AI businesses are putting profits over sanity and safety.
All businesses are. That’s what a business is. A legal entity that seeks to extract as much wealth from people as possible. They put profits before people as a matter of policy.
Talents leave AI companies: "They are putting profits over sanity and safety"
Submitted 2 weeks ago by futurk@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.computerworld.com/article/4133137/why-are-ai-leaders-fleeing.html
Comments
bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
That’s not what business is inherently; that’s what capitalism is.
fafferlicious@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s not even what capitalist about. It’s some stupid bullshit interpretation that came out of the University of Chicago economics department.
Seriously, go look at Adam Smiths wealth of nations. The only mention of the “invisible hand” is so different from what is taught in economics now
… by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
It’s not that we need no regulation. It’s just trying to say that if we set things up correctly, we don’t need to worry about people pursuing SOLELY their own personal gain. Because the market seems out the “greatest value”, which is not just about money. It’s also the value to society as a whole.
Instead, we got the fucking bullshit from Chicago saying that the only / best way of measuring value is by profit.
minorkeys@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As a legal requirement.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Interestingly its not.
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
If anybody leaves an AI company with a fat paycheck, promises to “be honest about the real problems,” and then proceeds to regurgitate things the AI company CEOs say: be suspicious.
Exhibit A is Anthropic millionaire Mrinank Sharma, who only mentioned (future) peril from AI and AI-made bioweapons, two fictional scenarios on the short list that Anthropic officially endorses. It’s a list of things that please Anthropic investors.
Real-world stuff like AI psychosis, poisoning people’s air, or generating CSAM doesn’t get a mention from him. There’s no profit in acknowledging those things, so he won’t.
melfie@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
Maybe Claude Code learned this from its creators: I’ve noticed that when it says “the real issue is…”, that means it has no clue and is about barf out a bunch of slop that I’m going to have to revert.
Repelle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The only time it ever says “the real issue is” and is right is when I’ve just corrected it and told it the real issue which it then wastes tokens regurgitating back to me. Gods I miss not having to use this crap at work
aesthelete@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yep there is a deep attachment amongst AI boosters to certain doom and gloom scenarios that stem from their philosophical “think tanks” which use imaginary problems (e.g. “AGI ‘misalignment’ destroying the world through turning everything into paperclips”) to lobby and alter our laws to benefit their real bosses – anthropic, open ai, and friends.
nosuchanon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What profits?
jeffep@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Now what does that tell us about the sanity and safety?
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
“AI businesses are putting profits over sanity and safety”.
Remove “AI” from that sentence and you’ll see that’s just more normal business practices that have been going on for decades.
seejur@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The real question is: what profit? It’s a sink hole in a hope to maximize reach
Canconda@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
This is a ball and cup game designed to create cashflow where there is none. The ‘profit’ is the assets, dividends and capital gains the shareholder class will syphon out before the bubble bursts.
yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Ho, you can trust OpenAI and Nvidia to make a profit. You and your pension funds? What pension funds?
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is many companies right now.
Mine is run from the top down (all executives) by people who use LLM’s for fucking everything.
Everyone fucking hates them at this point. We all think they are fucking trash.
ViceroTempus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe it’s time to grab some fellow employees and make an employee owned business.
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I would love for this to happen in so many industries but everything takes so much capital to get started :/
stoly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The MBA class has long been this way.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
my older bro who WAS in tech uses it the same way, no thought of his own, he always use CHATGPT to find answers.
yrnttm@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I used to find answers on Google, but Google Web search doesn’t return good results anymore. So I end up using ai.
Mondoshawan@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
What industry is your company in?
myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
That’s just every company isn’t it?
123@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Not in my experience. Once their clients budgets get cut by funding cuts due to reality and they notice it doesn’t do anything of benefit (on the clients side), they will be all “client first”.
Etterra@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Just vibe code the AI. I’m sure it’ll work perfectly.
HexParte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Just another day in corporate America. Putting fake profits over employees’s well-beings, and customer safety and privacy.
The thing that gets me is they just want to get in on this $2Billion investment that keeps changing hands without changing hands. They really are just taking IOUs from… elsewhere? Because apparently, according to Jensen, that money hasn’t actually exchanged hands. Investors are just buying into the new Ponzi Scheme.
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The alternative prediction is that this is in fact sustainable and AI companies will in fact have revenue to keep the bubble inflated for a lot longer, just in the worst way - by extracting the value of reliability and trust from the market:
CEOs have also bought into AI almost to a person, and are using it to replace workers, results be damned. AI can’t do the things they believe it can, but to them, if they can fake satisfying a need with AI for $5, that is preferable to actually satisfying a need with a real employee for $10.
The CEO is happy because his company saved $5 and he’s met his stock option incentive target, the AI companies are happy to pocket that $5 instead of the employee getting $10. Maybe they even raise the customer’s price to $12 as AI rent-seeking starts rising, and both companies get $6 each. Win-win, life will go on, just worse for everyone else.
northernlights@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
CEOs have also bought into AI almost to a person, and are using it to replace workers, results be damned. AI can’t do the things they believe it can, but to them, if they can fake satisfying a need with AI for $5, that is preferable to actually satisfying a need with a real employee for $10.
Yep that’s exactly how me and my entire team were laid off. “Automatization”.
HexParte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The truth about the “replacing everyone with AI” is even more boggling. Bezos didn’t “replace” anyone with AI when he laid off all those people. What he did was look at the cost of “salaries” vs the cost of “building an infrastructure” for AI, and decided gambling on AI was cheaper than paying the workers he’s employed.
Coyote_sly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
…what profits?
fubarx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
🌎 👨🚀 🔫 👨🚀
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“They are putting profits over sanity and safety”
Soooooooo, just like every other business in the history of capitolism?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It worked for airline manufacturers, it can work for you too!
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I hate to hand it to airline manufacturers, but at least when they cut corners, they actually make money. The whole AI industry still hasn’t turned a profit yet…
vane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
After $1T poured into global warming, why can’t AI replace them ?
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
thats why they are trying to peddle data centers to india, for low cost maintenance.
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oh thank heavens some people still have ethics.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
if they had ethics they would have left a long time ago.
suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Publicly traded companies are legally required to put profits over sanity, safety, and everything else. It’s a truly insane system we’ve put together for ourselves.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Interestingly they are not. Its commonly shilled by C-scum, but it’s a lie.
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Look up “shareholder primacy”. It’s enshrined in law.
BTW you said Midjourney is a profitable company elsewhere. Can you provide a source?
Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I sure hope they secretly sabotage on their way out to protect society
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Talents leave
Tell me a “journalist” has no concept of mass nouns without using those words.
Sims@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
So they only now figured out that all Corporations and their sick shareholders are shit evil and doesn’t care about anything else than profits ?! Wtf do they think activists are doing ?
Imagine being a Demis Hasabi, or similar cunt, voluntarily giving/developing AI technology - the most extreme power in human history - to the most evil corporation in human history, run and owned by the most evil people in the world, placed in the most evil lying empire of all times ! Wow - that is a great idea… cough…
Well, better late than never I guess. Even for normal naive, dumb slow-thinking AI researchers. Let’s hope they start waking up from their business/market psychosis, and do some open source work - real mutually beneficial work - for us all instead of boosting the psychopath Oligarchy that runs our little world.
herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
They are leaving because they are getting much better offers elsewhere.
stoly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
or they see that things will collapse soon enough and are bailing like rats leaving a sinking ship
dustyvagina@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
We’re so cooked
bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
It’s so nice to see these kind of posts. Because I keep thinking I’m the only one who thinks ai has turned incredibly evil and will only get worse.
“One Program to rule them all, One Program to find them, One Program to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.”
trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Define “talent”. Software developers focused on squeezing llms into everything regardless of necessity? I’m likely jaded as an infra monkey but you’ll have to pay me x3 as much to fix your broken servers after the bubble pops.
melfie@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
Breaking news: a for-profit corporation did something shitty to make number go up. In other news, it was recently discovered that ticks feed on their hosts’ blood with no concern for the well-being of their hosts.
thethrilloftime69@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
They are putting profits over sanity and safety
First time?
kescusay@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And it’s not even working. Not one of the AI companies is profitable. So they’re putting the hope for profits some time in the future over sanity and safety.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Steve Burke (of GN) described the absurdity pretty well, within the context of the currently uncertain Nvidia and OpenAI deal:
teft@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
And hope you’ve propped up the economy enough by the end of it that the government has to bail you out…i mean provide a “backstop”.
bstix@feddit.dk 2 weeks ago
I don’t think they even care about profits anymore.
Billionaires live in the balance sheet, not the P/L statements.
Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What about all the user data they sell to third parties? I’d be interested in knowing how that contributes to this
scarabic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In a way this is what’s most scary. Because they are desperate. Any safety concerns will be damned and they are all racing to be the first who makes a breakthrough in the direction of AGI.
If we ever get there, this is not the way it should be done. I hope they remember that we need to have a world where they can spend their money.
systemglitch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s a talk ask for desperate people to consider.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Midjourney is profitable
ishartdoritos@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Midjourney are the worse of the worse when it comes specifically training on stolen work from artists who dedicated their lives to it. They opened the floodgates to what we see now with mass theft of content by not getting sued into oblivion. Fuck then and their creepy little fuck face of a CEO.
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Source?
apftwb@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“Fuck me Sam, I don’t have anymore ideas on how to turn a profit. We’ve tried everything. How about we just give the AI its own infrastructure and bank account with the instructions ‘make money’ and see what it does? I know that safety guy advised against it before, but he no long works here. I mean if it becomes a singularity event, at least it’s our singularity event to control”
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Didn’t they do this with an AI vending machine already and it started selling tungsten cubes at a massive loss?