OpenAI's Sam Altman to Brief UN Security Council Next Week

Posted by layer8 17 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by wewewedxfgdf 16 hours ago

I find it very hard to understand the things these AI CEO's say.

He will probably get up there and say his companies products will destroy every citizen of their countries.

Comment by howunfortunate 16 hours ago

People will say it's marketing but I find Occam's Razor highly favors the theory "they are true believers in AGI/ASI"

This seems especially true for Anthropic employees.

Comment by moshun 16 hours ago

Wouldn’t Occam’s razor say that the people speaking are highly motivated to continue being paid? Relying on their fear of future outcomes seems to be misplaced to judge the honesty of their statements.

Comment by howunfortunate 15 hours ago

> continue being paid

What I mean by Occam's Razor:

There are many assumptions that need to be true to link "they say they're terrified of AI" to "they get paid more / longer", in both their own minds and everyone else's. It's a bit of 4D chess that could go their way, but also could go 100 different ways.

In contrast, linking "they say it" to "they believe it" is simple.

Comment by bheadmaster 6 hours ago

Occam's razor is about minimizing the number of assumptions needed for a conclusion. In this case, "they believe it" is the same number of assumptions as "they get paid" - just one.

Comment by howunfortunate 30 minutes ago

Saying "I'm terrified of my job" does not normally lead fo getting paid more. Those links are the extra assumptions.

Comment by layer8 15 hours ago

Justifying “they believe it” isn’t so simple, however.

Comment by talon8635 15 hours ago

Occam’s razor doesn’t often explain not taking people for their worst and assuming a conspiracy theory

Comment by ares623 13 hours ago

I think it goes beyond money now. A future where AI does not destroy the world means a world where the people who work at these companies are just like everyone else.

Comment by chrisXOXO 15 hours ago

Genuinely, what makes people not believe in coming AGI? I read quite a lot on hackernews but never encounter a strong post/comment against it, apart from the „what is marketing“ discussion. Maybe people don’t bother because everyone is in their trenches, tough I don’t understand how people do not see the AGI coming. What kind of doom, if any, will befall is something different of course. I don’t want to believe there will be AGI in the next 5 years, but it sure is hard not to!

Comment by jltsiren 15 hours ago

I think it's because people have different ideas of AGI. Some only expect general intelligence, while others also require weird speculative ideas, such as rapid self-improvement.

Right now, what seems to be missing from general intelligence is mostly the ability to learn from experience and continue operating in a useful way well beyond context window size. That might already be technically feasible, but probably not in a cost-effective way.

Comment by Yossarrian22 15 hours ago

What does AGI mean is probably the sticking point for most. I'm inclined to call it AGI if they can create something currently matching SOTA where there is no difference between training and inference time, i.e. it can continuously learn. Without the model collapsing.

Comment by afavour 15 hours ago

I don’t believe AI progress is a linear line that ends in “AGI”. I think the current way we create LLMs will be improved, and improved, and improved. But an LLM at its core is a predictive chain, not general intelligence.

Comment by talon8635 15 hours ago

Well, we can’t even clearly define consciousness, so who’s to say complex large-input statistical computation isn’t it?

I have no idea. Anyone claiming to is hubristic.

Comment by afavour 14 hours ago

“We can’t clearly define it so we should accept just about any definition of it” is certainly a position to take.

The burden of proof exists, it’s not hubristic to require it.

Comment by cindyllm 14 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by laxd 16 hours ago

Shocking publicity is good publicity. And "my product is so potent it will probably destroy you." I think I´ve heard it from drug dealers as well.

Comment by amelius 15 hours ago

Why are we even discussing this here? Altman works in the alchemy sector, not the tech sector.

Comment by addandsubtract 15 hours ago

As long as a post isn't sbout politics– oh wait.

Comment by kelseyfrog 16 hours ago

Smells of, "You can't handle my potions. They're too strong for you."[1]

1. https://genius.com/Justin-kuritzkes-potion-seller-annotated

Comment by EA-3167 16 hours ago

It’s a great way to sign up young men for military duty too, sell it to them like it’s something exciting and awesome… and they can’t handle it.

Comment by lenkite 15 hours ago

My product is so powerful, you all need to pay me more money to keep it safe for you.

Comment by ks2048 16 hours ago

The founder of Loopt is now ruling the world.

Comment by cloche 16 hours ago

The guy had a failed startup and somehow leveraged that into the situation today.

Comment by IncreasePosts 16 hours ago

I imagine his time at ycombinator as Gríma Wormtongue whispering into theoden's(paulg's) ear

Comment by einarfd 17 hours ago

He will probably tell them exactly what they want him to say. If he means it or not. That is hard to say.

Comment by 16 hours ago

Comment by mlnj 16 hours ago

When has anyone faced scrutiny over their lies to these politicians?

Comment by wg0 17 hours ago

The private equity debt time bomb is here. Then there is the bond market.

And then guaranteed bust of AI bubble. 2000 billion dollars for a single company? That too when bottom of the boat has been drilled by open weight Chinese models that are cheaper and good enough but can even be deployed locally?

In face of all that - that kind of return is not realistic.

However - good gimmick scaring UN asking for a ban on Chinese models perhaps.

Comment by tracerbulletx 17 hours ago

The UN is not a body that would be involved in banning models from a specific country, and even if they were China is one of 5 members with permanent veto power.

Comment by stogot 10 hours ago

The permanent veto power is the worst part of the UN

Comment by api 16 hours ago

Only way to justify those valuation is if they can achieve regulatory capture and outlaw competitors and open models.

Expect the fear mongering to escalate to a fever pitch.

The UN has no authority to ban anything but it's a good platform.

Comment by pluc 16 hours ago

How's AI doing in Russia with all the sanctions and whatnot?

Comment by ACCount39 16 hours ago

The AI industry in Russia is not doing well. Domestic AI models exist, but they aren't exactly high performers, and many of them are based on the open weight Chinese models - so there is very little reason to use them. IT power users run Western or Chinese models, often through proxies, VPNs or resellers.

AI is being adopted and used, but if there was ever a chance of Russia being an AI power, it died in 2022.

A few formerly-Russian IT companies had their "rainy day" HQs overseas, and leveraged them to slip the noose and leave Russia - brain draining what AI expertise was available in the country. See: Yandex -> Nebius.

Comment by layer8 16 hours ago

They’re just using Claude: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/09/russia-weaponi...

Comment by free_bip 16 hours ago

They have access to all the same open models that the rest of the world does, so just fine I would think.

Comment by dgellow 16 hours ago

They also access American models via proxies. Same as China

Comment by 16 hours ago

Comment by edoceo 17 hours ago

If governments regulate AI and make it slow down, does that let one get out of data center contracts?

Comment by dgellow 16 hours ago

If OpenAI voids its spending commitment, the bubble has to pop. I know the market is irrational, but that would be the clearest top signal ever

Comment by ares623 15 hours ago

Yes, except this way they can say it's not their fault nuh-uh mom said I don't have to pay you.

Comment by edoceo 14 hours ago

Right, that's what I'm thinking. These folk (ai operators) know they are overvalued, see the open model threats and the performance improvement on lower-end hardware. So, no need for all these data centers. The "force majure" or whatever that lets them exit those commitments. So all that accrual based revenue is gone.

Is ads in the AI gonna drive that revenue valuation? Are buyers going to lock in contracts when a new model in 120 days is ever better and cheaper?

Comment by bogzz 16 hours ago

The LARP proceeds unabated.

Comment by ares623 16 hours ago

Here's a preview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGwz1s1E1aw

Comment by Kuyawa 15 hours ago

Apocalypse, doom, chaos, children, china, regulation, taxes, in that order

That's the whole presentation, saved you a couple of insufferable hours

Comment by chrisXOXO 15 hours ago

Laughted out loud

Comment by osiris970 16 hours ago

Are we still pretending models aren't cyber capable, and will be an immense force for hacking? I expected this shit on reddit not here. You don't have to like Sam, and still not do this bullshit

Comment by vinyl7 15 hours ago

It would be more believable if the AI companies success wasn't entirely dependent on regulatory capture

Comment by bogzz 16 hours ago

The fearmongering is based in the notion that the LessWrong fanfic is coming true as we speak, not LLMs being used as tools for hacking.

Comment by arctic-true 16 hours ago

Unfortunately focusing on the fanfic prevents everyone from focusing on the genuinely world-altering threat of cybersecurity becoming completely impossible for a while. But perhaps that’s the point, because you can be held liable for that, but not for the end of the world as there wouldn’t be any courts afterward.

Comment by amelius 16 hours ago

Can we put a ban on "technology" that we don't understand and fully control yet?

(I put "technology" in quotes because it is closer to alchemy.)

Comment by newsclues 16 hours ago

hope he wear two collared shirts.

Comment by 15 hours ago

Comment by daveguy 16 hours ago

Please tell me they are going to have independent computer scientists and security experts to ask questions that expose the doomerism/"rationalist" LessWrong bullshit. Please don't just let him spew talking points designed to make a deflating bubble look like a good thing.

Comment by nrmitchi 15 hours ago

Doubtful. Almost definitely going to be taking direction from "business" people with misaligned and ulterior motives, rather than asking questions of people with long careers, research, and history in the field.

Which is just... highly unfortunate.

Comment by ahartmetz 17 hours ago

A great marketing opportunity for Grifty McGriftface.

Comment by verdverm 16 hours ago

A friend him called Uncle Sam Alternative-man, thought it was accurate and clever

Comment by cpcabbge 16 hours ago

Why these bug eyed salamanders have any say at all for any of this is beyond me. He's a tech ceo who wants to make money, nothing more.

Comment by nba456_ 16 hours ago

I thought you meant the UN at first and was about to agree. They should have no say about US tech.

Comment by dyauspitr 16 hours ago

He’s rich, in charge of a pretty significant company that has made history and continues to do so.

Comment by hfc56 16 hours ago

Who do you think designed central banks?

Bankers or politicians or the plebs?

These kind of meetings are to create common vocabulary/seed common frameworks across the world for problems all govts are seeing or expecting on the horizon.

Comment by jstummbillig 16 hours ago

HN would be better if it did not produce disparaging comments in every thread that has Sam Altman on it.

I get it. We dislike Sam. I got it 3? 4? years ago. Would be nice and more interesting if we could see past that at some point, given that he is a fairly important figure, doing important things, that would be cool to share interesting thoughts about.