alt Hacker NewsThe whole thing was a scam
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25M isn’t even that much money. Not only are they whores, they’re cheap whores.
This is one of the few interpretations that make sense of this timeline at this time. I'd be cautious since it's still speculation. But discovery is going to be interesting.
Such high levels of corruption are not usually called "scam"
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
This HST quote seems severely outdated by now. They have already been caught, committed all the sins of stupidity and some more. All of it to the clapping mob of people who yearn for some kind of social revenge.
And it’s happening everywhere these last years.
Who could possibly know we have so many wife beaters?
PS: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.
To summarize all nepotism indicators posted here by various people:
- The Kushner family has invested in OpenAI.
- OpenAI uses Oracle cloud. Ellison is close to Trump.
- Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan (the “spy sheikh") has invested $500 million in World Liberty and is also invested in OpenAI.
- Altman is a protege of Thiel, whose Palantir integrates the external AI at the Pentagon.
- The scam occurs right before the Iran war starts. The Groq sale scam (where Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital bought shares just months before the sale) occurred right before Christmas. So both were timed to be overshadowed by larger events or holidays.
"On the very same day that Altman offered public support to Amodei [CEO of Anthropic], he signed a deal to take away Amodei’s business, with a deal that wasn’t all that different. You can’t get more Altman than that."
A lot of rightfully righteous anger here. I'm amused that this wasn't the response when semiconductors from Taiwan were exempted from tarrifs. There, the bribe was much smaller...
ਚੋਰ ਮਚਾਏ ਸ਼ੋਰ
I'll try not to be too flippant but... he thought the US ever _wasn't_ an oligarchy?
I was scratching my head trying to work out the difference between the deal with anthropic, and the deal with openai.
I asked gemini.
The one detail was that the contract enforced the law with anthropic, but with openai it was legal uses.
Sounds like hair splitting, but this article explains the real story.
> In capitalism, the market decides.
> In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.
> It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter.
I thought this was already pretty clear - since Elmo bunny hopped on Trump’s rally stage
> In oligarchy, connections and donations decide. It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter
Transitioning? That happened post WW2. How many more wars in the Middle East do we need to convince people?
Though, I think it’s hard for Marcus’ generation to see this. Odd given Vance’s connections to Thiel et al.
> In capitalism, the market decides.
> In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.
> It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter.
One has to wonder on what planet Gary Marcus has lived so far.
> but after Brockman had donated 25M to Trump’s PAC
> In capitalism, the market decides.
> In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.
Author is confused about what Capitalism is. It worked exactly as expected, Capital used itself to advance it's own needs - maximizing (own) growth.
Capitalism is not about markets, it's about Capital.
There is a reason why lobbying is an accepted practice in one of the most Capitalistic countries in the world, and generally forbidden in Socialist EU.
"Is transitioning to oligarchy"? Really? I don't see how present continuous is justified here.
It has always been an old boys club where connections and hand greasing decided it all. President Trump is the product of this system, not its creator or builder.
What does this have to do with AI capabilities specifically?
This is literally the politics of running massive business interests, which I understand is relevant for technology and everything…
… but isn’t Gary Marcus’s whole game that AI is not capable and people are wrong/lying about AI tech capabilities?
I feel like this is a handy moment for Gary where he can say he could basically ignore all of his previous claims (because they’re all technically wrong) and shift into “AI is bad for society because it’s more crony capitalism” or something kind of muddy argument.
It's only a matter of time before an OpenAI killer drone accidentally targets Gary Marcus and Scam Altman says "oopsie".
"In capitalism, the market decides.
In oligarchy, connections and donations decide."
Who's gonna tell him there never was a difference?
sounds likely and plausible but also like an "unproven conspiracy theory"
Let that sink in!
I wouldn't be surprised if after some time we found out that Amodei signed the same deal as well, and then he will go on a press tour about how he was forced to do it.
I think he is right here, but it is interesting to see that Gary Marcus is transitioning to AI too (writing style...)
"But I believe in fair play. This wasn’t that."
Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads weren't fair play either.
Seems pretty unimportant and inconsequential though because LLMs don't work anyway because they aren't logic-based symbolic AI, right?
This https://x.com/UnderSecretaryF/status/2027594072811098230 is the simplest and most logical explanation as to what happened. The disagreement was over who would be the arbiter of "lawful usage" of the technology, the US government or Amodei.
This is only a surprise to HN, because all the other threads about the corrupt US regime have been flagged before. I guess now is a good time as any to start paying attention. Who would've thought that attention is all you need?