Comment by zer00eyz
6 days ago
> dismissing any claim from employees of large tech companies
Me: I have a way to turn lead into gold.
You: Show me!!!
Me: NO (and then spends the rest of my life in poverty).
Cold Fusion (physics not the programing language) is the best example of why you "Show your work". This is the Valley we're talking about. It's the thudnderdome of technology and companies. If you have a meaningful breakthrough you don't talk about it you drop it on the public and flex.
I don't think this is a reasonable take. Some people/organizations send signals about things that we're not ready to fully drop it on the world. Others consider those signals in context (reputation of sender, prior probability of being true, reasons for sender to be honest vs. deceptive, etc).
When my wife tells me there's a pie in the oven and it's smelling particularly good, I don't demand evidence or disbelieve the existence of the pie. And I start to believe that it'll probably be a particularly good pie.
This is from OpenAI. Here they've not been so great with public communications in the past, and they have a big incentive in a crowded marketplace to exaggerate claims. On the other hand, it seems like a dumb thing to say unless they're really going to deliver that soon.
> Some people/organizations send signals about things that we're not ready to fully drop it on the world.
This is called marketing.
> When my wife tells me there's a pie in the oven and it's smelling particularly good, I don't demand evidence
Because you have evidence, it smells.
And if later your ask your wife "where is the pie" and she says "I sprayed pie scent in the air, I was just singling" how are you going to feel?
Open AI spent its "fool us once" card already. Doing things this way does not earn back trust, failure to deliver (and they have done that more than once) ... See staff non disparagement, see the math fiasco, see open weights.
> This is called marketing.
Many signals are marketing, but the purpose of signals is not purely to develop markets. We all have to determine what we think will happen next and how others will act.
> Because you have evidence, it smells.
I think you read that differently than what I intended to write -- she claims it smells good.
> Open AI spent its "fool us once" card already.
> > This is from OpenAI. Here they've not been so great with public communications in the past, and they have a big incentive in a crowded marketplace to exaggerate claims.