• halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You know guys, I’m starting to think what we heard about Altman when he was removed a while ago might actually have been real.

    /s

  • kippinitreal@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Putting my tin foil hat on… Sam Altman knows the AI train might be slowing down soon.

    The OpenAI brand is the most valuable part of the company right now, since the models from Google, Anthropic, etc. can beat or match what ChatGPT is, but they aren’t taking off coz they aren’t as cool as OpenAI.

    The business models to train & run models is not sustainable. If there is any money to be made it is NOW, while the speculation is highest. The nonprofit is just getting in the way.

    This could be wishful thinking coz fuck corporate AI, but no one can deny AI is in a speculative bubble.

    • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Take the hat off. This was the goal. Whoops, gotta cash in and leave! I’m sure it’s super great, but I’m gone.

        • frunch@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It honestly just never occurred to me that such a transformation was allowed/possible. A nonprofit seems to imply something charitable, though obviously that’s not the true meaning of it. Still, it would almost seem like the company benefits from the goodwill that comes with being a nonprofit but then gets to transform that goodwill into real gains when they drop the act and cease being a nonprofit.

          I don’t really understand most of this shit though, so I’m probably missing some key component that makes it make a lot more sense.

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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            3 months ago

            A nonprofit seems to imply something charitable, though obviously that’s not the true meaning of it

            Life time of propaganda got people confused lol

            Nonprofit merely means that their core income generating activities are not subject next to the income tax regimes.

            While some non profits are charities, many are just shelters for rich people’s bullshit behaviors like foundations, lobby groups, propaganda orgs, political campaigns etc

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      If you can’t make money without stealing copywritten works from authors without proper compensation, you should be shut down as a company

    • trollblox_@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      ai is such a dead end. it can’t operate without a constant inflow of human creations, and people are trying to replace human creations with AI. it’s fundamentally unsustainable. I am counting the days until the ai bubble pops and everyone can move on. although AI generated images, video, and audio will still probably be abused for the foreseeable future. (propaganda, porn, etc)

      • kippinitreal@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        That is a good point, but I think I’d like to make the distinction of saying LLM’s or “generic model” is a garbage concept, which require power & water rivaling a small country to produce incorrect results.

        Neural networks in general that can (cheaply) learn on their own for a specific task could be huge! But there’s no big money in that, since its not a consolidated general purpose product tech bros can flog to average consumers.

  • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’m confused, how can a company that’s gained numerous advantages from being non-profit just switch to a for-profit model? Weren’t a lot of the advantages (like access to data and scraping) given with the stipulation that it’s for a non-profit? This sounds like it should be illegal to my brain

    • berno@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Careful you’re making too much sense here and overlapping with Elmo’s view on the subject

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Money doesn’t have any advantages in other countries? When did that happen?

            • affiliate@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              the person that you’re replying to said something that’s true about the USA. they didn’t say anything about other countries.

              for another example, i can say “if you’re in the USA, then the current year is 2024” and that statement will be true. it is also true in every other country (for the moment), but that’s besides the point.

              • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                And I replied that it’s also true in other countries, it’s not a problem only the US has. It’s not besides the point. It’s acting as if only the US has the problem.

                • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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                  And I specifically mentioned the USA because that’s the country where OpenAI operates and where the events in the article take place, so if someone asks why it’s so easy for OpenAI to go from being a nonprofit to a for-profit company (this was the issue I was responding to, not some general question about whether money has influence around the world), it’s the laws of the USA that are relevant, not the laws of other countries.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      I’m confused, how can a company that’s gained numerous advantages from being non-profit just switch to a for-profit model

      Money

    • FatCrab@lemmy.one
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      3 months ago

      Their non-profit status had nothing to do with the legality of their training data acquisition methods. Some of it was still legal and some of it was still illegal (torrenting a bunch of books off a piracy site).

    • gencha@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      These people claimed their product can pass the bar exam (it was a lie). Tells you how they feel about the legal system

  • barnaclebutt@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’m sure they were dead weight. I trust open AI completely and all tech gurus named Sam. Btw, what happened to that Crypto guy? He seemed so nice.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      3 months ago

      It’s amusing. Meta’s AI team is more open than "Open"AI ever was - they publish so many research papers for free, and the latest versions of Llama are very capable models that you can run on your own hardware (if it’s powerful enough) for free as long as you don’t use it in an app with more than 700 million monthly users.

      • a9cx34udP4ZZ0@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        That’s because Facebook is selling your data and access to advertise to you. The better AI gets across the board, the more money they make. AI isn’t the product, you are.

        OpenAI makes money off selling AI to others. AI is the product, not you.

        The fact facebook release more code, in this instance, isn’t a good thing. It’s a reminder how fucked we all are because they make so much off our personal data they can afford to give away literally BILLIONS of dollars in IP.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          3 months ago

          Facebook doesn’t sell your data, nor does Google. That’s a common misconception. They sell your attention. Advertisers can show ads to people based on some targeting criteria, but they never see any user data.

            • wischi@programming.dev
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              3 months ago

              Selling your data would be stupid, because they make money with the fact that they have data about you nobody else has. Selling it would completely break their business model.

              • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Depends why they are selling it, to whom, and under what restrictions.

                Yes, they don’t make the majority of their money from selling actual data, but that doesn’t mean they don’t do it.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Canceled my sub as a means of protest. I used it for research and testing purposes and 20$ wasn’t that big of a deal. But I will not knowingly support this asshole if whatever his company produces isn’t going to benefit anyone other than him and his cronies. Voting with our wallets may be the very last vestige of freedom we have left, since money equals speech.

    I hope he gets raped by an irate Roomba with a broomstick.

    • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Good. If people would actually stop buying all the crap assholes are selling we might make some progress.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      But I will not knowingly support this asshole if whatever his company produces isn’t going to benefit anyone other than him and his cronies.

      I mean it was already not open-source, right?

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Altman downplayed the major shakeup.

    "Leadership changes are a natural part of companies

    Is he just trying to tell us he is next?

    /s

    • xavier666@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Sam: “Most of our execs have left. So I guess I’ll take the major decisions instead. And since I’m so humble, I’ll only be taking 80% of their salary. Yeah, no need to thank me”

    • Avg@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      The ceo at my company said that 3 years ago, we are going through execs like I go through amlodipine.

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      3 months ago

      They always are and they know it.

      Doesn’t matter at that level it’s all part of the game.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    The restructuring could turn the already for-profit company into a more traditional startup and give CEO Sam Altman even more control — including likely equity worth billions of dollars.

    I can see why he would want that, yes. We’re supposed to ooo and ahh at a technical visionary, who is always ultimately a money guy executive who wants more money and more executive power.

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I saw an interesting video about this. It’s outdated (from ten months ago, apparently) but added some context that I, at least, was missing - and that also largely aligns with what you said. Also, though it’s not super evident in this video, I think the presenter is fairly funny.

      https://youtu.be/L6mmzBDfRS4

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I really don’t understand why they’re simultaneously arguing that they need access to copyrighted works in order to train their AI while also dropping their non-profit status. If they were at least ostensibly a non-profit, they could pretend that their work was for the betterment of humanity or whatever, but now they’re basically saying, “exempt us from this law so we can maximize our earnings.” …and, honestly, our corrupt legislators wouldn’t have a problem with that were it not for the fact that bigger corporations with more lobbying power will fight against it.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Sounds like another WeWork or Theranos in the making, except we already know the product doesn’t do what it promises.

    • lando55@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      What does it actually promise? AI (namely generative and LLM) is definitely overhyped in my opinion, but admittedly I’m far from an expert. Is what they’re promising to deliver not actually doable?

      • naught101@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It literally promises to generate content, but I think the implied promise is that it will replace parts of your workforce wholesale, with no drop in quality.

        It’s that last bit that’s going to be where the drama happens

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        3 months ago

        They want AGI, which would match or exceed human intelligence. Current methods seem to be hitting a wall. It takes exponentially more inputs and more power to see the same level of improvement seen in past years. They’ve already eaten all the content they can, and they’re starting to talk about using entire nuclear reactors just to power it all. Even the more modest promises, like pictures of people with the correct number of fingers, seem out of reach.

        Investors are starting to notice that these promises aren’t going to happen. Nvidia’s stock price is probably going to be the bellwether.

      • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It delivers on what it promises to do for many people who use LLMs. They can be used for coding assistance, Setting up automated customer support, tutoring, processing documents, structuring lots of complex information, a good generally accurate knowledge on many topics, acting as an editor for your writings, lots more too.

        Its a rapidly advancing pioneer technology like computers were in the 90s so every 6 months to a year is a new breakthrough in over all intelligence or a new ability. Now the new llm models can process images or audio as well as text.

        The problem for openAI is they have serious competitors who will absolutely show up to eat their lunch if they sink as a company. Facebook/Meta with their llama models, Mistral AI with all their models, Alibaba with Qwen. Some other good smaller competiiton too like the openhermes team. All of these big tech companies have open sourced some models so you can tinker and finetune them at home while openai remains closed sourced which is ironic for the company name… Most of these ai companies offer their cloud access to models at very competitive pricing especially mistral.

        The people who say AI is a trendy useless fad don’t know what they are talking about or are upset at AI. I am a part of the local llm community and have been playing around with open models for months pushing my computers hardware to its limits. Its very cool seeing just how smart they really are, what a computer that simulates human thought processes and knows a little bit of everything can actually do to help me in daily life.

        Terrence Tao superstar genius mathematician describes the newest high end model from openAI as improving from a “incompentent graduate” to a “mediocre graduate” which essentially means AI are now generally smarter than the average person in many regards.

        This month several comptetor llm models released which while being much smaller in size compared to openai o-1 somehow beat or equaled that big openai model in many benchmarks.

        Neural networks are here and they are only going to get better. Were in for a wild ride.

        • Stegget@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          My issue is that I have no reason to think AI will be used to improve my life. All I see is a tool that will rip, rend and tear through the tenuous social fabric we’re trying to collectively hold on to.

          • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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            A tool is a tool. It has no say in how it’s used. AI is no different than the computer software you use browse the internet or do other digital task.

            When its used badly as an outlet for escapism or substitute for social connection it can lead to bad consequences for your personal life.

            When it’s best used is as a tool to help reason through a tough task, or as a step in a creative process. As on demand assistance to aid the disabled. Or to support the neurodivergent and emotionally traumatized to open up to as a non judgemental conversational partner. Or help a super genius rubber duck their novel ideas and work through complex thought processes. It can improve peoples lives for the better if applied to the right use cases.

            Its about how you choose to interact with it in your personal life, and how society, buisnesses and your governing bodies choose to use it in their own processes. And believe me, they will find ways to use it.

            I think comparing llms to computers in 90s is accurate. Right now only nerds, professionals, and industry/business/military see their potential. As the tech gets figured out, utility improves, and llm desktops start getting sold as consumer grade appliances the attitude will change maybe?

            • exanime@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              A tool is a tool.

              That is a miopic view. Sure a tool is a tool, if I take a gun and use it to save someone from getting mugged = good if I use it to mug someone = bad

              But regardless of the circumstance of use, we can all agree that a gun’s only utility is to destroy a living organism.

              You know, I know, everyone here knows, AI will only be used to generate as much profit as possible in the shortest amount of time, regardless of the harm it causes. And right now, the big promise of AI is that it will replace costly human employees, that’s it, that’s all.

              Fortunately, it is really bad and unlikely to achieve this goal

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              A better analogy is search engines. It’s just another tool, but

              • at their best enable your I to find anything from all the worlds knowledge
              • at their worst, are just another way to serve ads and scams, random companies vying for attention, they making any attention is good attention, regardless of what you’re looking for

              When I started as a software engineer, my detailed knowledge was most important and my best tool was the manuals. Now my most important tools are search engines and autocomplete: I can work faster with less knowledge of the syntax and my value is the higher level thought about what we need to do. If my company ever allows AI, I fully expect it to be as important a tool as a search engine.

              • exanime@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Now my most important tools are search engines and autocomplete: I can work faster with less knowledge of the syntax and my value is the higher level thought about what we need to do. If my company ever allows AI, I fully expect it to be as important a tool as a search engine.

                And this is when the cost calculation comes into play. Using a search engine is basically free, using OpenAI for development is tied up with licenses and new hardware.

                So the question will be, are you going to improve efficiency to the point where the cost of the license and new hardware is worth the additional efficiency?

                • AA5B@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Currently my company is more concerned with intellectual privacy, security, liability. Of course that means they’ll only allow ai where they can pay for guarantees, and that brings us back to the cost.

        • exanime@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It delivers on what it promises to do for many people who use LLMs.

          Does it though?

          They can be used for coding assistance,

          They promised no programmers needed in 5 years. (well not promised, somebody did say that but not OpenAI staff, I think). The cost of AI both in money and energy use, does not really justify the limited aid it can provide to a programmer. You are never getting enough additional efficiency from said programmer to justify those costs

          Setting up automated customer support,

          Even more hated than when every customer centre moved to India

          tutoring, processing documents, structuring lots of complex information,

          Again, at that cost? the marginal improvement does not add up

          a good generally accurate knowledge on many topics,

          Is it though? if I can only trust it with answers I already know enough to discern whether I am getting bullshit or not, then it’s not worth it. As it it today, I cannot trust it with any search I really do not know the answer to (or can easily verify) as it can be throwing complete bullshit at me and I would have no way of knowing either.

          acting as an editor for your writings, lots more too.

          Again? you mentioned the processing docs already… but again I tell you, who will pay the heavy costs just so internal memos are written slightly better? and everything your company sends out would have to be reviewed as you do not want AI promising something you cannot deliver via hallucination

          • Bongles@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            You keep mentioning cost, and in the grand scale of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” there’s a large cost but for users, they’re just paying for a license from Microsoft to have copilot in their visual studio software or in M365 apps, etc.

            So for helping with development, it’s really not that expensive for the users. Also, “they” make lots of ridiculous claims, and i don’t know who said it, but no developers in 5 years is a wild claim that no one should’ve thought was real.

            • exanime@lemmy.world
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              It’s expensive enough my employer (of more than 2000) decided to only trial it with a small subset of seniors. It’s not just the license, it comes tied up with new hardware

              So far nobody likes it. Most people use it to summarize meetings and we just got a memo saying we need to review the summaries because it keeps missing important data

              Having said all that, when I mentioned the cost, I was referring to the cost of training the models. And without a proper business plan to monetize it, it’s is still unclear how this version of AI could be actually sold for profit.

              Remember that cost, is not just a number. It’s the number in relationships with the benefit it provides.

              For OpenAI, it has yet to produce profit that is not just venture capital and for us as user (us, I cannot speak for everyone) it has not saved us a dime after getting expensive hardware and licenses

              Oh and for the final point. True, openAI may not have been the one to say no programmers in five years although, replacing people has always been their angle. But by now we have seen OpenAI play so fast and loose with all their claims and benchmarks, we cannot believe a word they say (which you seem to do and keep on posting here).

              • Bongles@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                (which you seem to do and keep on posting here)

                I’ve only made the comment you’re replying to. I’m not whoever you’re thinking.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    What! A! Surprise!

    I’m shocked, I tell you, totally and utterly shocked by this turn of events!