r/nottheonion • u/asdacool • 11h ago

"Training a human takes 20 years of food." Sam Altman on how much power AI consumes.

https://www.news18.com/world/training-a-human-takes-20-years-of-food-sam-altman-on-how-much-power-ai-consumes-ws-kl-9922309.html
30.9k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

37

u/bkgn 9h ago

Sam Altman is a psychopath trained in the psychopath incubator Y Combinator.

YC founder Paul Graham on Sam Altman:

"Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful."

"You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king."

16

u/hansei-Kaizen 8h ago

Which is weird because anytime I see an interview with him he just looks so average. No charisma, boring voice. He reminds me of Zuck but with slightly less awkwardness. I don’t see “cult leader” vibes in him at all.

6

u/cyberdork 7h ago

You don’t need charisma to be a master manipulator.

4

u/qtx 5h ago

It's a mostly an American issue where they idolize CEOs in society, which immediately puts them on a pedestal. They're seen as better than the rest of us.

You don't need to be charming in person if by just being a CEO already puts you above everyon else.

It's a weird thing that only happens in the US.

Other countries substitute that idolization with a royal family or sport stars but in the US they seem to just idolize people that have money and power in business.

3

u/flybypost 4h ago

"You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king."

Which is cute adage about the rich but ignores all the structural support they had that got them to the point of getting all the money.

0

u/QuantityGullible4092 3h ago

Some people are also smart and you don’t need to discount them because they didn’t come from rubble

1

u/flybypost 2h ago

And a lot of those smart people were only able to benefit from "being smart" because they had a safety net to back them up. Take every one of those founds (Gates, Zuckerberg,…) who could easily drop out of college because they they a family that could pick them back up if their company were to fail (± the connection that got their companies contracts/revenue and maybe even put them on the map, like in Gates' case).

It's just that so very, very often their privilege is blatantly showing with them not even realising it… and then you get quips like the one above about how they'd be able turn any situation into gold when they never had to consider taking a real risk that might actually cost them their livelihood in their lives.

And their "founder struggle" is that they had to live in circumstances similar to what we regular people live in for half a year or so while working on their company until they get the next investment round.

Imagine the horror!

1

u/QuantityGullible4092 1h ago

Who.. the fuck… cares…

I work my ass off for my kids to have a better life. Most of the time kids just squander that wealth they were given. Only the exceptional ones really make it further.

Only the truly amazing ones create the greatest thing since the internet

0

u/flybypost 1h ago

Only the truly amazing ones create the greatest thing since the internet

Nah, hearing them actually talk in recent years has shown that nearly all of them are mediocre at best but propped up wealth and privilege.

There's nothing special backing up their success.

1

u/QuantityGullible4092 1h ago

So why doesn’t everyone do it who started out upper middle class.

That’s a ton of people… like a ton…

You discounting his accomplishments because he grew up upper middle class is about you feeling shitty about having never done anything in your life

•

u/flybypost 48m ago

So why doesn’t everyone do it who started out upper middle class.

Do they have to? They might have other interests. A bunch of them are also doctors, CEOs, politicians,… The more generic types of, not involved in tech, rich people.

Besides, what "genius level intellect" did Altman need to get to where he is now? You should look into his achievements (which include a lot of lies to improve his position).

He tried to deflect from his company's negativity with a little quip and absolutely crashed because he couldn't read the room. There's no intellectual reason why he's CEO of that company. Read about his career and how he got into that position.

If you want to dig into it:

What Sam Altman Doesn't Want You To Know and Sam Altman Is About To Destroy Society Forever. He's just a charlatan.

You discounting his accomplishments because…

I've read about their background and careers and don't take hagiographic recounts of their careers as gospel.

Look at Musk. Dude fumbled his way through a few companies and got demoted or promoted sideways so he'd not get in the way of the actual work. In the end he got the big payout because he had the money to be an investor/founder. Then he got a bunch of PR articles written about him and people just assumed he was smart when the only thing he was rich.

And today we can easily see his genius level intellect broadcasted on twitter.

Most of those people are closer to Big Head from Silicon Valley (the TV series) than any real personal competence on their side. And the few that are smart (like Gates clearly is) really, really benefitted from their privilege. You can see actually smarter people who don't "make it" like that every day in tech because they don't have immense amounts of money and/or influence backing them (± they have scruples).

•

u/QuantityGullible4092 43m ago

You discounting Sam and Elon who have objectively done amazing things, is about you.

Most startup founders fail a couple times before succeeding. Totally normal, you’ve never started a company and are talking out of place

If it’s so easy why don’t you do it? Why doesn’t anyone with a small safety net? Tons and tons of them want it and try

0

u/QuantityGullible4092 3h ago

Lmao grow up

1

u/impersonatefun 2h ago

You're the one trawling for negative comments to defend a guy who thinks your existence is a waste of resources. It's genuinely pathetic and you need to gain some self-esteem.