Great post. Sam Altman and his ilk have made it their mission to destroy the working man and democracy - and they don’t even TRY to hide it! It’s their whole thing!
While I don’t believe the snake oil hype… AI firms stand to make many more billions by destroying millions of jobs and exacerbating inequality, are working to undermine our intellect and sell it back to us, are polluting the planet, developing tech to surveil us and charge us more... It’s hardly surprising that working people have had enough!
Reminds me of the Sam Kirchner situation. This is one of the MANY reasons I can’t stand AI Companies, nor can I stand AI Doomers. Ever day people hear the words from these people:
“AI/AGI/The Singularity is near! It’s coming for your jobs! IT’LL KILL US ALL!!!”
And then people go and do this. I personally don’t believe any of the words the Doomers or the Boosters say…but others do. It has to stop before more people get hurt, afraid of an apocalypse dreamt up by Sci-Fi writers and Venture Capitalists. I do hope that one day people will realize how truly dangerous the Doomers and Boosters are.
“I think AGI will arrive this year” They’ve been saying that since at least 2022. Still ain’t happened. Wanna give me a source that says that’ll happen aside from anything OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, or the guys who made “AI2027” has said?
I work with it every day in data engineering. The progress is absolutely bonkers. I don’t believe this because the Anthropic CEO said it, I believe it because I see it. The skepticism is old and tired. It’s like being skeptical of airplanes after the airplane was already invented. You now how they'd also been talking about the previous models helping to create the newer models (recursive self improvement?) They've basically achieved that. Instead of new model releases with moderate upgrades every 4-6 months, Anthropic is about to be releasing models with massive step changes every 1-2 months. You really do need to wake up.
So why now? Why not 4 years ago? Why not 40-years ago with ELIZA? What EXACTLY are you seeing right now that is “absolutely bonkers”. All the time Air Force officers who claim to have seen Aliens say, “If you saw what I’ve seen, you’d believe it.” Well I haven’t, and since they provide no proof except for grainy photographs and vivid eyewitness testimony (Notoriously unreliable), I don’t believe.
Also, to your claim, there are dozens of people writing about why AGI isn’t coming and they give compelling arguments. Energy requirements, the end of Moore’s law, and (If you believe in Conscious AI) the fact that we don’t know what consciousness is.
So, I ask you again, WHY EXACTLY DO YOU BELIEVE?
(Also not to be an ass, you are one person who I’ve never met who claims to work in Data Engineering. I think I should take your view with a fistful of salt when even people like Yann LeCunn or Ilya Sutskever believe that AGI isn’t coming soon.)
Because half a trillion dollars are being invested and all the top minds in computer science are working toward the same goal. We’ve seen this before. When we put all the smartest physicists in a room together and gave them a ton of money to make a nuclear bomb, they did it. When we needed a COVID vaccine within a year, we got all the best people in that field working on it with a bunch of funding. Same thing applies here. If your job is entirely done on a computer, you’re in trouble. Now. Not maybe in the future. Today.
Using the COVID-19 vaccine or the atomic bomb development as examples of how you and your brilliant buddies are gonna replicate consciousness would be funny, if it wasn't so idiotic.
AGI is not scientifically possible. The most compelling argument is Moore's law, which is coming to an end. The chips can only get so small!
We hardly understand how the human brain works, and you guys want us all to just "trust you" that you've somehow sidestepped every brain researcher's understanding of the brain and you're "so close" to replicating consciousness.... SURE lol
This is the most insightful/cut through all the bullshit piece I’ve ever read about AI. Altman matches Trump as a bs artist/mafia boss. Has no clue he is among the most evil and therefore most hated human beings on the planet. I shared this piece with someone whose middle-management job is being insanely pressured—prove how you are using AI to be x percent more productive. The key thing to remind people who don’t get what this is about is that the goal of AI is to reduce the economic value of humans to zero. Brian—thank you for what you do!
The other thing about Altman's comment "Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it" is that he hasn't seen AGI and never will unless OpenAI abandons its LLMs + scale approach.
What is it about these guys and buying all the mansions around their mansions? Are they creating some kind of anti-surveillance perimeter? Do they need extra houses for “the help”? Are the spare houses personal mini-server-farms? Are they secretly building underground lairs and can’t risk having neighbors who might see “too much”?
The corporations think that extreme automation will make them all this money, until they realize that the people getting laid off are actually their customers, who can now no longer afford their products. I bought a Microsoft laptop last year. If I did not have a job, I would not have been able to do that. Yet Microsoft's CEO gleefully talks about how all white collar jobs will be gone in a year. It's insane.
Sadly, TPTB have SO much illegal drug money to launder that they actually don't need customers. This has been going on for decades--explains how Walmart can afford to under-sell all the local competition until those companies turn belly-up.
They've been fucking around for years, it was only a matter of time that somebody thought they should start finding out. Desperate people do desperate things.
Bang on correct as always. And Sama is so uniquely full of shit too, as all these VC backed wormoids are, in their breathless telling of how they want to democratize access to the opportunity that AI represents--meanwhile there's still tens of millions of Americans who STILL don't even have access to 5G home internet. That is problem which one tenth of the money invested in the genAI boom could fix FOREVER and would kickstart an intellectual and entreprenurial revolution here in America if it was fixed, and yet Sama and his ilk spend exactly zero energy in it because it's not FutureTM enough for them.
Just my PoV, but your narrative is part of the problem. Altman's communication, taken at face value, offer solutions to the economic impact of AI. You seem highly unable to entertain that he may be genuine.
If he's serious about wealth redistribution, he can give some of his own money away to people laid off for AI. He can also stop funding bills that make AI companies immune from prosecution in the event their products cause mass death.
Did you miss the New Yorker exposé on how Sam Altman is a notorious liar/manipulator and says whatever he thinks people want to hear? This is more evidence of Sam Altman saying what he thinks people want to hear. In this case, the many millions of people who understandably hate his guts.
I find it VERY easy to understand why people would do these things. And I question the utility of these actions, but..if I were called for jury duty for one of these events, I'd probably lie--which I never do--to get on the jury, so I could tell the other jurors about nullification and the necessity defense (which is never allowed in the US).
In particular, and especially being in West Virginia, I understand the nub of the rage that drives people to such acts: being told, in effect, that you have no agency, that democracy has been repealed, that you can make public comments but what the big corporations and billionaires want they get, they're simply entitled, and local people have the same say as local mice.
The other thing is that the fact that the people pushing this are making little effort to snow us on the supposed benefits, suggests that they are assuming they will soon be able to stop pretending that we have a democracy, that there is rule of law--it suggests they envision a near future in which they can just send armed drones after whoever seriously resists their dystopian vision.
I can NOT wait until Open AI and Anthropic go out of business from all the money they're hemorrhaging and a product no one wants! The competition is pretty fierce but Altman might be the worst person in the world.
Another amazing BITM column. Best $50 I spent this year!!
Great post. Sam Altman and his ilk have made it their mission to destroy the working man and democracy - and they don’t even TRY to hide it! It’s their whole thing!
While I don’t believe the snake oil hype… AI firms stand to make many more billions by destroying millions of jobs and exacerbating inequality, are working to undermine our intellect and sell it back to us, are polluting the planet, developing tech to surveil us and charge us more... It’s hardly surprising that working people have had enough!
Reminds me of the Sam Kirchner situation. This is one of the MANY reasons I can’t stand AI Companies, nor can I stand AI Doomers. Ever day people hear the words from these people:
“AI/AGI/The Singularity is near! It’s coming for your jobs! IT’LL KILL US ALL!!!”
And then people go and do this. I personally don’t believe any of the words the Doomers or the Boosters say…but others do. It has to stop before more people get hurt, afraid of an apocalypse dreamt up by Sci-Fi writers and Venture Capitalists. I do hope that one day people will realize how truly dangerous the Doomers and Boosters are.
Yes 100%, meant to mention Kirchner's case as well. Thanks for noting it here.
I don't know about "The Singularity," but it's absolutely coming for your jobs and I think AGI will arrive this year
“I think AGI will arrive this year” They’ve been saying that since at least 2022. Still ain’t happened. Wanna give me a source that says that’ll happen aside from anything OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, or the guys who made “AI2027” has said?
I work with it every day in data engineering. The progress is absolutely bonkers. I don’t believe this because the Anthropic CEO said it, I believe it because I see it. The skepticism is old and tired. It’s like being skeptical of airplanes after the airplane was already invented. You now how they'd also been talking about the previous models helping to create the newer models (recursive self improvement?) They've basically achieved that. Instead of new model releases with moderate upgrades every 4-6 months, Anthropic is about to be releasing models with massive step changes every 1-2 months. You really do need to wake up.
So why now? Why not 4 years ago? Why not 40-years ago with ELIZA? What EXACTLY are you seeing right now that is “absolutely bonkers”. All the time Air Force officers who claim to have seen Aliens say, “If you saw what I’ve seen, you’d believe it.” Well I haven’t, and since they provide no proof except for grainy photographs and vivid eyewitness testimony (Notoriously unreliable), I don’t believe.
Also, to your claim, there are dozens of people writing about why AGI isn’t coming and they give compelling arguments. Energy requirements, the end of Moore’s law, and (If you believe in Conscious AI) the fact that we don’t know what consciousness is.
So, I ask you again, WHY EXACTLY DO YOU BELIEVE?
(Also not to be an ass, you are one person who I’ve never met who claims to work in Data Engineering. I think I should take your view with a fistful of salt when even people like Yann LeCunn or Ilya Sutskever believe that AGI isn’t coming soon.)
Because half a trillion dollars are being invested and all the top minds in computer science are working toward the same goal. We’ve seen this before. When we put all the smartest physicists in a room together and gave them a ton of money to make a nuclear bomb, they did it. When we needed a COVID vaccine within a year, we got all the best people in that field working on it with a bunch of funding. Same thing applies here. If your job is entirely done on a computer, you’re in trouble. Now. Not maybe in the future. Today.
Using the COVID-19 vaccine or the atomic bomb development as examples of how you and your brilliant buddies are gonna replicate consciousness would be funny, if it wasn't so idiotic.
AGI is not scientifically possible. The most compelling argument is Moore's law, which is coming to an end. The chips can only get so small!
We hardly understand how the human brain works, and you guys want us all to just "trust you" that you've somehow sidestepped every brain researcher's understanding of the brain and you're "so close" to replicating consciousness.... SURE lol
This is the most insightful/cut through all the bullshit piece I’ve ever read about AI. Altman matches Trump as a bs artist/mafia boss. Has no clue he is among the most evil and therefore most hated human beings on the planet. I shared this piece with someone whose middle-management job is being insanely pressured—prove how you are using AI to be x percent more productive. The key thing to remind people who don’t get what this is about is that the goal of AI is to reduce the economic value of humans to zero. Brian—thank you for what you do!
cheers Brian!
The other thing about Altman's comment "Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it" is that he hasn't seen AGI and never will unless OpenAI abandons its LLMs + scale approach.
Clarifying and direct. Thank you, Brian.
cheers Ken
Your best write ever to date that I’ve read. Fight the power!
cheers Steve!
What is it about these guys and buying all the mansions around their mansions? Are they creating some kind of anti-surveillance perimeter? Do they need extra houses for “the help”? Are the spare houses personal mini-server-farms? Are they secretly building underground lairs and can’t risk having neighbors who might see “too much”?
Sam Altman has Elizabeth Holmes energy. Once you see it, you can't unsee it
The corporations think that extreme automation will make them all this money, until they realize that the people getting laid off are actually their customers, who can now no longer afford their products. I bought a Microsoft laptop last year. If I did not have a job, I would not have been able to do that. Yet Microsoft's CEO gleefully talks about how all white collar jobs will be gone in a year. It's insane.
Sadly, TPTB have SO much illegal drug money to launder that they actually don't need customers. This has been going on for decades--explains how Walmart can afford to under-sell all the local competition until those companies turn belly-up.
They've been fucking around for years, it was only a matter of time that somebody thought they should start finding out. Desperate people do desperate things.
Bang on correct as always. And Sama is so uniquely full of shit too, as all these VC backed wormoids are, in their breathless telling of how they want to democratize access to the opportunity that AI represents--meanwhile there's still tens of millions of Americans who STILL don't even have access to 5G home internet. That is problem which one tenth of the money invested in the genAI boom could fix FOREVER and would kickstart an intellectual and entreprenurial revolution here in America if it was fixed, and yet Sama and his ilk spend exactly zero energy in it because it's not FutureTM enough for them.
Just my PoV, but your narrative is part of the problem. Altman's communication, taken at face value, offer solutions to the economic impact of AI. You seem highly unable to entertain that he may be genuine.
If he's serious about wealth redistribution, he can give some of his own money away to people laid off for AI. He can also stop funding bills that make AI companies immune from prosecution in the event their products cause mass death.
Did you miss the New Yorker exposé on how Sam Altman is a notorious liar/manipulator and says whatever he thinks people want to hear? This is more evidence of Sam Altman saying what he thinks people want to hear. In this case, the many millions of people who understandably hate his guts.
I'm just so relieved it wasn't Guido
I find it VERY easy to understand why people would do these things. And I question the utility of these actions, but..if I were called for jury duty for one of these events, I'd probably lie--which I never do--to get on the jury, so I could tell the other jurors about nullification and the necessity defense (which is never allowed in the US).
In particular, and especially being in West Virginia, I understand the nub of the rage that drives people to such acts: being told, in effect, that you have no agency, that democracy has been repealed, that you can make public comments but what the big corporations and billionaires want they get, they're simply entitled, and local people have the same say as local mice.
The other thing is that the fact that the people pushing this are making little effort to snow us on the supposed benefits, suggests that they are assuming they will soon be able to stop pretending that we have a democracy, that there is rule of law--it suggests they envision a near future in which they can just send armed drones after whoever seriously resists their dystopian vision.
I can NOT wait until Open AI and Anthropic go out of business from all the money they're hemorrhaging and a product no one wants! The competition is pretty fierce but Altman might be the worst person in the world.
Another amazing BITM column. Best $50 I spent this year!!
Call me paranoid, but I wouldn't put it past TPTB to hire psyop actors to "attack" them, to give them victim or even martyr status....