zlacker

>>davidb+(OP)
Nothing makes me think of Altman as a grifter more than his trying to spook uneducated lawmakers with sci-fi notions like "superintelligence" for which there are no plausible mechanisms or natural analogues, and for which the solution is to lobby government build a moat around his business and limit his competitors. We do not even have a consensus around a working definition of "intelligence", let alone any evidence that it is a linear or unbounded phenomenon, and even if it were, there is no evidence ChatGPT is a route to even human-level intelligence. The sum total of research into this "field" is a series of long chains of philosophical leaps that rapidly escape any connection to reality, which is no basis for a wide-ranging government intervention.

>>lsy+c9
> sci-fi notions like "superintelligence"

That echoes my own first impression - that the whole point here was to get "superintelligence" into the lexicon, and to imply that OpenAI might be able to produce such a thing. Stealth advertising at its worst.

> lobby government build a moat around his business

That was my second impression. Altman and his ilk don't care about regulation as something to do with public good. As far as they're concerned, it's just another lever they can pull to get or stay ahead of competitors. Kind of funny seeing him try to build the moat before he's actually built anything resembling a castle, but that's VC thinking I guess.

So, I guess what I'm really saying here is: thank you. Well said.