53 Comments
May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

LinkedIn is alight with the ScarJo bombshell.

"No" means no, Sam. Be it in English, or every other language on the planet.

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I think about the conversations about ensuring AI aligns with humanity's values. What values were just displayed in this case? If the answer is no, do it anyway and gaslight anyone who points out you are lying? Wow.

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May 21·edited May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

When they show you who they are... believe them.

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

And these are the people who promise that they will give us a perfect world with UBI.

This is why we need to discuss what they are really doing and #PauseAI.

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Please join us in #PauseAI if you want to take action - our Discord is https://discord.gg/qh2f2FwB

And you are needed, right now, because our leaders are not being the adults in the room. Despite having 80% of Americans supporting AI regulation, thanks to seeing how Sam Altman is, we are seeing DC fast-track AI racing instead, with nary a thought given to regulation and in fact, preemptive anti-regulation clauses being inserted into upcoming bills.

This is completely against us, and completely for the tech companies, for people like Altman. This is literally your disempowering happening RIGHT NOW.

But you are not powerless. Take action with us.

Right now, probably the most important thing that you can do is to support the California law SB 1047 RIGHT NOW, which protects whistleblowers at AI companies.

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/on-the-proposed-california-sb-1047

Call your representatives. Send them emails. Let them hear us, and not just the big tech money.

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Thank you, Gary Marcus for this article. I also wonder about the trustworthiness and morality of a man who tries to portray himself and OpenAI as a benefactor to mankind but then doesn't respect a No until it is repeated and backed up by lawyers.

This is not the ethics we want AI to align with, is it? The ethics of a petulant, gaslighting man who doesn't respect the word "No" when it interferes with what he wants?

And good for Scarlett Johansson for making HER voice heard.

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May 21·edited May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

Thanks for this bit of reporting Gary. It’s important to put the pieces together of a pattern, and keep the light on it. That's a first step - and they will not be accountable unless the light is held on it, and they won't do it voluntarily it seems, under the circumstances.

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

As if I didn't already respect Scarlett Johansson enough. She's far more impressive than Altman.

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Sam Altman is a a fraud, a greedy one at that. Really disgusting. Thanks for your coverage of this, Gary Marcus!

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The fact they pulled it said enough. Isn’t that the second time this week Altman had to admit he wasn’t aware of something happening, by the way.

The pattern is that Altman will always bet on plauible deniability in order to save face.

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Thing is, in this case that's just super lazy.

There is a gazillion ways to get people to have and create the voice they want without violating any law - but they just think they are above (and, most probably, beyond) the law.

Just like the orange guy's drumhead needs to be about tax fraud, OpenAI's demise will be about something like an energy bill or so...

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"Spin is a way of life at OpenAI; telling the truth is not." - best summary of the last 1.5 years

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Yup, very clear warning signs now about Altman.

Many of the problems in tech, AI, Silicon Valley etc is the simple fact that when you take a bunch of narcissistic young people with limited life experience, pump them with money, tell them they're the masters of the universe and that they’re “going to change the world”…

… the wheels normally fall off.

It seems they are moving down the axels as we speak.

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

The moral we should have learned from Theranos remains valid:

Never, ever, trust a Stanford dropout. Just don't.

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

I imagine a world where the statement had been in plain English and read: "Has lied to the board."

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A foolish, unnecessary PR catastrophe. Just another day in AI land!

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

Keep up the great posts! Voices like yours must be heard as AI is developed. Thank you for your candid views and for making them known.

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Really poor behaviour from Sam Altman and OpenAI. What were they thinking?

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They are 'thinking' as humans do, which means often pretty poorly and sometimes not at all...

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

A pleasure to see super narcissist Altman called out.

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May 21Liked by Gary Marcus

If we are going to use voices to convey information about the underlying technology, and there is an argument that we should, then a better approach would be to follow the “Star Trek TNG” convention. Data was an AI and was rewarded with a normal voice, albeit with a few charming anomalies to signal its origins. The ship’s computer was not AI and was voiced with a machine monotone. ChatGPT is a number of interesting things but it is not an AI.

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