“AI #39: The Week of OpenAI” by Zvi

The board firing Sam Altman, then reinstating him, dominated everything else this week. Other stuff also happened, but definitely focus on that first.

Table of Contents

Developments at OpenAI were far more important than everything else this read. So you can read this timeline of events over the weekend, and this attempt to put all the information together.

1. Introduction.
2. Table of Contents.
3. Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Narrate your life, as you do all life.
4. Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Prompt injection unsolved.
5. The Q Continuum. Disputed claims about new training techniques.
6. OpenAI: The Saga Continues. The story is far from over.
7. Altman Could Step Up. He understands existential risk. Now he can act.
8. You Thought This Week Was Tough. It is not getting any easier.
9. Fun With Image Generation. A few seconds of an Emu.

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    Outline:

    (00:16) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

    (01:09) Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

    (04:50) The Q Continuum

    (05:47) OpenAI: The Saga Continues

    (13:29) Altman Could Step Up

    (14:59) You Thought This Week Was Tough

    (16:15) Fun with Image Generation

    (16:37) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

    (17:28) They Took Our Jobs

    (18:07) Get Involved

    (18:30) Introducing

    (19:17) In Other AI News

    (20:42) Quiet Speculations

    (24:00) The Quest for Sane Regulations

    (27:19) That Is Not What Totalitarianism Means

    (31:39) The Week in Audio

    (34:13) Rhetorical Innovation

    (39:21) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

    (46:24) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

    (47:54) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

    (49:18) The Lighter Side

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    First published:
    November 23rd, 2023

    Source:
    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3FCfEqRiLLb4gFu3H/ai-39-the-week-of-openai

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    Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.