He will probably get up there and say his companies products will destroy every citizen of their countries.
- laxd 6d agoShocking publicity is good publicity. And "my product is so potent it will probably destroy you." I think I´ve heard it from drug dealers as well.
- kelseyfrog 6d agoSmells of, "You can't handle my potions. They're too strong for you."[1] 1. https://genius.com/Justin-kuritzkes-potion-seller-annotated https://genius.com/Justin-kuritzkes-potion-seller-annotated
- EA-3167 6d agoIt’s a great way to sign up young men for military duty too, sell it to them like it’s something exciting and awesome… and they can’t handle it.
- amelius 6d agoWhy are we even discussing this here? Altman works in the alchemy sector, not the tech sector.
- addandsubtract 6d agoAs long as a post isn't sbout politics– oh wait.
- howunfortunate 6d agoPeople will say it's marketing but I find Occam's Razor highly favors the theory "they are true believers in AGI/ASI" This seems especially true for Anthropic employees.
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- pluc 6d agoHow's AI doing in Russia with all the sanctions and whatnot?
- free_bip 6d agoThey have access to all the same open models that the rest of the world does, so just fine I would think.
- deleted 6d ago[deleted]
- dgellow 6d agoThey also access American models via proxies. Same as China
- layer8 6d agoThey’re just using Claude: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/09/russia-weaponizing-us-built-ai-make-killer-drones-cyberattack-bots-and-fake-news/415949/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/09/russia-weaponi...
- ACCount39 6d agoThe AI industry in Russia is not doing well. Domestic AI models exist, but they aren't exactly high performers, and many of them are based on the open weight Chinese models - so there is very little reason to use them. IT power users run Western or Chinese models, often through proxies, VPNs or resellers. AI is being adopted and used, but if there was ever a chance of Russia being an AI power, it died in 2022. A few formerly-Russian IT companies had their "rainy day" HQs overseas, and leveraged them to slip the noose and leave Russia - brain draining what AI expertise was available in the country. See: Yandex -> Nebius.
- bogzz 6d agoThe LARP proceeds unabated.
- cpcabbge 6d agoWhy these bug eyed salamanders have any say at all for any of this is beyond me. He's a tech ceo who wants to make money, nothing more.
- hfc56 6d agoWho do you think designed central banks? Bankers or politicians or the plebs? These kind of meetings are to create common vocabulary/seed common frameworks across the world for problems all govts are seeing or expecting on the horizon.
- nba456_ 6d agoI thought you meant the UN at first and was about to agree. They should have no say about US tech.
- dyauspitr 6d agoHe’s rich, in charge of a pretty significant company that has made history and continues to do so.
- osiris970 6d agoAre we still pretending models aren't cyber capable, and will be an immense force for hacking? I expected this shit on reddit not here. You don't have to like Sam, and still not do this bullshit
- bogzz 6d agoThe fearmongering is based in the notion that the LessWrong fanfic is coming true as we speak, not LLMs being used as tools for hacking.
- arctic-true 6d agoUnfortunately focusing on the fanfic prevents everyone from focusing on the genuinely world-altering threat of cybersecurity becoming completely impossible for a while. But perhaps that’s the point, because you can be held liable for that, but not for the end of the world as there wouldn’t be any courts afterward.
- vinyl7 6d agoIt would be more believable if the AI companies success wasn't entirely dependent on regulatory capture
- newsclues 6d agohope he wear two collared shirts.
- jstummbillig 6d agoHN would be better if it did not produce disparaging comments in every thread that has Sam Altman on it. I get it. We dislike Sam. I got it 3? 4? years ago. Would be nice and more interesting if we could see past that at some point, given that he is a fairly important figure, doing important things, that would be cool to share interesting thoughts about.
- ares623 6d agoHere's a preview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGwz1s1E1aw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGwz1s1E1aw
- daveguy 6d agoPlease tell me they are going to have independent computer scientists and security experts to ask questions that expose the doomerism/"rationalist" LessWrong bullshit. Please don't just let him spew talking points designed to make a deflating bubble look like a good thing.
- nrmitchi 6d agoDoubtful. Almost definitely going to be taking direction from "business" people with misaligned and ulterior motives, rather than asking questions of people with long careers, research, and history in the field. Which is just... highly unfortunate.
- amelius 6d agoCan we put a ban on "technology" that we don't understand and fully control yet? (I put "technology" in quotes because it is closer to alchemy.)
- deleted 6d ago[deleted]
- Kuyawa 6d agoApocalypse, doom, chaos, children, china, regulation, taxes, in that order That's the whole presentation, saved you a couple of insufferable hours
- chrisXOXO 6d agoLaughted out loud
- Jamesbeam 5d agoWithout reform, the Security Council is an absolute joke. They exclude the global south from having a permanent seat at the table, and they need a veto reform. No resolution when they captured Maduro. Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022 and vetoed any Security Council action. 171 days into the Gaza conflict, they passed Resolution 2728, by that time, over 10,000 people had already been killed, and Israel’s immediate response was to announce it would ignore the resolution entirely. There were a lot of smaller-scale conflicts in the meantime, where the Security Council had a lot of meetings, but nothing ever happened. Altman could tell them to go fuck themselves and that he is specifically developing tools to kill any person in that room, and the US would just veto the Council from taking any action that could save their own life. That’s the kind of joke they have become.