Losing faith in big tech altruism
Before last week, I trusted OpenAI to an unreasonable degree—Maybe it was because of Altman’s safety focused messaging. I thought that OpenAI is very aligned with the values of humanity and that if they built AGI, the spoils would be redistributed in some UBI/communistic fashion. They would do this out of pure altruism.
Recent news about the OpenAI safety team losing faith and the fact that tech companies in general are lobbying against AI safety is making things clearer for me: As opposed to a unified global effort towards AGI, them building AGI is making the bad ending much more likely and the good ending much less good/redistributive. I no longer want Altman and other unaccountable billionaires in charge of humanity’s potentially greatest invention. The profit-incentive is too strong and the market is not exercising enough caution.
See also: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/myp9Y9qJnpEEWhJF9/linch-s-shortform?commentId=eF82LpXwPwAEnzC4a