I for one have nothing against Sam as a person (not knowing him well enough), but I question the sentiment that he and the company deserve respect for what they’re doing—much less by default, for some self-evident reason that doesn’t even require explanation.
Do people mean it in a sarcastic sense—and if not, why does OpenAI deserve respect again?
— Because it is non-trivial (in the same way, say, even Lenin deserves respect by default—even if the outcome has been disastrous, the person sure had some determination and done humongous work)?
— Because this particular tech is somehow inherently a good thing? (Why?)
— Because they rolled it out in a very ethical way with utmost consideration for the original authors (at least those still living), respecting their authorship rights and giving them the ability to opt in or at least opt out?
— Because they are the ones who happen to have 10 billions of Microsoft money to play with?
— Because they don’t try to monetize a brave new world in which humans are verified based on inalienable personal traits like iris scans, which they themselves are bringing about[0]?
This is me stating why they shouldn’t have respect by default and counting to get a constructive counter-argument in return.
People in tech often have the axiom that tech progress is good.
I mostly agree but we should keep in mind all the power hungry, manipulative, crazy monkey brains that will get their hands on it and cause mayhem at unheard of scales.
It is generally accepted that some applications of technology are good and some are not, or at least not self-evidently so (weapons of mass destruction, environmentally disastrous things like PFAS, packaging every single product into barely-recyclable-once plastics, gene editing humans, addictive social media/FB/TikTok, etc.)
Is this particular application of technology good, and even self-evidently so?
No, it's not generally accepted. F.e. weapons of mass destruction i.e. nuclear weapons saved hundreds of millions of lives. Your lack of imagination is not an argument against technology.
Do people mean it in a sarcastic sense—and if not, why does OpenAI deserve respect again?
— Because it is non-trivial (in the same way, say, even Lenin deserves respect by default—even if the outcome has been disastrous, the person sure had some determination and done humongous work)?
— Because this particular tech is somehow inherently a good thing? (Why?)
— Because they rolled it out in a very ethical way with utmost consideration for the original authors (at least those still living), respecting their authorship rights and giving them the ability to opt in or at least opt out?
— Because they are the ones who happen to have 10 billions of Microsoft money to play with?
— Because they don’t try to monetize a brave new world in which humans are verified based on inalienable personal traits like iris scans, which they themselves are bringing about[0]?
This is me stating why they shouldn’t have respect by default and counting to get a constructive counter-argument in return.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35398829