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Comment by UncleMeat | Hacker News Reader

We can look at their actions, in particular their efforts to influence public policy.

Seriously. They can say they want to share their gains all they want, but I don't see them spending any lobbying money on things like universal income (and if Altman can afford to lobby for age verification laws he can certainly afford to lobby for things that actually benefit society). The reality is they don't lobby for anything that would take wealth away from them, and any redistribution of wealth (such as a s 75% tax rate) would by definition take wealth away from them.

You can, but then what? Do you judge what they say as if their perspective is the same as yours, and then conclude from that context that what they suggest could only come from an evil person. That seems to be what a lot of people do. What if they actually think what they are suggesting is the best thing for the world? How can you tell what is in their minds?

Alternately you could criticise their arguments instead of the people, and suggest an alternative.

I'm also not entirely certain that influencing public policy is something that is inherently bad. I know if I were deaf, I would like to have some influence on public policy about deafness issues.

The idea that we cannot possibly use people's actions to judge them is ridiculous. Musk thinks that the world would be a better place if the races were separated and if all charitable giving was ended. I think that's monstrous.

Why is OpenAI not a nonprofit anymore?

Judge people by actions not what they say.

You are arguing the opposite, that we should judge by what they say and not what they do?

The problem is that people have a million stories to explain the observed actions, most of those stories are bullshit, and people repeating them know fuck all about the decision-space in which these actions were chosen and taken.

Hm. I guess we can't possibly judge the guy who threw the molotov cocktail. He could have been clearing a wasps nest.

This is a accidentally good example, we don't know what motivated him, while your ridiculous reason is unsound because it would be also a bad thing to do if he were clearing a wasps nest on someone else's property in the middle of the night.

I suspect that they are not a bad person but someone radicalised by the media they consume.

Firebombing someone's house is a bad thing to do. It doesn't mean they are necessarily a bad person. Anger and confusion can make good people do bad things.

I don't care if Altman is secretly a good person. I care very deeply that he is taking actions to harm the world in grievous ways and is not doing any visible thing to mitigate the extreme damage he will do.

"Altman is secretly a good guy" doesn't pay people's mortgages.

I doubt it nets positive or even cancels out the damage, but if we're taking a fuller picture, then we shouldn't also assume Altman / other AI company CEOs are "taking actions to harm the world in grievous ways" for shits and giggles, or for large payday. Despite what skimming HN would make one believe, AI tools are actually useful in science, technology, and all kinds of productive work.

So the silver lining is this - they're not risking to burn the world down for porn or bitcoin, but for general improvement in everything across the board, that happens to have an unfortunate side effect of destroying value of labor.

I don't think that Altman is a Dr. Evil level villain who just wants to hurt people. I instead think that he does not care about the damage he causes on his path to personal wealth and glory and I think that this is precisely as terrifying. I'm sure that the machines made of my corpse would be used for productive purposes too.

Altman probably won't torture my cats to death. What a guy.

Judge their actions, consider what they say as given in good faith and praise or criticize.

To judge the people is to pretend you know why they did or said something.

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