Comment by embedding-shape

8 hours ago

Not feeling like 1 hour of my Sunday is worth listening to this, do anyone have the non-clickbait answers to the two "previews" mentioned in the description?

> Greg explains how the original Napa offsite produced the three-step technical plan OpenAI has followed for a decade and the real reason OpenAI had to abandon its pure nonprofit structure

What was the technical plan and what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?

26 comments

embedding-shape

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applfanboysbgon  8 hours ago

> What was the technical plan

"1. Solve reinforcement learning

2. Solve unsupervised learning

3. Gradually learn more complicated 'things'"

That three point list is verbatim the extent of the technical plan mentioned.

> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?

Paraphrasing, "we needed more money for compute and didn't think we could get enough as a non-profit". Brockman's diary might be a stronger indicator of the real real reason, though.

  • armchairhacker  5 hours ago

    What was the real real reason?

    I imagine if they stayed nonprofit, they would’ve survived, but not convinced investors to give them enough $$$ and datacenters to stay the most popular (above Google).

    • Lerc  5 hours ago

      If they stayed small and 100% non-profit, would the influence or value of the non profit be more, or less, than it is today?

      I think the non-profit has around 25% ownership of something that is around a trillion dollars of on-paper money.

      I guess we will see what things are still worth when the crazy days come to an end.

      4 replies →

    • greatgib  5 hours ago

      I can easily guess also that at the beginning they were more thinking like a research project that they could create something but would like quantum computing today, not really of real world used.

      And one things started to become real, they realized the financing potential of the thing, that they were seated on a gold mine and would be stupid of them to create that and not profit much more of it.

tcp_handshaker  6 hours ago

>> What was the technical plan and what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?

Because they were still downloading from Anna's Archive and the lawyers were in panic?

dave1010uk  8 hours ago

1. Solve reinforcement learning.

2. solve unsupervised learning.

3. gradually tackle more complicated things.

> what was the "real reason" they couldn't achieve their original goals?

I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.

  • embedding-shape  7 hours ago

    Huh, I guess ML people weren't aware of "divide and conquer" that has been successfully employed in software engineering since basically forever?

    > I assume this is referring to why they gave up being a non-profit. The answer is that they needed more money.

    Ugh, that was more boring than even I expected, thanks a lot for saving me the time though, seems avoiding watching the full thing was worth it.

  • arvid-lind  6 hours ago

    > The answer is that they needed more money.

    isn't it still an odd choice for a nonprofit? it's hard to imagine a world without OpenAI and ChatGPT now, but at some point they decided being the best is most important. and presumably most profitable, since why just need a little more money?

bblb  8 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JoUcQ1qmAc

    00:00:00 Introduction
    00:00:49 Meeting Sam Altman and Starting OpenAI
    00:02:40 Building the Founding Team
    00:04:25 DeepMind's Lead Over OpenAI
    00:04:54 The Change from a Pure Non-Profit
    00:06:05 Breakthrough Moments at OpenAI
    00:08:22 What Dota 2 Meant for OpenAI
    00:10:04 Reasoning Versus Prediction
    00:11:59 Tensions Grow at OpenAI
    00:15:44 Sam Altman's Firing
    00:17:49 Greg Quits OpenAI
    00:19:56 Sam Explores Deal with Microsoft's Satya
    00:20:28 OpenAI Employees Sign Petition for Altman's Return
    00:23:43 Ilya Sutskever Leaves OpenAI
    00:24:59 Lessons Learned in Leadership after Sam Ousting
    00:28:22 The Thing Ilya Said that Greg Can't Forget
    00:32:22 Is AI Going Parabolic?
    00:33:24 How Much of OpenAI's Code is Written by AI?
    00:36:21 Are AI Chatbots Just Telling Us What We Want to Hear?
    00:38:06 The Global AI Race to Reach AGI
    00:38:40 What Happens if US Doesn't Reach AGI First?
    00:39:49 Are Competing Countries Stealing AI Advancements from U.S?
    00:40:38 Why ChatGPT No Longer Shows Reasoning
    00:41:47 The Finite Constraints of Compute
    00:43:38 On Investing Early in Data Centers
    00:46:31 The Future of Data Center Specialization
    00:47:52 How OpenAI Will Decide Whose Queries to Serve
    00:49:08 OpenAI on Consumer vs Enterprise Models
    00:53:05 Data Centers in Space?
    01:00:56 What Should AI Regulation Look Like?
    01:04:33 The Future of AI-Powered Entrepreneurship
    01:04:44 AI and Job Loss
    01:07:15 The Skills Young People Should Invest In
    01:11:30 What Does Success Look Like For You?

siva7  7 hours ago

> Not feeling like 1 hour of my Sunday is worth listening to this, do anyone have the non-clickbait answers to the two "previews" mentioned in the description?

I know HN is built around mostly not reading the articles linked but how about you click on the link and surprise, there is already exactly another link providing what you're asking for.