[mindwok]

Jeez, I'm a Sam Altman skeptic but this is just another level. How about instead of attacking this guy and literally deconstructing a single-sentence tweet to make him out as an evil bogeyman, we make some constructive arguments for these so-called 'more reliable' ways of building AI and why the current approach is 'deeply flawed'?

[mindcrime]

> we make some constructive arguments for these so-called 'more reliable' ways of building AI and why the current approach is 'deeply flawed'?

FWIW, Gary Marcus wrote an entire book[1] that, from what I can tell, purports to do that. I have not read the book (yet) so I can't personally attest to how well it meets that goal, but at least be aware that it exists.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte...

[artninja1988]

Tldr. is that he's vaguely arguing for neuro symbolic ai without proposing anything specific that's implementable let alone building it himself. It's just snarky pointing out flaws and kvetching at people who actually build stuff with him.

[benterix]

I read the article and oddly enough I have to admit I share some of its vibe. You see, when Sama was on his previous tour, I expected to learn something interesting regarding the future of LLMs. Instead, the gu talks for hours on how they are making a new cryptocurrency, and have a plan to scan the retinas of all humans on Earth and so on. Seriously, it was a very weird and unsettling experience.

In any case, it was clear that he doesn't care at all about the "Open" part of OpenAI and that he sees a future where everybody use OpenAI services rather than having their own, powerful private models. I'd say our interests are very much in opposition.

[motbus3]

I don't like the method but I do also think that this guy is a borderline-scammer. There are tons of things he should not say about the technology OpenAI develops that he intentionally does to create hype, even if it is irresponsible.

But the worst to me, by far, is to make OpenAI a for-profit organisation that does not release the models. More than that, he ordered to kill official support for other projects like OpenGym and others. The impact of this change does not matter. It is dishonest and possibly has some level of illegality in it. He is literally surfing the hype as did the crypto guys.

[ronsor]

As someone else who is not an Altman fan and generally skeptical of people pushing weird AGI scenarios:

I do not think Gary Marcus has anything interesting to say about current AI, and by that, I mean anything that's not a cheap gotcha, restatement of an obvious fact, or something entirely disingenuous.

[godelski]

In a similar boat, and I find Marcus weird. Initially I thought he had some valid complaints but the more and more I heard the more he was pushing it into unreasonable territory (maybe he started more rational and went off the deep end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

This is a problem I have with a lot of people in the AI safety or criticism space. There's a lot to criticize LLMs and AI for. There are a lot of real and concerning things that can cause real world harm, with systems we have __now__. But attacking him or any of the AI doomer/X-risk stuff just muddies the waters and makes those real conversations near impossible to have. Just primes people the wrong way. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'm not surprised by people that think these two groups are on the same side. Just seems like a lot of attention seeking and we can fight the hype without creating a different kind of hype...

[nvy]

Sam Altman is the poster child of the silicon valley techbro (derogatory).

He and his orbiters have done real an irreparable harm to the Internet while profiting enormously from unlicensed copyrighted works (aka piracy).

"Open" "AI" is pure hypocrisy, an embodiment of the two parallel sets of rules: one for the commons and one for the elite.

Sama deserves more than a little pushback on and scrutiny of his claims.

[VelesDude]

> He and his orbiters have done real an irreparable harm to the Internet

He and his orbiters have done real an irreparable harm to the ecosystem by pushing such intense compute systems unthinkingly.

[nvy]

You mean the environment? Absolutely.

We can't have discussion of that on HN, though, so the moderator has flagged it.

[FreakLegion]

Users flagged it.

[nvy]

I stand corrected.

I still despise the HN policy of "no criticism of tech CEOs" whether official or otherwise.

Try to say something bad about Steve Jobs? Nah that's not "curious conversation".

Whatever.

[FreakLegion]

It wasn't flagged for being critical of Altman, though. There are long, critical discussions of Altman here all the time. It was flagged because Gary Marcus is fast descending into provocateur-ish nutterdom and the article is, quite simply, poorly constructed rage bait.

About your own two downvoted posts: They probably aren't downvoted for the reasons you think! Your opinions are pretty widely shared here. A lot of people agree with you about the copyright issue, about the farcical non-openness of OpenAI, and about the environmental stakes. It's the other bits (insults, complaints about moderation) we can do without.