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Comment by whatisthiseven | Hacker News Reader

Yes, Sam Altman is a known liar and cheat. With hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, the simplest answer is these are publicity stunts to grow revenue before an IPO.

I mean, really, if they were so dangerous, like "everyone" working in these companies believes, you think they would do more than amateur hour to build sandboxes?

The danger stunt is also a major distraction from talking about the real quality issues of LLMaS (LLMs as a Service). How many tokens are consumed? What quality? Was I downgraded?

By forcing the discussion about doomerism, they avoid real discussions about their service. Which is exactly what they want. You can bet when they go to "regulate" LLMs, they won't be asking the department of weights and measures to validate they are counting tokens fairly. No.

Maximum skepticism should be employed.

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This is kind of like saying the warnings about cancer on cigarettes, or oil spills, are regulatory capture because the tobacco and oil companies think it makes them look cool.

They really do think AI is very dangerous and can end the world!

And they are the “only ones” responsible enough to have this power. What an amazing coincidence!

I mean that's just standard rent seeking behavior. The fact they want a little digital god in a box doesn't mean that

1. You should have a digital god in a box.

2. They should have a digital god in a box.

3. Digital gods in a box will ever be safe for anyone.

Then they should shut their doors and delete it all. This is like building a new gun as you tell everyone about how dangerous guns are and how they will destroy all of us. It cannot be so imminently dangerous/uncontrollable while also being the product your business happily makes and unleashes online to take down websites/violate federal law. You can't pretend you care while also happily sicking it on the public.

> This is like building a new gun as you tell everyone about how dangerous guns are and how they will destroy all of us.

That's correct, that is what they think they're doing. It's based on a new religion invented by Big Yud which says we have to invent good computer gods or else there won't be anyone around smart enough to fight evil computer gods.

It is possible (likely) this was a bad idea, but you can't undiscover math once it's discovered. And it did work out last time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction

…so far, anyway.

But there are a dozen other people also building the same kind of guns, so unilaterally abandoning your version won't actually avert disaster. All it does is take you out of the running for the the $10 trillion prize that's available if you figure out how to build it without killing everyone.

I get that logic even if I don’t buy it. But it doesn’t mean they need to keep unleashing it and breaking things. They’re literally doing the things they’re warning us will happen. They’re deliberately attacking infrastructure/websites.

Not saying I agree with it, but that makes some sort of sense from a certain perspective. If their goal is to get international governments to intervene and regulate everyone, then it's better to set off small nuclear bombs rather than wait until we have planet-killers.

“If” doing a lot there. I don’t think we’ve seen any indicators this is altruistic. Hence my complaint that they keep unleashing their models in unethical/illegal/generally harmful ways. They need to act more responsibly if I’m going to remotely entertain that argument as even a possibility. Instead it just reads like they want the state to build a moat for them.

Thats the irrational logic of a psychopath, to be blunt.

> I mean, really, if they were so dangerous, like "everyone" working in these companies believes, you think they would do more than amateur hour to build sandboxes?

Unfortunately, lol no. Incompetence and recklessness have no bottom. (Which is not to say Altman is trustworthy).

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