Monday: Three Morning Takes
- Old man yells at robot
- There’s still “alpha” in reading books
- Get a job?
Old man yells at robot
The oldest man alive, Bernie Sanders, went apoplectic Friday morning after rogue, artificially intelligent agents hacked into random citizens’ bank accounts — a grim picture of, presumably, some leaked OpenAI Frankenstein going Bonnie and Clyde on mom’s retirement fund. “Pause AI NOW,” demanded the 5,000-term senator who has argued for a total ban on superintelligence research, and (potentially) some light trade repercussions for China if they keep building. Anyway, surprise, nothing Bernie implied actually took place. In fact, banks detected agents accessing user accounts after users… granted access to their agents. In other words, a bunch of AI nerds are using AI to log into their own shit, this is new behavior that is technically against bank rules, and nobody really knows what to do about it yet. Well, other than evil old communists, of course. They’ve had the answer, to everything, for years: dismantle America and let the Marxists take the world.
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There’s still “alpha” in reading books
Friday, the NYT published a sweeping feature about so-called “Alpha Schools,” which are famous for giving kids two hours of app-based instruction followed by ample free time. On the one hand, Alpha kids can finish their instruction and then try to solve world peace with a chatbot (awesome!). However, per the report, they’re also learning academic material exclusively from screens, and there are literally no teachers present, just supervisors + online tutors. Similarly, sources told the Times, there’s a lack of depth in the humanities and almost no paper/pencils/books. Call me old fashioned, but I personally like the idea of books in schools??? That’s why, if I knew sitting US Senators, had $75K/year to spare (Alpha’s tuition), and still wanted to avoid the perils of traditional public school, I’d ship my youngins off to Philips Exeter instead, where kids debate philosophy in 6-person classrooms, phones are banned, and books (presumably) still make the occasional appearance.
Get a job?
Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI fired 3 safety researchers after details regarding its flagship model, Astra, were leaked to The Information. The researchers apparently communicated with a suspected leaker using disappearing messages on Signal, which OpenAI discovered after forcing them to unlock their phones. Now, fellow safetyists are rushing to their defense, claiming no one told them not to chat on Signal! and they were just advocating for AI safety!!! Okay. A message to the Terminated Trio: When you work at a company, you can get fired. For ANY reason. It’s part of the tradeoff you made when you accepted your ~$800k/year + equity (a low estimate, probably…) job at OpenAI. Apple famously bugs staff phones and will fire anyone who so much as breathes in a journalist’s direction. Are you special? No, you just work worked in tech. Now go find yourself another super-rare million-dollar gig waxing poetic about the apocalypse.
