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Comment by baq | Hacker News Reader

good question! I don't really know, but you can tell it isn't money; he admitted that himself anyway and reportedly he has no equity in openai[0].

my optimistic hypothesis is he really wants to control AGI because he believes he can make a more efficient use of it than other people. he might even be right and that's what scares me, because I don't trust his measures of efficiency.

I'd rather not let my pessimistic fantasies run wild here.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/openai-ceo-sam-altman-didnt-...

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He’s so power hungry it’s kinda crazy. He’s also extremely effective at it, like a real machiavelli.

PG said the same- Never has he seen someone which such a capability to gain power.

> PG said the same- Never has he seen someone which such a capability to gain power.

He said Altman is extremely good at becoming powerful.[1] Did he say what you said also?

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...

It's going to be bitterly ironic when it turns out that it's not the AI, but some crazy human that wants to turn everyone/thing else into paperclips.

"Proven liar promises he's not in it for the money" doesn't seem like a very good refutation.

it's called "power" and money is merely a proxy of it.

we talk dollars all day long but we haven't quantified power nearly as well

It's the same bla as Elon.

Of course it's money. He is a billionaire. What do you think it's about?

1) more money is not necessarily a goal for these people - it's what for they want more money and why they believe they can spend it better than everyone else (regardless if they truly can)

2) in a post-AGI world money may be an obsolete concept

You know that money is a proxy for power.

A proxy yes. But not everyone leverages it that way. So it really depends. Some do just want to hoard as much as possible, others want to lobby, others want fame, others want legacy.

Money helps with all those, but will not passively do that stuff.

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