I went to the Elizabeth Holmes trial for one day (one morning, actually, since it was boring). I don't think either is the correct analogy. Maybe Sematech? Enormous publicity, modest results.
To continue the WeWork comparison, Altman is more like Adam Nuemann than Holmes. They have both described themselves as Gods (though Neumann did this more literally) and see themselves as bringing about a new age for humanity even though their businesses are essentially disappointing and unsustainable. Coincidentally the suggestion that they are somehow superior beings is even in their names: alt man, neu man. Pretty sure they both look in the mirror and see an Übermensch.
The absence of label on the Y axis maybe tells you all you need to know.”“
Nonsense. “Victoria” is clearly the label on the Y axis on that graph.
It indicates the relative number of Victorias working at OpenAI when each new version of GPT was released.
It’s a good thing Sam Altman just got a $6.6 billion infusion from investors because the number of Victorias at OpenAI is obviously increasing exponentially and a lot of cash will be needed for all their salaries and benefits.
I'm not sure WeWork or Theranos is the right category to think about. It's perhaps closer to kayfabe or what Eric Weinstein called Gated Institutionalized Narrative. No matter what any "detractor" says, the mainstream rushes ahead, likely over the cliff. "Within the next ten years we will have fusion energy. The next larger particle accelerator will finally help us unlock all the secrets of the universe. If not we simply build a larger one." Did we say AGI? What we really meant was probably perhaps in a sense more like Artificial General Quasi Intelligence, actually more like AGQx, because let's be honest, what is intelligence anyway...
(Mainstream) media is only or primarily interested in getting attention at any cost, thus they are parasitic, derivative, fed by the marketing machinery of companies hoping to produce these products, consulting companies feeding off them, VC companies and so on ad nauseam. Promising the next big thing in AI sells better than to be cautious. The coffers of the aforementioned organizations are full enough, also for lobbying, buying, sorry I meant influencing, politicians whose main drive is the will to power. (They can get this power either way, by supporting it or later, after it failed, by punishing the mishpoke.) So, I would rather see this from a dysfunctional ecosystem point of view that may take some damage but will carry on. As the guy says towards the end of Taken "Please understand... it was all business. It wasn't personal."
The NZZ published an article today about potentially wrong numbers in conversations efforts. Based on two papers in nature, one about "80% loss of biodiversity" (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02811-w) and, in my words, questionable use of data and statistics in another one (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49070-x). It looks like those benefiting from the alarmism don't like the articles, carry on saying the numbers aren't wrong just a little under-researched.
I like Eric's analyses a lot in general. However if you listen to him recently (his last appearance on the Modern Wisdom podcast for instance), he seems genuinely astounded by OpenAI's accomplishments, and isn't viewing them through a cyclical analytic lens at all. If I recall correctly, he's taking about how this stuff should probably be developed in secret like the Manhattan project. He also seems to be quite friendly with Sam.
Your thesis will die by a thousand cuts, inflicted by the people who go ahead and actually build stuff with the Open AI API. You're betting on the wrong horse, or in this case, no horse at all.
As with poison, its often the dosage. Theranos was WAY more concentrated wishcasting and actual conscious fraud. For all is sleazy faults and hype, I am actually using OpenAI as a product/tool to do something useful I have not been able to in the past. You could not say that about the Edison box really at all. Thats not to say some serious fraud might emerge from OpenAI, but there is actually something to LLMs. There never was with Theranos.
I think its worth pointing out that OpenAI was founded in 2015, which is two years before the transformer model. So, to say in that year that they are going to "work on AGI", should really have been considered a bit delusional. I'm not saying LLM's have made society any iota closer to AGI, but just putting it into perspective that these guys really don't seem to me like they have had anything but a fools hope from the beginning.
I don't really get why investors into these startups or non profits (as it was back then) don't get more of the blame. They are choosing to waste money on this. It's absurdly easy to get money put into anything that fufills the dream fantasies of Silicon Valley elites, compared to things that matter far more.
Also, from what I know, Theranos was not believable. There were very few experts that bought into it and to most of them it was always obviously a fraud. She essentially got a small number of careless experts in on it and then spun it up using big named investors that really didn't know anything about technology (george shultz, rupert murdoch for example).
"The combination of made-up graphs and outsized promises could make a person nervous" should probably read "The combination of made-up graphs and outsized promises should make a person nervous"
Yeah, you called it in the piece. Theranos was pure fantasy from day one, bankrolled by hype, good connections and a media that got swept up the story of seeing a female entrepreneur be wildly successful. WeWork was a functioning business that would have made some money had Neumann not decided to be a "tech company" and kid himself on that he could expand so much as to be "too big to fail."
Amusingly, that is exactly the kind of graph that ChatGPT tends to produce. I once asked it for data on the adoption of renewable energy sources in the U.S. and it produced a similarly impressive chart (it even had a label on the Y-axis). When I asked it for the source, it told me "oh...those data in the chart were for illustrative purposes...you want the actual ones?" ...which of course were completely different. So maybe they're just using their own products -- at least there's a twisted kind of consistency here.
I went to the Elizabeth Holmes trial for one day (one morning, actually, since it was boring). I don't think either is the correct analogy. Maybe Sematech? Enormous publicity, modest results.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/implementing-chips-act-sematechs-lessons-national-semiconductor-technology-center
To continue the WeWork comparison, Altman is more like Adam Nuemann than Holmes. They have both described themselves as Gods (though Neumann did this more literally) and see themselves as bringing about a new age for humanity even though their businesses are essentially disappointing and unsustainable. Coincidentally the suggestion that they are somehow superior beings is even in their names: alt man, neu man. Pretty sure they both look in the mirror and see an Übermensch.
Sam Altman gives strong con-man vibes to me, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him in a cell next to SBF in the future.
The absence of label on the Y axis maybe tells you all you need to know.”“
Nonsense. “Victoria” is clearly the label on the Y axis on that graph.
It indicates the relative number of Victorias working at OpenAI when each new version of GPT was released.
It’s a good thing Sam Altman just got a $6.6 billion infusion from investors because the number of Victorias at OpenAI is obviously increasing exponentially and a lot of cash will be needed for all their salaries and benefits.
In the long run, OpenAI will be Victorias
The shared theme is fomo and investors who will make money whether it succeeds or flops.
I'm not sure WeWork or Theranos is the right category to think about. It's perhaps closer to kayfabe or what Eric Weinstein called Gated Institutionalized Narrative. No matter what any "detractor" says, the mainstream rushes ahead, likely over the cliff. "Within the next ten years we will have fusion energy. The next larger particle accelerator will finally help us unlock all the secrets of the universe. If not we simply build a larger one." Did we say AGI? What we really meant was probably perhaps in a sense more like Artificial General Quasi Intelligence, actually more like AGQx, because let's be honest, what is intelligence anyway...
(Mainstream) media is only or primarily interested in getting attention at any cost, thus they are parasitic, derivative, fed by the marketing machinery of companies hoping to produce these products, consulting companies feeding off them, VC companies and so on ad nauseam. Promising the next big thing in AI sells better than to be cautious. The coffers of the aforementioned organizations are full enough, also for lobbying, buying, sorry I meant influencing, politicians whose main drive is the will to power. (They can get this power either way, by supporting it or later, after it failed, by punishing the mishpoke.) So, I would rather see this from a dysfunctional ecosystem point of view that may take some damage but will carry on. As the guy says towards the end of Taken "Please understand... it was all business. It wasn't personal."
The NZZ published an article today about potentially wrong numbers in conversations efforts. Based on two papers in nature, one about "80% loss of biodiversity" (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02811-w) and, in my words, questionable use of data and statistics in another one (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49070-x). It looks like those benefiting from the alarmism don't like the articles, carry on saying the numbers aren't wrong just a little under-researched.
I like Eric's analyses a lot in general. However if you listen to him recently (his last appearance on the Modern Wisdom podcast for instance), he seems genuinely astounded by OpenAI's accomplishments, and isn't viewing them through a cyclical analytic lens at all. If I recall correctly, he's taking about how this stuff should probably be developed in secret like the Manhattan project. He also seems to be quite friendly with Sam.
Your thesis will die by a thousand cuts, inflicted by the people who go ahead and actually build stuff with the Open AI API. You're betting on the wrong horse, or in this case, no horse at all.
Theranos never had a product and had no transformative effect on its field. So I think we should be a bit more charitable to OpenAi.
You had me at the title. Ouch! And yes, which indeed?
As with poison, its often the dosage. Theranos was WAY more concentrated wishcasting and actual conscious fraud. For all is sleazy faults and hype, I am actually using OpenAI as a product/tool to do something useful I have not been able to in the past. You could not say that about the Edison box really at all. Thats not to say some serious fraud might emerge from OpenAI, but there is actually something to LLMs. There never was with Theranos.
Perhaps the curve is more hyperbolic than exponential. After all, it seems that hyperbole is what the predictions are based upon.
Tesla was too convenient of a comparison, forever promising a better FSD?
I think its worth pointing out that OpenAI was founded in 2015, which is two years before the transformer model. So, to say in that year that they are going to "work on AGI", should really have been considered a bit delusional. I'm not saying LLM's have made society any iota closer to AGI, but just putting it into perspective that these guys really don't seem to me like they have had anything but a fools hope from the beginning.
I don't really get why investors into these startups or non profits (as it was back then) don't get more of the blame. They are choosing to waste money on this. It's absurdly easy to get money put into anything that fufills the dream fantasies of Silicon Valley elites, compared to things that matter far more.
Also, from what I know, Theranos was not believable. There were very few experts that bought into it and to most of them it was always obviously a fraud. She essentially got a small number of careless experts in on it and then spun it up using big named investors that really didn't know anything about technology (george shultz, rupert murdoch for example).
"The combination of made-up graphs and outsized promises could make a person nervous" should probably read "The combination of made-up graphs and outsized promises should make a person nervous"
Yeah, you called it in the piece. Theranos was pure fantasy from day one, bankrolled by hype, good connections and a media that got swept up the story of seeing a female entrepreneur be wildly successful. WeWork was a functioning business that would have made some money had Neumann not decided to be a "tech company" and kid himself on that he could expand so much as to be "too big to fail."
Amusingly, that is exactly the kind of graph that ChatGPT tends to produce. I once asked it for data on the adoption of renewable energy sources in the U.S. and it produced a similarly impressive chart (it even had a label on the Y-axis). When I asked it for the source, it told me "oh...those data in the chart were for illustrative purposes...you want the actual ones?" ...which of course were completely different. So maybe they're just using their own products -- at least there's a twisted kind of consistency here.