Empire of AI by Karen Hao, p. 136

«For years, the tech industry had relied on poorly paid workers in precarious economic conditions to perform essential data preparation tasks for its AI models, such as categorising text and labelling images. Soon after GPT-3 normalised the use of giant, poorer quality datasets, the demand for the work shifted from the handling of largely benign content to frequently disturbing content, including for the purposes of content moderation, much like social media before it. Such moderation was necessary to prevent generative AI systems from reproducing the most vile parts of their all-encompassing datasets — descriptions and depictions of violence, sexual abuse, or self-har — to hundreds of millions of users.»

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Empire of AI by Karen Hao, p. 118

«Just as firm as Sutskever’s belief in deep learning was his view on scaling it. It was Sutskever who held the extreme position for the time that further advancements in AI didn’t need the invention of more complex neural networks or new innovative techniques.»

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Empire of AI by Karen Hao, pp. 103-104

«But the story left me with an uneasy feeling that the successful backlash was an anomaly, and the company’s original approach — to go to countries eager to embrace the promise of technology for finding data donors and product testers — was in fact a trend. When I recounted this worry to a colleague, she introduced me to a phrase that had already been coined for the phenomenon: “data colonialism.” I discovered works of scholars Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, whose foundational text The Costs of Connection, published just that year {2019?}, argued that Silicon Valley’s pervasive datafication of everything was leading to a return of disturbing historical patterns of conquest and extractivism.»

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Empire of AI by Karen Hao, page 82

«When he {Greg Brockman} got married four years later, he held a civil ceremony at OpenAI’s office in front of custom flower wall emblazoned with the shape of the lab’s hexagonal logo. Sutskever officiated. The robotic hand they used for research stood in the aisle bearing the rings, like a sentinel from a post-apocalyptic future.»

i cannot fathom this level of monomania.

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Empire of AI by Karen Hao, page 80

«”The day we announced the deal,” he {Greg Brockman} said, referring to Microsoft’s new $1 billion investment, “Microsoft’s market cap went up by $10 billion. People *believe* there is a positive ROI even just on short-term technology.”»

this conversation between Hao and Brockman was in 2019. we sure don’t see any ROI.

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Empire of AI by Karen Hao, page 68

«Within half a year {in 2018-2019}, OpenAI and Microsoft were discussing a deal in earnest. … To keep the deal secret from prying eyes, the for-profit entity was also incorporated under the alias SummerSafe LP. The name was a reference to an episode from the cartoon show Rick and Morty where titular characters, mad scientist Rick and his grandson Morty, leave behind Morty’s older sister Summer for another universe and instruct their car to “keep Summer safe”. The car takes objective seriously, resorting to extreme and harmful mechanisms of defence, including murdering, paralysing, and torturing people who approach the vehicle. It was a nod to the potential pitfalls of AI.»

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Empire of AI, page 59

“There was no real management structure or clear set of priorities. Sometimes people would get fired on the weekends, and the rest of the team would only find out the following Monday when they didn’t show up. And the lab was burning cash, most of it to hold down the salaries of the team it has assembled. In 2016, OpenAI spent more than $7 million of its $11 million in expenses on compensation and benefits.”

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Empire of AI, page 50

«”As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open,” Sutskever raised to the trio {Musk, Altman, Brockman} in January 2016, shortly after OpenAI launched. “The Open in openAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its [sic] built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science.” “Yup,” Musk responded.»

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Empire of AI, page 42

“Once when OpenAI fired an employee, he {Sam Altman} reached out personally to offer ketamine and booze as consolation.”

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Empire of AI, page 41

“He {Sam Altman} connected people to one another over email with a single word (“meet”) or a single punctuation mark (“?”) – a famous habit of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos – to get a conversation started.”

what a fucking jerk behaviour.

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