I certainly didn't interpret as him disagreeing with his statement "I mean I have like lots of selfish reasons for doing this"
It's the "as you've said" part of "as you've said I get like all the power of running OpenAI" that would make me inclined to think what you wrote here.
But I do think there's a greater chance that he is saying that he does like the power.
There's also another quote either in this video or the other one I shared I think where he's asked why he's doing this, or what motivates him, or something like that, and he responds with something like "I'd be lying if I didn't say I really like the power"
"I mean I have like lots of selfish reasons for doing this and as you've said I get like all the power of running OpenAI, but I can't think of anything more fulfilling to work on and I don't think it's particularly altruistic, it would be if I didn't already have a bunch of money, yeah, the money is gonna pile up faster than I can spend it"
Some other fascinating and relevant stuff in that video too.
Here are a couple I could find in notes I took while listening to podcasts, though there are more -
“I get like all of the power of running OpenAI”
“I don’t think it’s particularly altruistic. Like it would be if I didn’t already have a bunch of money. The money is gonna pile up faster than I can spend it anyway.”
However, there seems to be a decent amount of evidence that Sam has done exactly what you're talking about.
He manipulated and was "not consistently candid" with the board, he got all the OpenAI employees to support him in his power struggles, he made them afraid to stand up to him (https://x.com/tobyordoxford/status/1727631406178672993?s=20), he exhibited delusions (though I guess they were correct) of grandeur with pg with a glint in his eye making clear to pg that he wanted to take over yc, he did little things like made it seem that he was cool with Eliezer Yudkowsky with a photo op but didn't really chat with him, etc.
Again, I am not sure this perspective is necessarily right (and I may be convinced just because he's such an effective psychopath).
In this case I think I just mean more effective at seeming good to others.
I think they both believe they are good and doing good.
People tend to be more suspicious of Mark Zuckerberg's motives than Sam Altman's.
Sam Altman himself even said he can't be trusted but that was ok because of the company structure and then, when he needed to, overpowered that structure he claimed was necessary: https://x.com/tobyordoxford/status/1727624526450581571?s=20
pg talks about how Sam Altman is the most powered person he's ever met. Seems we have a super powerful psychopath running perhaps the most important company in human history.
I do think he legitimately believes he's doing the right thing though all throughout, which maybe makes it more scary.
Sorta like how Mark Zuckerberg seemed to truly believe in Facebook's mission and wound up having all sorts of negative externalities for the world. Mark Zuckerberg just isn't quite as effective as Sam Altman, and it's easier to be suspicious of his motives.
Not to say that psychopaths are necessarily bad. Peter in Ender's Shadow turned out great!
But it does seem dangerous for 1 person to hold so much power over the future of humanity.
Sam Altman's reasoning for him having all the power, I think, is that “short timelines and slow takeoff is likely the safest quadrant of the short/long timelines and slow/fast takeoff matrix.”
If you believe that and believe that Sam Altman having complete control of OpenAI is the best way to accomplish that, everything seems fine.
I'd personally have preferred trying to optimize for long timelines and a slow takeoff too, which I think might have been doable if we'd devoted more resources to neglected approaches to AI alignment–like enhancing human capabilities with BCI and other stuff like that.
ONSITE on Abbot Kinney, Venice Beach, LA Los Angeles (but grandfathered in remote across the US for now too). & ONSITE or REMOTE in Florianópolis, Brazil.
AE Studio is looking for more senior full stack devs to join our team of awesome developers and data scientists. We build products for startups and large companies like Samsung, and work on cool stuff in house.
We have a pretty fun team of developers, data scientists, designers and PMs. We build products for startups like Protocol Labs and large companies like Samsung and EA, and work on cool stuff in house. We’re particularly passionate about building products that increase human agency.
We sold our first serious skunkworks project to an acquiring company last year and that bodes fairly well for the model we're pioneering where you start out doing client work, grow personally and professionally, and then move into senior leadership for the company (we're growing a lot), or start your own skunkworks project that eventually spins out as its own business, with the resources of AE to support you and great team members to tap on and practice being cofounders with before committing.
Gotta have:
- JavaScript, React experience
- Either Node or Rails experience. Or both!
- Clean Code, Product Focused Development
- Real agile experience (work with things like Kanban, Scrum, Extreme Programming)
- Growth mindset http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck)
Bonus Points for:
- Experience managing clients and client relationships
- Startup experience
- Mobile development
- React Native, Swift
https://ae.studio/ai-alignment