A deep dive into the founding of DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic, as many of their backers feared the risks of advanced AI but wanted the power to shape it
The people who were most afraid of the risks of artificial intelligence decided they should be the ones to build it.
New York Times
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Discussion
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@lorakolodny
Lora Kolodny
on threads
By the way all the hagiography about OpenAi & Musk is annoying. He apparently thought they were goin nowhere. So he bailed after poaching a top engineer/researcher over to Tesla. That guy, Andrej Karpathy, later quit Tesla & returned to OpenAi. Now, OpenAi is huge & Tesla may…
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on threads
The existential risk comes from the goal of wanting to replace human decision making with computers. If your goal is to have LLMs running the stock market, health insurance system, criminal justice or military weapons then you have an existential risk. …
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on threads
I think there's something attractive to techies of framing the OpenAI drama as noble hearted researchers wanted to do charitable work “for humanity” and greedy business people wanted to monetize their ideas. In a world where working in big tech is synonymous with selling out, it…
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@steve_inskeep
Steve Inskeep
on threads
This is an extraordinary work of narrative journalism about what's been happening the last several years while most of us were focused on other things. https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@jeffjarvis
Jeff Jarvis
on threads
Jeesh. An artificial intelligence writes about artificial intelligence as Dowd sides with Musk over AI... Sam Altman, Sugarcoating the Apocalypse https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social
Taylor Lorenz
on mastodon
Zero women in this list https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@garymarcus
Gary Marcus
on x
OpenAI's Greg Brockman to @maureendowd , 2016; “It's not enough just to produce this technology and toss it over the fence and say, ‘OK, our job is done. Just let the world figure it out.’” OpenAI to the world, with it's GPT-4 system card, 2023: Yeah, this could be really bad,...
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@rmac18
Ryan Mac
on x
This is just one incredible detail from the massive heave on the history of modern AI from my colleagues on the NYT tech desk. In 2017, Elon Musk sought to push Open AI to go faster and pursue the exact commercialization that he's criticizing today. https://www.nytimes.com/... [i…
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@modestproposal1
@modestproposal1
on x
Fantastic anecdote «Mr. Musk explained that his plan was to colonize Mars to escape overpopulation and other dangers on Earth. Dr. Hassabis replied that the plan would work — so long as superintelligent machines didn't follow and destroy humanity on Mars, too. Mr. Musk was spee…
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@jessicalessin
Jessica Lessin
on x
The “masters of the universe” approach to tech coverage is never the real story. It is the made for Hollywood version but it miss so much. Sad to see it coming back in style. https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@lessin
@lessin
on x
Good NYT survey of history of AI in silicon valley... mostly right by my understanding with maybe a few bits i have heard differently. don't miss key callouts around “people who are most worried also trying to build it and profit” and “cult analogies” [image]
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@beenwrekt
Ben Recht
on x
How, between bong rips, two billionaires created an irrational investment bubble in the advertising oligopoly.
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@bmorrissey
Brian Morrissey
on x
I'd cop to being a “speciesist.” Seems a sensible position. https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
to understand how we got to where artificial intelligence is top of the tech agenda for every megacorp and geopolitical body today, you need to go back... Ego, Fear and Money: How the A.I. Fuse Was Lit by @CadeMetz, @KYWeise, @nicoagrant and me https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@ylecun
Yann LeCun
on x
What this NYT article tells us about the genesis of the new AI industry is that there was a lot of drama at Google, DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Comparatively, the creation of FAIR was straightforward and drama free. https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@ceciliakang
Cecilia Kang
on x
“Mr. Page insisted his utopia should be pursued. Finally he called Mr. Musk a ‘speceist’. That insult, Mr. Musk said later, was ‘the last straw.’” MUST READ: Epic piece by @CadeMetz @KYWeise @nicoagrant @MikeIsaac https://www.nytimes.com/...