Does no one on HN believe in this anymore? Isn't this tech startup community meant to be the tip of the spear? We'll find out by 2030 either way.

Have we not seen enough of these people to know their character? They're predators who, from all accounts, sacrifice every potentially meaningful personal relationship for money, long after they have more than most people could ever dream of. If we legalized gladiatorial blood sport and it became a billion-dollar business, they'd be doing that. If monkey torture porn was a billion dollar business they'd be doing that.

Whatever the promise of actual AI (and not just performative LLM garbage), if created they will lock the IP down so hard that most of the population will not be able to afford it. Rich people get Ozempic, poor people get body positivity.

I continue to be amazed at how desperate some of us are to live in Disney's Tomorrowland that we worship non-technical guys with lots of money who simply tell us that's what they're building, despite all actions to the contrary, sometimes baldfaced statements to the contrary (although always dressed up with faux-optimistic tones), and the negative anecdotes of pretty much anyone who gets close to them.

A lot of us became engineers because we were inspired by media, NASA, and the pretty pictures in Popular Science. And it sucks to realize that most if not all of that stuff isn't going to happen in our lifetimes, if at all. But you what guarantees it not to happen? Guys like Sam Altman and Larry Ellison at the helm, and blind faith that just because they have money and speak passionately that they somehow share your interests.

Or are you that guy who asks the car salesman for advice on which car he should buy? I could forgive that a little more, because the car salesman hasn't personally gone on the record about how he plans to use his business to fuck you.

The lesson of everything that has happened in tech over the past 20 years is that what tech can do and what tech will do are miles apart. Yes, AGI could give everyone a free therapist to maximize their human well-being and guide us to the stars. Just like social media could have brought humanity closer together and been an unprecedented tool for communication, understanding, and democracy. How'd that work out?

At some point, optimism becomes willfully blinding yourself to the terrible danger humanity is in right now. Of course founders paint the rosy version of their product's future. That's how PR works. They're lying - maybe to themselves, and definitely to you.

For example it isn't what you can do tinkering in your home/garage anymore; or what algorithm you can crack with your intrinsic worth to create more use cases and possibilities - but capital, relationships, hardware and politics. A recent article that went around, and many others are believing capital and wealth will matter more and make "talent" obsolete in the world of AI - this large figure in this article just adds money to that hypothesis.

All this means the big get bigger. It isn't about startup's/grinding hard/working hard/being smarter/etc which means it isn't really meritocratic. This creates an uneven playing field that is quite different than previous software technology phases where the gains/access to the gains has been more distributed/democratized and mostly accessible to the talented/hard working (e.g. the risk taking startup entrepreneur with coding skills and a love of tech).

In some ways it is kind of the opposite of the indy hacker stereotype who ironically is probably one of the biggest losers in the new AI world. In the new world what matters is wealth/ownership of capital, relationships, politics, land, resources and other physical/social assets. In the new AI world scammers, PR people, salespeople, politicians, ultra wealthy with power etc thrive and nepotism/connections are the main advantage. You don't just see this in AI btw (e.g. recent meme coins seen as better path to wealth than working due to weak link to power figure), but AI like any tech amplifies the capability of people with power especially if by definition the powerful don't need to be smart/need other smart people to yield it unlike other tech in the past.

They needed smart people in the past; we may be approaching a world where the smart people make themselves as a whole redundant. I can understand why a place like this doesn't want that to succeed, even if the world's resources are being channeled to that end. Time will tell.

The average person's utility from AI is marginal. But to a psychopath like Elon Musk who is interested in deceiving the internet about Twitter engagement or juicing his crypto scam, it's a necessary tool to create seas of fake personas.

I joined in 2012, and been reading since 2010 or so. The community definitely has changed since then, but the way I look at it is that it actually became more reasoned as the wide-eyed and naive teenagers/twenty-somethings of that era gained experience in life and work, learned how the world actually works, and perhaps even got burned a few times. As a result, today they approach these types of news with far more skepticism than their younger selves would. You might argue that the pendulum has swung too far towards the cynical end of the spectrum, but I think that's subjective.

One time I bought a can of what I clearly thought was human food. Turns out it was just well dressed cat food.

> to unlimited energy, curing disease, farming innovations to feed billions,

Aw they missed their favorite hobby horse. "The children." Then again you might have to ask why even bother educating children if there is going to be "superintelligent" computers.

Anyways.. all this stuff will then be free.. right? Is someone going to "own" the superintelligent computer? That's an interesting proposition that gets entirely left out of our futurism fatansy.

At that point, it's not technology, that's religion (or even bordering on cult-like thinking)

Look at who is president, or who is in charge of the biggest companies today. It is extremely clear that intelligence is not a part of the reason why they are there. And with all their power and money, these people have essentially zero concern for any of the topics you listed.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that if artificial superintelligence is ever created, all of a sudden the capitalist structure of society will get thrown away. The AIs will be put to work enriching the megalomaniacs, just like many of the most intelligent humans are.

No.

I mean, I had some faith in these things 15 years ago, when I was young and naive, and my heroes were too. But I've seen nearly all those heroes turn to the dark side. There's only so much faith you can have.

AGI can go wrong in innumerable ways, most of which we cannot even imagine now, because we are limited by our 1 times human intelligence.

The liftoff conditions literally have to be near perfect.

So the question is, can humanity trust the power hungry billionaire CEOs to understand the danger and choose a path for maximum safety? Looking at how it is going so far, I would say absolutely not.

I don't consider models suddenly lifting off and acquiring 1000 times human intelligence to be a realistic outcome. To my understanding, that belief is usually based around the idea that if you have a model that can refine its own architecture, say by 20%, then the next iteration can use that increased capacity to refine even further, say an additional 20%, leading to exponential growth. But that ignores diminishing returns; after obvious inefficiencies and low-hanging fruit are taken care of, squeezing out even an extra 10% is likely beyond what the slightly-better model is capable of.

I do think it's possible to fight against diminishing returns and chip away towards/past human-level intelligence, but it'll be through concerted effort (longer training runs of improved architectures with more data on larger clusters of better GPUs) and not an overnight explosion just from one researcher somewhere letting an LLM modify its own code.

> can humanity trust the power hungry billionaire CEOs to understand the danger and choose a path for maximum safety

Those power-hunger billionaire CEOs who shall remain nameless, such as Altman and Musk, are fear-mongering about such a doomsday. Goal seems to be regulatory capture and diverting attention away from the more realistic issues like use for employee surveillance[0].

[0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55938494

It's probably better to each 4-5 chicken breasts per day instead of protein powder. But as far as I know there hasn't been a measured difference.

Within some mental model, isolated protein powder is healthy because we generally treat high protein consumption as low-risk for most people and recognize that protein isolates can be very effective for professional and amateur athletes to consume a lot of while building muscle.

In no way does that imply that these protein isolates are "extremely healthy" for the general public or even for anyone in the long term. There's just not any data to say that specifically (it's too niche to perform those kinds of studies), and far too little reason to make that assumption with confidence.

(And it's almost certainly a terrible idea for most people to eat 4-5 chicken breasts per day -- or a comparable amount of protein isolate powder. Please remember that most people are not living a gym bro lifestyle and shouldn't be following gym bro nutritional advice in the first place.)

Bad math? Per USDA standards, a single boneless skinless chicken breast has ~54 grams of protein; so 4-5 would be ~200-250g of protein.

Because that's grossly outside the norm for the general public, you're not going to find any evidence to support the idea it's a healthy amount for a typical person to consume for a long period of time. And likewise, you'll find little evidence saying what negative consequences it might have, if any.

You're welcome to make whatever assumptions you want to in that case, but there's not a lot of ground for anyone to convince skeptics who disagree with them. It's tenuous assumptions all the way down.

Regardless, in the real world, that also represents 1200-1500 calories of absurdly (mind-numbingly) high-satiety food and quite a lot of slow digestive bulk. Most people simply wouldn't be able to consume that while also eating a varied diet that provides them with adequate long-term nutrition. So it's probably a pretty bad idea for them to dedicate themselves to it, unless -- like some athletes and gym bros -- they have the further discipline to also stuff themselves of all the other stuff they need to eat while also not eating so much that they become overweight. Do you know many people like that? I'm not sure I've met more than a handful in my lifetime.

Whatever the impact of the very high protein consumption itself in some abstract theoretical kind of way, which we're far from having evidence into understanding, it's just terrible advice for the general public because of the secondary effects we might reasonably expect in practice.

> Moreover, epidemiological studies show that a high intake of animal protein, particularly red meat, which contains high levels of methionine and BCAAs, may be related to the promotion of age-related diseases. Therefore, a low animal protein diet, particularly a diet low in red meat, may provide health benefits.

What practical purpose does studying ancient civilizations have? Why do we send expensive telescopes into space to study faraway galaxies and try to uncover mysteries of the big bang? When can we expect the results from number theory to lower the price of gas at the pump?

Knowing that mitochondria have their own DNA is knowledge. Knowing that they reproduce independently of their home cell is knowledge. Learning whether they evolved from a separate viable organism would be knowledge. Learning whether we can make them viable, or breed them separately, and use them in therapies -- all knowledge.

Whether they are "alive" or not is just the definition of a word.

A subset of scientists want to come up with an operational definition of "What is life", which may or may not include things like viruses and mitochondria. As you say, it's mostly definitional, but by defining this, we can potentially make our understanding match up with the latent reality.

Do you genuinely believe that the record profits are due to the layoffs, and not just because we just lucked out to enter a new bubble?

But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs.

Layoffs are awful. They affect lives and families deeply. But all businesses don't go up and to the right forever. Reductions are a necessary part of running competitive companies.

> Iwata ran the Kyoto, Japan-based video game company [Nintendo] from 2002 until his death in 2015. To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding. [0]

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-sal...

Edit: to expand on my point re virtue signalling: the article states the CEO took a salary cut, not total compensation (and it doesn’t elaborate on the value of the cut). Salary is a small fraction of CEO total compensation - the bulk of which is stock based, and even in the event that stock grants were also cut, the CEO surely already had significant stock. Cutting a relatively small component of compensation in order to boost the stock price which disproportionately adds to the CEO’s personal wealth seems like virtue signalling to me. If the CEO said “shareholders be damned, morale and culture are all that matters in the long run, no layoffs etc etc” that would seem more meaningful.

What would someone need to do in order to avoid being reduced to a virtue signaller?

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/these-20-companies-have-bigg...

Right now, there is no actual downside for executives. Just less upside. Did they earn XX Million this year or XXX Million. Some tangible downside would be nice.

I mean, heck, why aren't they fired? And really, it's more then middle management where that'd make a huge difference. If bad performance led to actual shakeups in the entrenched middle management, we might actually see business practices change rather than continue on through the established fiefdoms and petty corporate politics.

In other words this kind of behavior wouldn't be viewed as all that surprising locally.

Mass layoffs -- unless the company is actually tanking and on its last leg, which isn't the case with any of the tech companies who have been doing this recently -- cause the share price to rise. CEO pay, or at least bonuses, are often tied to the share price.

So a CEO is rewarded instead.

So all this crap is just cargo-culting our current management paradigm, and/or execs cooperating to suppress wages and weaken labor, which had gotten a bit too uppity after Covid (that's one thing waves of layoffs like this do accomplish).

There's an Indonesian joke based on the word "responsibility" which is "tanggung jawab". "Tanggung" in this context means to carry the consequences, and "jawab" is to answer. One can say to a friend "We have to share this responsibility. I'll do the answering, and you'll do the carrying of the consequences."

It's often offensively insincere.

There’s no need for a CEO to bring themselves and their feelings into the conversation. It’s this weird attempt at empathy that fails, because the CEO isn’t making any sacrifices.

Just say that there are layoffs. Most rational people who have been in any business for more than a few years recognize them as an unfortunate part of the business cycle.

“As CEO, I’m truly sorry to those impacted. But I strongly believe that this change is what is needed now to make sure Dropbox can thrive in the future.”

"I'm the sole person who made this decision" is probably closer what they are trying to say.

Simple: they sure love to talk a big game about responsibilities and taking responsibilities. Until it's time to actually do it. For the good of the company of course (if the company is in such dire straits, as the most highly paid employee - and probably not the hardest working one - why don't you take a big pay cut? For the good of the company of course).

That's what people don't take well.

It's amazing this still has to be explained.

No - as a consequence of poorly planning cost controls. It's not that the people don't need to be laid off for the health of the company, but that the executives who made the bad decisions don't get the boot along with them, in favor of more cautious or frugal leaders.

Why?

> who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs

That's actually a valid point. We don't commonly fire normal employees for mistakes. The counterargument is CEOs aren't normal employees.

Cool, can we pay you intern wages then?

[EDIT] To make this a bit more substantive: I think this is a sign both that we need to stop with this whole professional-managerial-class horse-shit, promote people who know how to do the actual work of the business, and reduce exec wages because the job's simply not all that damn special and the comp shouldn't be so high that only godlike-perfect performance could possibly justify it, because in truth nobody's that good at it.

Step one of this would be reducing M&A activity (hellooooo antitrust enforcement) and reigning in the power of finance, since letting Wall Street suits put their HBS frat brothers in charge of everything is at the heart of why this stuff's how it is.

Perhaps you've misinterpreted that statement? It is the board that takes on greater risk with executives as compared to other employees. The executives are given the keys to the kingdom, which means only an exceedingly small group of trusted individuals can be considered for the job. By the transitive properties of supply and demand, when supply is limited, price goes up.

How big of a bonus will this CEO get this year? Last year?

> As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change.

Not to be an apologist, but I bet Drew really does feel responsible. He’s not professional management, and he always acted like Dropbox was his kid, at least from what I saw working there. I’m sure this feels shitty to him, though it’s obviously worse for the people laid off.

Obviously you as a CEO failed at doing second.

Now question is do you fire yourself and try to get a better CEO or you choose to fire 20% and generate more profits.

If it's up to the workforce they probably choose to fire CEO. But if it's upto the CEO he choose to fire the 20%.

Do you also object to sales reps or athletes making less money after a long period of performing poorly?

The other two options: blame employees(someone not you), or take some form of punishment as an individual.

I too do it sometimes, and I feel bad each time. I at least tell people what it is and that it's just the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna commit career suicide and jeopardize my family's livelihood but I also won't blame them. So I follow the meaningless middle road where the status quo mostly stays and we all at least learn from it.

At least they learned not to trust you, though.

“you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs” or you would maybe get a better decision maker who didn't have to layoff — or hire unnecessary — workers in the first place? Ridiculous speculation.

Responsibility without consequences just means failing upward. That's why we have a gilded executive class of people who are barely qualified to run a local Taco Bell franchise.

Conflict theorists think that every event is a result of power struggler. So if someone gets hurt, someone must be punished for that.

Mistake theorists think that the world is complex and sometimes bad stuff happens because most people operate with good intentions most of the time. Often, that means no punishment needs to be metted out.

To mistake theorists, conflict theorists look like ideological blood thirsty savages. To conflict theorists, mistake theorists look like enemy troops.

This is a gross oversimplification but it always shocks me to see how much more conflict theorists there are on hn now than before. So many comments here blaming the CEO or capitalism, most of which are going off extremely scant information.

Not saying it's enough, not saying that's the only way, but I find it peculiar that this seems to be unthinkable.

Um... yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I want.

I used to work at a Dairy Queen. One dude there had been working there for a couple years. Unfortunately, one shift his drawer came up a dollar short. Our cutoff was 5 cents - a nickel - over or under. He was immediately terminated, of course.

He cost the company one dollar. A Dairy Queen cashier making minimum wage is held to a higher standard of accountability.

However that is beside the point. In both race and chess we want to know/reward the best human. People don't listen to podcasts to reward anyone or to find the best podcaster. So listening to a random podcast that appeals to you is much easier than watching stockfish vs Alpha go. The things you are describing are activities undertaken by very few for a living and are very binary. Most things are not like that and are much more likely to be disrupted by LLM spam.