this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024

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273

Sam Altman accused of being shady about OpenAI’s safety efforts (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Wow, who would have thought?

It seems the AI hype is shrinking (or at least slowing down), since people are more and more critical of it: intellectual property, workers rights, power consumption, climate impacts, usefulness and more.

If you want more reading, I recommend these:

I can’t recommend Ed Zitron’s blog enough: Where’s your Ed at

He did an interview with Adam Conover a month ago, which was also really interesting.

The other blog I highly recommend is The Luddite, e.g. Why is there an AI hype?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (3 children)

To be honest, I hope you are right. I was never a fan of it, and seeing people get on the hype train made it feel even more like something that needs more time to cook

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What I dislike in hype trains is people who don't know fundamentals, but sincerely believe their hype is some game-changing invention, while I'm narrow-minded and plain stupid.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I like how we've seen the Humane AI pin, Rabbit R1 and that stupid Devin AI programmer.

The hype around their possibilities was so high. All of them were varying levels of scams.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

It has to be just barely persuasive enough to trigger the hunger for impossible magic.

When I was a kid, I would look for Matrix in computer games. Some sandbox where you can make anything with any laws of physics and as complex as possible and without thinking and it would run fast. It was, ahem, year 2005, computer graphics wouldn't look so realistic. Well, Second Life exists, but it's not alive, real humans come there and they are.

Now when there's a tool to make something appear close to right for AIs, there won't be a shortage of such scams just like there isn't with dick enlarging pills.

It might start to be considered stupid in the society, but in secret a lot of people not understanding the fundamentals will still fall for such scams. Just like with dick enlarging pills!

The dog is out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

You would think people would eventually figure out it's a scam but after watching scammers successfully use crypto over and over and over again, I'm not so sure.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The thing with hype trains is you get aboard or get left behind. Maybe they hype leads to a ghost town destination, but as a massive business you'd rather be on the train than not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

If you're early enough to actually benefit from the ride,

you're early enough to do some research, then benefit from the ride.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Not if it's a Ponzi scheme, no. If you are in time to make others suckers and possibly even profit, then yeah. But that's similar for all Ponzi schemes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

It was clear pretty fast that there were fundamental limits to the technology that many were very happy to ignore. They're trying to brute force it instead but ran out of force.

Reminds me of how deep learning also has fundamental issues but Musk is saying every year that next year full self driving using that tech will be done.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

Hating on it seems like the same hype train.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

I can also recommend Ed Zitron's blog, it's good stuff, very in-depth and lots of alternative sources.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The criticism is so automatic now that most of it is just bandwagon doomsaying hot air. So thanks for linking to some more interesting sources.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

You’re welcome!

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is not news, look at his grifter history

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

It may be not news for you (or for me), but it could be news for the average American geezer, :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

He is nothing but a narcissistic asshole.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago

I accused him of that years ago when he ripped apart their ethics team and showed his true colors. And between then and now he made every effort to solidify his shady image every step of the way.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago

Sam Altman accused of being shady.

That's all you really need to say.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

shocked pikachu

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Nothing shady, just no safety efforts except hollow words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

IMO Those LLM have nothing to offer. ChatGPT try to reproduce human intelligence and human creativity, but I would like an AI designed to increase human intelligence and creativity. This was already the opinion of Warren Brodey And Ilyenkov in the 70s.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

nothing

I disagree with that, I've found it useful for programming, travel, and fleshing out creative ideas. I would say it's limited and isn't a real replacement for a proper expert, but as an always available service there's certainly value.