Not feeling like 1 hour of my Sunday is worth listening to this, do anyone have the non-clickbait answers to the two "previews" mentioned in the description?
> Greg explains how the original Napa offsite produced the three-step technical plan OpenAI has followed for a decade and the real reason OpenAI had to abandon its pure nonprofit structure
What was the technical plan and what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
applfanboysbgon 3 hours ago [-]
> What was the technical plan
"1. Solve reinforcement learning
2. Solve unsupervised learning
3. Gradually learn more complicated 'things'"
That three point list is verbatim the extent of the technical plan mentioned.
> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
Paraphrasing, "we needed more money for compute and didn't think we could get enough as a non-profit". Brockman's diary might be a stronger indicator of the real real reason, though.
armchairhacker 41 minutes ago [-]
What was the real real reason?
I imagine if they stayed nonprofit, they would’ve survived, but not convinced investors to give them enough $$$ and datacenters to stay the most popular (above Google).
Lerc 24 minutes ago [-]
If they stayed small and 100% non-profit, would the influence or value of the non profit be more, or less, than it is today?
I think the non-profit has around 25% ownership of something that is around a trillion dollars of on-paper money.
I guess we will see what things are still worth when the crazy days come to an end.
greatgib 8 minutes ago [-]
I can easily guess also that at the beginning they were more thinking like a research project that they could create something but would like quantum computing today, not really of real world used.
And one things started to become real, they realized the financing potential of the thing, that they were seated on a gold mine and would be stupid of them to create that and not profit much more of it.
wahnfrieden 31 minutes ago [-]
To get rich of course
coalstartprob 1 hours ago [-]
the real real reason being gdb wanting to be a billionaire ;)
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:49 Meeting Sam Altman and Starting OpenAI
00:02:40 Building the Founding Team
00:04:25 DeepMind's Lead Over OpenAI
00:04:54 The Change from a Pure Non-Profit
00:06:05 Breakthrough Moments at OpenAI
00:08:22 What Dota 2 Meant for OpenAI
00:10:04 Reasoning Versus Prediction
00:11:59 Tensions Grow at OpenAI
00:15:44 Sam Altman's Firing
00:17:49 Greg Quits OpenAI
00:19:56 Sam Explores Deal with Microsoft's Satya
00:20:28 OpenAI Employees Sign Petition for Altman's Return
00:23:43 Ilya Sutskever Leaves OpenAI
00:24:59 Lessons Learned in Leadership after Sam Ousting
00:28:22 The Thing Ilya Said that Greg Can't Forget
00:32:22 Is AI Going Parabolic?
00:33:24 How Much of OpenAI's Code is Written by AI?
00:36:21 Are AI Chatbots Just Telling Us What We Want to Hear?
00:38:06 The Global AI Race to Reach AGI
00:38:40 What Happens if US Doesn't Reach AGI First?
00:39:49 Are Competing Countries Stealing AI Advancements from U.S?
00:40:38 Why ChatGPT No Longer Shows Reasoning
00:41:47 The Finite Constraints of Compute
00:43:38 On Investing Early in Data Centers
00:46:31 The Future of Data Center Specialization
00:47:52 How OpenAI Will Decide Whose Queries to Serve
00:49:08 OpenAI on Consumer vs Enterprise Models
00:53:05 Data Centers in Space?
01:00:56 What Should AI Regulation Look Like?
01:04:33 The Future of AI-Powered Entrepreneurship
01:04:44 AI and Job Loss
01:07:15 The Skills Young People Should Invest In
01:11:30 What Does Success Look Like For You?
tcp_handshaker 2 hours ago [-]
>> What was the technical plan and what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
Because they were still downloading from Anna's Archive and the lawyers were in panic?
dave1010uk 3 hours ago [-]
1. Solve reinforcement learning.
2. solve unsupervised learning.
3. gradually tackle more complicated things.
> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.
arvid-lind 1 hours ago [-]
> The answer is that they needed more money.
isn't it still an odd choice for a nonprofit? it's hard to imagine a world without OpenAI and ChatGPT now, but at some point they decided being the best is most important. and presumably most profitable, since why just need a little more money?
mycall 10 minutes ago [-]
Don't all nonprofits need more money to improve their sustainment?
gizajob 56 minutes ago [-]
Trivial to imagine everyone switching to Anthropic or Google or on-device LLMs.
embedding-shape 3 hours ago [-]
Huh, I guess ML people weren't aware of "divide and conquer" that has been successfully employed in software engineering since basically forever?
> I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.
Ugh, that was more boring than even I expected, thanks a lot for saving me the time though, seems avoiding watching the full thing was worth it.
adastra22 1 hours ago [-]
Not that they wanted more money personally, but that they needed more money for compute.
peterdsharpe 27 minutes ago [-]
"Financially, what will take me to $1B?" -Greg Brockman, August 2017
siva7 2 hours ago [-]
> Not feeling like 1 hour of my Sunday is worth listening to this, do anyone have the non-clickbait answers to the two "previews" mentioned in the description?
I know HN is built around mostly not reading the articles linked but how about you click on the link and surprise, there is already exactly another link providing what you're asking for.
embedding-shape 2 hours ago [-]
You mean the transcript that is behind a account/paywall? Or is there some other link I'm missing?
siva7 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, you're missing the link at the end of the article for free.
H8crilA 3 hours ago [-]
As far as Brockman account of the past goes, there's also his personal diary which was made public as a part of that lawsuit by Musk. Includes for example the line: "Financially what will take me to $1B?". BTW, if you don't know, Musk lost it because he filed too late, lol.
nba456_ 3 hours ago [-]
If his entire personal diary got exposed and that's the worst that's in it, good for him.
tcp_handshaker 26 minutes ago [-]
What about stealing 12 million books of copyrighted human culture, at massive scale, and then enclosing the value created inside proprietary, investor-backed systems? Something wrong with that?
What happens if you go tomorrow, downtown San Francisco, and leave a bookstore with one book without paying?
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime"
- Honoré de Balzac
redsocksfan45 3 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Kinrany 2 hours ago [-]
How did the diary end up in the court files in the first place?
I'm curious what you're writing in your diary that's worse than blatantly admitting to fraud of this scale. He publicly misled people about OpenAI's "mission" as a nonprofit, while seeking to enrich himself to the tune of $1 billion(!!!) dollars.
Also, his entire diary was not in fact made public. The attorneys only quoted the parts that were relevant to the case, which pertained to OpenAI's transition from non-profit.
siva7 1 hours ago [-]
How about wiping out an entire civilization? Not even necessary to hide this thought in your diary if you have enough power. I've seen today - in fact any day of this year - much worse things than his diary thoughts.
applfanboysbgon 34 minutes ago [-]
Well, gee. When you put it like that, Hitler existed, so really we can't fault anybody for anything short of orchestrating the genocide of 12 million people.
wahnfrieden 27 minutes ago [-]
Musk engineered the deaths of 14 million people
_zoltan_ 1 hours ago [-]
Worse? There is nothing wrong with wanting 1B. Anybody who said they wouldn't want it is lying.
exfalso 1 hours ago [-]
Nonsense. What the hell would you do with 1B? Give it to charities maybe. Maybe set up an investment where dividends are paid to charity. Running out of ideas
jesterson 60 minutes ago [-]
There are a lot of greedy people thinking everyone would die for a bullion. They couldn’t comprehend another way of thinking due to narrow mindset
fragmede 60 minutes ago [-]
You've run out of ideas already? Try harder!
What charities? Why? How much, to which ones? How involved with those charities are you going to be? What dent in history are you going to make with that billion? With or without your name attached. Build housing, cure cancer, feed the hungry, buy this simulator https://www.1940airterminal.org/news/liquidation-of-simulato...
Angostura 24 minutes ago [-]
Perhaps the commenter would just like to lead a contented life without having to bother with all of that
gizajob 54 minutes ago [-]
Didn’t even buy a Yacht or a Warhol yet.
jesterson 1 hours ago [-]
I wouldn’t want. I have enough. Not everyone is wanting money.
But it is not the point. The point is, when you take high moral ground and talk about bug problems to help humanity, and then your own diary exposes you as avaricious simpleton, the whole high moral ground crumbles. And you expose yourself as another grifter.
That’s what happened to Brockman. Although smart people could see these qualities in altman, brockman etcetera way before that happened
quantum_state 4 minutes ago [-]
It’s a matter of fact that OpenAI betrayed its origin.
stuaxo 1 hours ago [-]
Thankful for the mention of "AGI" in the first lines as I can bail out from reading the rest.
Whatever AGI is, it "AGI" is not glueing a load of text prediction machines together.
dboreham 55 minutes ago [-]
How do you know that?
dannersy 11 minutes ago [-]
Because then we already have it, and if we do, it is pretty underwhelming.
booleandilemma 3 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
batu1509 2 hours ago [-]
building products on top of their api makes these drama weekends terrifying. really makes you realize how fragile your whole stack is when a board decides to act up.
YetAnotherNick 2 hours ago [-]
Why can't someone ask what happened in Ilya's mind. Firing Sam and then signing the solidarity letter of Sam to leave OpenAI if was fired. Other than that, all other information seems kind of just going over the surface.
jonstewart 2 hours ago [-]
Point of order: Anthropic is the most important AI company now.
throwaway_2494 1 hours ago [-]
I remember when computer magazines were aimed at programmers and had code listings in them.
Then there seemed to come a time when all they talked about was the IBM vs. Microsoft lawsuit. From then on they must have felt that they had discovered a formula, because all they ever yapped about after was insider baseball of computer companies.
I find this sort of corp. vs. corp. coverage boring, sort of like techie reality TV. Who will be voted out tonight, Debra, or Deborah...?
mikkkee 1 hours ago [-]
not sure why but this episode feels v boring
perhaps because he didn't share anything unexpected / unknown
1 hours ago [-]
46 minutes ago [-]
jordemort 47 minutes ago [-]
too bad, eh
cold_harbor 2 hours ago [-]
what's wild is they accidentally solved it — pretraining IS unsupervised learning at scale, RLHF IS reinforcement learning. they just didnt know the recipe yet
jmalicki 2 hours ago [-]
pretraining isn't unsupervised, it is self-supervised - meaning it is moderately more scale limited.
pjmlp 2 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately they survived, not going to spend time with this.
From my point of view they are yet another big tech bros company.
optimalsolver 3 hours ago [-]
>So many people were trying to sign the petition at once that it actually crashed Google Docs
I still wonder how much peer pressure was behind that. Like, what if you think Sam is a scumbag and you're glad he's gone, but people are waving this petition in your face. What would you do? It would be really bad for you if the emperor returned and you were one of the few who didn't sign it.
Also, going by this video, the first order of business for an AGI should be finding a cure for hair loss.
fragmede 2 hours ago [-]
Nioxin shampoo generally works.
PunchTornado 57 minutes ago [-]
isn't this the friend of scam altman? who cares of what he has to say?
bmitc 3 hours ago [-]
So firing a grifter means it would kill the company? Doesn't that mean the company is grifting? If no one else can possibly lead the supposedly the most important company, with billions/trillions (?) of so called value, do you have a good company and product?
Or do I forget that this guy sleeps with an Ayn Rand doll tucked under his arms?
okr 3 hours ago [-]
ChatGPT or CoPilot were awesome products at the time. I do not use them anymore these days. But to me it felt never like i was abused. And Investment into companies is what it is, a risk. But the results remain forever, whoever wins.
zemvpferreira 2 hours ago [-]
Not a fan of Altman but the devil you know is a powerful argument. If you believe a CEO/Founder to be a grifter-position at its core (fake it till you make it etc etc), retaining the best grifter you can find is the optimal play.
throw6999 1 hours ago [-]
Sky net from future protected itself.
Rendered at 13:44:34 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
> Greg explains how the original Napa offsite produced the three-step technical plan OpenAI has followed for a decade and the real reason OpenAI had to abandon its pure nonprofit structure
What was the technical plan and what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
"1. Solve reinforcement learning
2. Solve unsupervised learning
3. Gradually learn more complicated 'things'"
That three point list is verbatim the extent of the technical plan mentioned.
> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
Paraphrasing, "we needed more money for compute and didn't think we could get enough as a non-profit". Brockman's diary might be a stronger indicator of the real real reason, though.
I imagine if they stayed nonprofit, they would’ve survived, but not convinced investors to give them enough $$$ and datacenters to stay the most popular (above Google).
I think the non-profit has around 25% ownership of something that is around a trillion dollars of on-paper money.
I guess we will see what things are still worth when the crazy days come to an end.
And one things started to become real, they realized the financing potential of the thing, that they were seated on a gold mine and would be stupid of them to create that and not profit much more of it.
Because they were still downloading from Anna's Archive and the lawyers were in panic?
2. solve unsupervised learning.
3. gradually tackle more complicated things.
> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?
I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.
isn't it still an odd choice for a nonprofit? it's hard to imagine a world without OpenAI and ChatGPT now, but at some point they decided being the best is most important. and presumably most profitable, since why just need a little more money?
> I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.
Ugh, that was more boring than even I expected, thanks a lot for saving me the time though, seems avoiding watching the full thing was worth it.
I know HN is built around mostly not reading the articles linked but how about you click on the link and surprise, there is already exactly another link providing what you're asking for.
What happens if you go tomorrow, downtown San Francisco, and leave a bookstore with one book without paying?
Also, his entire diary was not in fact made public. The attorneys only quoted the parts that were relevant to the case, which pertained to OpenAI's transition from non-profit.
But it is not the point. The point is, when you take high moral ground and talk about bug problems to help humanity, and then your own diary exposes you as avaricious simpleton, the whole high moral ground crumbles. And you expose yourself as another grifter.
That’s what happened to Brockman. Although smart people could see these qualities in altman, brockman etcetera way before that happened
Whatever AGI is, it "AGI" is not glueing a load of text prediction machines together.
Then there seemed to come a time when all they talked about was the IBM vs. Microsoft lawsuit. From then on they must have felt that they had discovered a formula, because all they ever yapped about after was insider baseball of computer companies.
I find this sort of corp. vs. corp. coverage boring, sort of like techie reality TV. Who will be voted out tonight, Debra, or Deborah...?
From my point of view they are yet another big tech bros company.
I still wonder how much peer pressure was behind that. Like, what if you think Sam is a scumbag and you're glad he's gone, but people are waving this petition in your face. What would you do? It would be really bad for you if the emperor returned and you were one of the few who didn't sign it.
Also, going by this video, the first order of business for an AGI should be finding a cure for hair loss.
Or do I forget that this guy sleeps with an Ayn Rand doll tucked under his arms?