AI

Altman claimed under oath before Congress that he held no equity in OpenAI. Technically, perhaps. But in substance, he held indirect stakes through vehicles like Sequoia and Y Combinator’s funds. When OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit, Altman’s 7.5 percent stake in Reddit netted him a $50 million windfall. When OpenAI agreed to purchase... See more

This is particularly important because there are already indications that many people who often interact with chatbots attribute consciousness to these systems. At the same time, the consensus among experts is that current AI systems are not conscious.

I’m coming to terms with the high probability that AI will write most of my code which I ship to prod, going forward. It already does it faster, and with similar results to if I’d typed it out. For languages/frameworks I’m less familiar with, it does a better job than me.

Quanta interviewed 19 current and former NLP researchers to tell that story. From experts to students, tenured academics to startup founders, they describe a series of moments — dawning realizations, elated encounters and at least one “existential crisis” — that changed their world. And ours.

I find no meaning in toiling over hand-washing dishes, and am eternally grateful to the inventor of the dishwasher. But as it pertains to Big Tech’s never-ending quest to simplify writing with AI, I wholly agree that the struggle is what makes the process worth anything.

Maybe AI doesn’t raise the bar. Maybe it reveals how low we’ve let the bar drop. In a world where ghosting is normal and attentiveness is rare, a chatbot that listens is radical.