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AspireOne • today at 11:07 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

You know what?

Why does it always have to be some ulterior motive? Every. single. time. Anything a high-position person does - make a statement, post a blog, start a company, make a business decision... -, the reaction of the keyboard warriors is that it must be motivated by money, or power, or some need for destruction, and that anything that leaves their mouth is a poisonous lie.

I think this is a terrible property of humans, this hyper-skepticism, and that it has nothing to do with logic, nor deduction, nor reality.

Dario Amodei is a real person who has a family, a life, a profession. He worked hard to graduate from biophysics, he worked on ai for decades. He's very much a nerd. In interviews, he's very transparent. he left openai because of safety concerns, and everything he does and all his messaging EVER since is motivated by AI safety. His ultimate motivations are probably very messy and broad, some morally worse and some morally better, just like in all other humans.

You are going to stand here and, without flinching, without a single bit of shame, reduce him and others to wanting to "order legions of people around, buy and sell politicians, flood ad markets during elections" and "that's what motivates these people"?

Sorry but where did you leave your sense of nuance? What allows you to say this so confidently? Where is any proof?

This is simply absurd. Absolutely absurd, reductionist, and childish.


Replies

mullingitover • today at 3:38 PM

> I think this is a terrible property of humans, this hyper-skepticism, and that it has nothing to do with logic, nor deduction, nor reality.

You're not wrong, but it's balanced out by this other terrible property of humans, which is hyper-credulity.

> Dario Amodei is a real person who has a family, a life, a profession.

I never said power was all he cares about, but in general I believe you are what you do. Amodeo could drop it all right now, today and spend the rest of his life with his family, or nose deep in the research project he's the most passionate about. He's not doing that, instead he's spending the remaining irreplaceable moments of his life pursuing the accumulation of power.