<story><title>The Contradictions of Sam Altman</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-sam-altman-artificial-intelligence-openai-b0e1c8c9</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Mezzie</author><text>tl;dr: Nobody is steering the ship because they don&amp;#x27;t know they&amp;#x27;re on a ship. Or that the ocean exists.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s hard without doxxing myself or calling out specific people and organizations which I&amp;#x27;d rather not because I&amp;#x27;m a nobody and can&amp;#x27;t afford lawsuits, but for various reasons I ended up political education and marketing for civics advocacy. Ish. To be semi on topic, I know some people who are published in the WSJ (as well as the people who actually &lt;i&gt;wrote&lt;/i&gt; the pieces). I&amp;#x27;m also a 3rd generation tech nerd in my mid 30s so I&amp;#x27;m very comfortable with the digital world - easily the most so outside of the actual software engineering team.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve spoken with and to a lot of politicians and candidates from across the US - mostly on the local and state level but some nationally. And journalists from publications that are high profile, professors of legal studies, heads of think tanks, etc.&lt;p&gt;My read of the situation is that our political class is entangled in a snare of perverse disincentives for action while also being so disassociated from the world outside of their bubble that they&amp;#x27;ve functionally no idea what&amp;#x27;s going on.  Our systems (cultural, political, economic, etc.) have grown exponentially more complex in the past 30 years and those of us on HN (myself included) understand this and why this happened. I&amp;#x27;m a 3rd generation tech nerd, I can explain pretty easily how we got here and why things are different. The political class, on the other hand, has had enough power to not need to adapt and to force other people to do things their way. If your 8500 year old senator wants payment by check and to send physical mail, you do it. (Politicians and candidates that would not use the internet were enough of a problem in &lt;i&gt;2020&lt;/i&gt; that we had to account for it in our data + analyses and do specific no tech outreach). Since they didn&amp;#x27;t know  how the world is changing, they also &lt;i&gt;haven&amp;#x27;t been considering the effects of the changes at all&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, even those of them that have some idea still don&amp;#x27;t know how to problem solve &lt;i&gt;systems&lt;/i&gt; instead of &lt;i&gt;relationships&lt;/i&gt;. Complex systems thinking is &lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; key skill needed to navigate these waters, and &lt;i&gt;none of them have it&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s fucking &lt;i&gt;terrifying&lt;/i&gt;. At best, they can conceive of systems where everything about them is known and their outputs can be precisely predicted. &lt;i&gt;At best&lt;/i&gt;. Complex systems are beyond them.&lt;p&gt;Add to this that we have a system which has slowly ground itself to a deadlocked halt. Congress has functionally abandoned most of its actual legislative duties because it&amp;#x27;s way better for sitting congresspeople to not pass any bills - if you don&amp;#x27;t do anything, then you don&amp;#x27;t piss any of your constituents off. Or make mistakes. And you can spend more time campaigning.&lt;p&gt;I left and became a hedonist with a drug problem after a very frank conversation with a colleague who was my political opposite at the time. I&amp;#x27;m always open to being wrong, and hearing that they didn&amp;#x27;t have any answer either was a very &amp;#x27;welp, we&amp;#x27;re fucked&amp;#x27; moment. I&amp;#x27;m getting better.</text></item><item><author>trendroid</author><text>Possible to Elaborate?</text></item><item><author>Mezzie</author><text>&amp;gt; beyond that are we just telling a story and really nobody is &amp;#x27;in control&amp;#x27;?&lt;p&gt;Basically. Or at least that&amp;#x27;s the impression I&amp;#x27;m left with after spending a couple of years in politics work.&lt;p&gt;I had a nice long breakdown.</text></item><item><author>davnicwil</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know, isn&amp;#x27;t history really just a series of specific people doing concrete actions?&lt;p&gt;Do you think on some level the idea of some abstract &amp;#x27;government&amp;#x27; taking care of things is just a narrative we apply to make ourselves feel better?&lt;p&gt;Sure individual decision makers &lt;i&gt;in&lt;/i&gt; that government can concretely affect reality, but beyond that are we just telling a story and really nobody is &amp;#x27;in control&amp;#x27;?</text></item><item><author>DubiousPusher</author><text>Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective good. It is a temporary social convenience. The higher that niceness exists in the social order, the greater its contemporary benefit but also, the more it masks the vulnerability of that social benefit.&lt;p&gt;It matters if Sam Altman is Ghandi or Genghis Khan in a concrete way but you, as a citizen must act as if it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter.&lt;p&gt;If AI poses a danger to the social good, no amount of good guy CEOs will protect us. The only thing that will is organization and direct action.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jonathanwallace</author><text>As a software developer who found myself elected to state level public office and had to spin-up my education around the legislative process and all of politics, I concur.&lt;p&gt;Their are only a couple of things I&amp;#x27;d add.&lt;p&gt;As much knowledge as I brought in about technology and the idea of being aware of system thinking, I also brought in a great amount of ignorance about all the other areas that are legislated (healthcare, interplay between local, state, and fedearl issues, budgetary concerns, tax policy, banking, etc.). Good legislation is truly collaborative.&lt;p&gt;Sadly, for the second part, good legislation is rarer than it should be as much of legislation is about politics and perception of the voters. And voter perceptions are not necessarily logical or reasoned.&lt;p&gt;This makes it all the more important, IMHO, that everyone who is reasonable, logical, and educated spend their precious, valuable time involving themselves to advocate for elected officials who behave similar in what is essentially a zero-sum game.&lt;p&gt;p.s. Have faith. I saw enough during my time that gave me reason for that faith. (But that faith requires time and effort -- we don&amp;#x27;t get good government or democracy for free.) I&amp;#x27;m glad to hear you&amp;#x27;re getting better.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Contradictions of Sam Altman</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-sam-altman-artificial-intelligence-openai-b0e1c8c9</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Mezzie</author><text>tl;dr: Nobody is steering the ship because they don&amp;#x27;t know they&amp;#x27;re on a ship. Or that the ocean exists.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s hard without doxxing myself or calling out specific people and organizations which I&amp;#x27;d rather not because I&amp;#x27;m a nobody and can&amp;#x27;t afford lawsuits, but for various reasons I ended up political education and marketing for civics advocacy. Ish. To be semi on topic, I know some people who are published in the WSJ (as well as the people who actually &lt;i&gt;wrote&lt;/i&gt; the pieces). I&amp;#x27;m also a 3rd generation tech nerd in my mid 30s so I&amp;#x27;m very comfortable with the digital world - easily the most so outside of the actual software engineering team.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve spoken with and to a lot of politicians and candidates from across the US - mostly on the local and state level but some nationally. And journalists from publications that are high profile, professors of legal studies, heads of think tanks, etc.&lt;p&gt;My read of the situation is that our political class is entangled in a snare of perverse disincentives for action while also being so disassociated from the world outside of their bubble that they&amp;#x27;ve functionally no idea what&amp;#x27;s going on.  Our systems (cultural, political, economic, etc.) have grown exponentially more complex in the past 30 years and those of us on HN (myself included) understand this and why this happened. I&amp;#x27;m a 3rd generation tech nerd, I can explain pretty easily how we got here and why things are different. The political class, on the other hand, has had enough power to not need to adapt and to force other people to do things their way. If your 8500 year old senator wants payment by check and to send physical mail, you do it. (Politicians and candidates that would not use the internet were enough of a problem in &lt;i&gt;2020&lt;/i&gt; that we had to account for it in our data + analyses and do specific no tech outreach). Since they didn&amp;#x27;t know  how the world is changing, they also &lt;i&gt;haven&amp;#x27;t been considering the effects of the changes at all&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, even those of them that have some idea still don&amp;#x27;t know how to problem solve &lt;i&gt;systems&lt;/i&gt; instead of &lt;i&gt;relationships&lt;/i&gt;. Complex systems thinking is &lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; key skill needed to navigate these waters, and &lt;i&gt;none of them have it&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s fucking &lt;i&gt;terrifying&lt;/i&gt;. At best, they can conceive of systems where everything about them is known and their outputs can be precisely predicted. &lt;i&gt;At best&lt;/i&gt;. Complex systems are beyond them.&lt;p&gt;Add to this that we have a system which has slowly ground itself to a deadlocked halt. Congress has functionally abandoned most of its actual legislative duties because it&amp;#x27;s way better for sitting congresspeople to not pass any bills - if you don&amp;#x27;t do anything, then you don&amp;#x27;t piss any of your constituents off. Or make mistakes. And you can spend more time campaigning.&lt;p&gt;I left and became a hedonist with a drug problem after a very frank conversation with a colleague who was my political opposite at the time. I&amp;#x27;m always open to being wrong, and hearing that they didn&amp;#x27;t have any answer either was a very &amp;#x27;welp, we&amp;#x27;re fucked&amp;#x27; moment. I&amp;#x27;m getting better.</text></item><item><author>trendroid</author><text>Possible to Elaborate?</text></item><item><author>Mezzie</author><text>&amp;gt; beyond that are we just telling a story and really nobody is &amp;#x27;in control&amp;#x27;?&lt;p&gt;Basically. Or at least that&amp;#x27;s the impression I&amp;#x27;m left with after spending a couple of years in politics work.&lt;p&gt;I had a nice long breakdown.</text></item><item><author>davnicwil</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know, isn&amp;#x27;t history really just a series of specific people doing concrete actions?&lt;p&gt;Do you think on some level the idea of some abstract &amp;#x27;government&amp;#x27; taking care of things is just a narrative we apply to make ourselves feel better?&lt;p&gt;Sure individual decision makers &lt;i&gt;in&lt;/i&gt; that government can concretely affect reality, but beyond that are we just telling a story and really nobody is &amp;#x27;in control&amp;#x27;?</text></item><item><author>DubiousPusher</author><text>Stop asking the market to look after collective interest. This is the job of the government. The ultimate effect of virtue wanking CEOs and corporate governance is to deceive people into thinking democracy is something that can be achieved by for profit organizations and that they can forsake the formal binding of collective interest through law.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s nice if people are nice but it is not a bulwark of the collective good. It is a temporary social convenience. The higher that niceness exists in the social order, the greater its contemporary benefit but also, the more it masks the vulnerability of that social benefit.&lt;p&gt;It matters if Sam Altman is Ghandi or Genghis Khan in a concrete way but you, as a citizen must act as if it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter.&lt;p&gt;If AI poses a danger to the social good, no amount of good guy CEOs will protect us. The only thing that will is organization and direct action.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>huijzer</author><text>Isn’t history full of examples of governments being slow and seemingly incompetent? Standard Oil was broken up many years after everyone knew that they were a ruthless monopoly which made too much profits. Note also that it didn’t take senators to figure out the monopoly, it was everyone, including the voters, who did.&lt;p&gt;There is one big benefit that democratic governments have though. They have a monopoly on physical force.</text></comment>