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Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

(www.thealgorithmicbridge.com)
197 points baylearn | 5 comments | 05 Jul 25 10:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.835s | source
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empiko ◴[05 Jul 25 11:20 UTC] No.44471933[source]▶
Observe what the AI companies are doing, not what they are saying. If they would expect to achieve AGI soon, their behaviour would be completely different. Why bother developing chatbots or doing sales, when you will be operating AGI in a few short years? Surely, all resources should go towards that goal, as it is supposed to usher the humanity into a new prosperous age (somehow).
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rvz ◴[05 Jul 25 11:32 UTC] No.44471991[source]▶
Exactly. For example, Microsoft was building data centers all over the world since "AGI" was "around the corner" according to them.

Now they are cancelling those plans. For them "AGI" was cancelled.

OpenAI claims to be closer and closer to "AGI" as more top scientists left or are getting poached by other labs that are behind.

So why would you leave if the promise of achieving "AGI" was going to produce "$100B dollars of profits" as per OpenAI's and Microsoft's definition in their deal?

Their actions tell more than any of their statements or claims.

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zaphirplane ◴[05 Jul 25 11:43 UTC] No.44472058[source]▶
I’m not commenting on the whole just the rhetorical question of why would people leave.

They are leaving for more money, more seniority or because they don’t like their boss. 0 about AGI

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1. Game_Ender ◴[05 Jul 25 12:19 UTC] No.44472278[source]▶
I think the implicit take is that if your company hits AGI your equity package will do something like 10x-100x even if the company is already big. The only other way to do that is join a startup early enough to ride its growth wave.

Another way to say it is that people think it’s much more likely for each decent LLM startup grow really strongly first several years then plateau vs. then for their current established player to hit hyper growth because of AGI.

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2. leoc ◴[05 Jul 25 13:53 UTC] No.44472816[source]▶
A catch here is that individual workers may have priorities which are altered due to the strong natural preference for assuring financial independence. Even if you were a hot AI researcher who felt (and this is just a hypothetical) that your company was the clear industry leader and had, say, a 75% chance of soon achieving something AGI-adjacent and enabling massive productivity gains, you might still (and quite reasonably) prefer to leave if that was what it took to make absolutely sure of getting of your private-income screw-you money (and/or private-investor seed capital). Again this is just a hypothetical: I have no special insight, and FWIW my gut instinct is that the job-hoppers are in fact mostly quite cynical about the near-term prospects for "AGI".
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3. andrew_lettuce ◴[05 Jul 25 17:51 UTC] No.44474352[source]▶
You're right, but the narrative out of these companies directly refutes this position. They're explicitly saying that 1. AGI changes everything, 2. It's just around the corner, 3. They're completely dedicated to achieving it; nothing is more important.

Then they leave for more money.

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4. sdenton4 ◴[05 Jul 25 18:16 UTC] No.44474498[source]▶
Additionally, if you've already got vested stock in Company A from your time working there, jumping ship to Company B (with higher pay and a stock package) is actually a diversification. You can win whichever ship pulls in first.

The 'no one jumps ship if agi is close' assumption is really weak, and seemingly completely unsupported in TFA...

5. sdenton4 ◴[05 Jul 25 18:18 UTC] No.44474507{3}[source]▶
Don't conflate labor's perspective with capital's started position... The companies aren't leaving the companies, the workers are leaving the companies.