This seems to exemplify the problem I have with most EA organizations. They are often run by people who are young, with great talent, but no serious prior experience. I don't assume malevolence from Zach, and think the most probable explanation is that he (like many at EA orgs) didn't know the basics about what not to do while running a company. I don't say that to be mean. But anyone with experience would understand immediately that this constituted sexual harassment under US Law and violated the Worker Protection Act. I fear EAs are prone to do everything their own way, without thought of why existing norms and structures are there in the first place. This is one of the reasons other companies often promote by seniority. They have the experience and understanding needed to see the obvious. This is the sort of thing that would be so extremely obvious to someone with decades of experience. Do other companies have worse scandals? Yes. But I think the number of scandals in EA orgs that surround "not seeing or doing the obvious thing" is much higher than average.
Judging from all the comments in agreement, from people who probably have no political power to actually implement these things, but who might have been useful toward actually solving the problem, this pivot is probably a net negative. You will probably fail at having much of a political influence, but succeed at dissuading people from doing technical research.
Wouldn't Sam selling large amounts of chips to OAI's direct competitors constitute a conflict of interest? It also doesn't seem like something he would want to do, since he seems very devoted to OAI's success, for better or worse. Why would he want to increase decentralization?
I imagine Sam's mental model is the bigger lead OpenAI has over others, the more control they can have at pivotal moments, and (in his mind) the safer things will be. Everyone else is quickly catching up in terms of capability, but if OpenAI has special chips their competitors don't have access to, then they have an edge. Obviously, this can't really be distinguished from Sam just trying to maximize his own ambitions, but it doesn't necessarily undercut safety goals either.
This is useful, but shouldn't there be projects to breakdown the pipeline that could enable engineered pandemics? This seems the highest risk among all possibilities.
Should the US start mass-producing hazmat suits? So that, in the event of an engineered pandemic, the spread of the disease can be prevented, while still being able to maintain critical infrastructure/delivery of basic necessities.
I created a simple Google Doc for anyone interested in joining/creating a new org to put down their names, contact, what research they're interested in pursuing, and what skills they currently have. Overtime, I think a network can be fostered, where relevant people start forming their own research, and then begin building their own orgs/get funding. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MdECuhLLq5_lffC45uO17bhI3gqe3OzCqO_59BMMbKE/edit?usp=sharing
This seems to exemplify the problem I have with most EA organizations. They are often run by people who are young, with great talent, but no serious prior experience. I don't assume malevolence from Zach, and think the most probable explanation is that he (like many at EA orgs) didn't know the basics about what not to do while running a company. I don't say that to be mean. But anyone with experience would understand immediately that this constituted sexual harassment under US Law and violated the Worker Protection Act. I fear EAs are prone to do everything their own way, without thought of why existing norms and structures are there in the first place. This is one of the reasons other companies often promote by seniority. They have the experience and understanding needed to see the obvious. This is the sort of thing that would be so extremely obvious to someone with decades of experience. Do other companies have worse scandals? Yes. But I think the number of scandals in EA orgs that surround "not seeing or doing the obvious thing" is much higher than average.
Seeing a lot of upvotes, but no answers. Don't be shy!
"GPT-5 training is probably starting around now." I'm pretty sure its already been trained, and they're now running evals.
Judging from all the comments in agreement, from people who probably have no political power to actually implement these things, but who might have been useful toward actually solving the problem, this pivot is probably a net negative. You will probably fail at having much of a political influence, but succeed at dissuading people from doing technical research.
Wouldn't Sam selling large amounts of chips to OAI's direct competitors constitute a conflict of interest? It also doesn't seem like something he would want to do, since he seems very devoted to OAI's success, for better or worse. Why would he want to increase decentralization?
I imagine Sam's mental model is the bigger lead OpenAI has over others, the more control they can have at pivotal moments, and (in his mind) the safer things will be. Everyone else is quickly catching up in terms of capability, but if OpenAI has special chips their competitors don't have access to, then they have an edge. Obviously, this can't really be distinguished from Sam just trying to maximize his own ambitions, but it doesn't necessarily undercut safety goals either.
This is useful, but shouldn't there be projects to breakdown the pipeline that could enable engineered pandemics? This seems the highest risk among all possibilities.
Should the US start mass-producing hazmat suits? So that, in the event of an engineered pandemic, the spread of the disease can be prevented, while still being able to maintain critical infrastructure/delivery of basic necessities.
Is there anything that can be done to get New START fully reinstated?
(crossposted from lesswrong)
I created a simple Google Doc for anyone interested in joining/creating a new org to put down their names, contact, what research they're interested in pursuing, and what skills they currently have. Overtime, I think a network can be fostered, where relevant people start forming their own research, and then begin building their own orgs/get funding. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MdECuhLLq5_lffC45uO17bhI3gqe3OzCqO_59BMMbKE/edit?usp=sharing