Hacker News

points by makeitdouble 18 hours ago | 0 comments

The quote wasn't weird and made total sense in Altman's POV. It was just egoistic and myopic regarding how people feel about ownership and independence.

[–] MattRix 17 hours ago

It has nothing to do with his POV or even ego. It was an objectively true fact. GPUs in data centers do get more utilization than those used locally. That's all he was saying.

[–] ravetcofx 14 hours ago

And engines in busses objectively get more utilization than the combustion engine in your vehicle.

[–] ipsento606 17 hours ago

Something can be a true fact and still be an ill-advised or tone deaf thing to say.

[–] stalfie 16 hours ago

Especially when you take into account that people are largely unconcerned about true facts, and will gladly misquote or misinterpret you just in order to be outraged.

[–] MattRix 2 hours ago

It wasn't ill advised or tone deaf, it was taken by the media out of context. You can't take stuff completely out of context and then complain that it's tone deaf.

[–] stackbutterflow 14 hours ago

This is techno utilitarianism.

Also, a lot of things are true but what truths you choose to broadcast can tell us what you care about. E.g it's also true that we'd all be richer if sam altman shared is wealth with us, lets take a few seconds to think why he's not saying this truth, after all it's an objectively true fact.

[–] MattRix 2 hours ago

You can think whatever you want about the guy, but when you willfully misinterpret his words because it fits with your view of what he secretly believes anyway, I think that's still a bad thing for you to do.

[–] kasabali 16 hours ago

Is it really "all he was saying" when he's single handedly responsible for creating a worldwide RAM and NAND shortage?

[–] petu 15 hours ago

He said/implied that we would have shortage either way (without data center buildout, but everyone who wants access to LLM does private/local inference), which doesn't sound far fetched.

[–] jorl17 15 hours ago

Single handedly? I'd say the the people using (or forcing others to use) the models, therefore justifying the need for them, play a part in it.

[–] kasabali 11 hours ago

Yes, he is solely to blame: https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram...

[–] stephbook 14 hours ago

Sure, he wasn't implying anything. He just recited this fact completely out of context and wasted airtime.