
Sam Altman at the Family, Paris [video] - malloryerik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKSNjIAfm88
======
bambax
Regarding universal basic income, Sam says we need to study what happens when
people have no jobs:

> _no matter how much people complain about their jobs, they like having
> somewhere to go everyday, they like having colleagues, like having a sense
> of mission in their lives_

(As an aside, this statement, oft repeated, always struck me as weird because
the one thing I've always not wanted to do was "having somewhere to go
everyday".)

But there are a lot of people who don't have a job, have revenue, and seem
extremely happy and fulfilled: the retirees. In developed countries people
retire around 60, and then go on to live 25 more years on average [1].

The least we could do if we want to study what happens when people have no
jobs, would be to study them?

[1] [http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-
dat...](http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-data/life-
expectancy-at-60/)

~~~
louithethrid
To be honest retirees make for a bad example. They have unpaid jobs, usually
engaging with other retirees in a hobby, a community service or endless doctor
visits. And those who dont - die really fast from bad lifestyle choices
resulting from doing nothing.

So bad example.

~~~
inimino
It's pretty telling that you can only express "they find things to do with
their time" as "they have unpaid jobs".

Yes, people find things to do with their time besides vegetate in front of the
television. No, those things are not "unpaid jobs". Talk about question
begging!

------
orthoganol
I appreciate his comments about SV being special because it's actually
acceptable to be ambitious, you're allowed to be someone who in most circles
would be considered tedious because you only think and talk about your serious
projects, probably sometimes met with yawns and "isn't that nice."

SV is special in this regards. I'm now realizing that's one of the main
reasons I'll probably never move back home. Family, old friends, the culture
of other cities will, in reality, put a bunch of shitty social pressure on you
unless you're already rich and successful.

As a side note, I still bet most of this forum is against this ambitious
personality, affirming at the end of the day that "there is more to life than
your projects, go out and live, meet someone, fill out your social schedule,
etc." That's certainly all wonderful, but it's the same social fabric that
exists everywhere that's not Silicon Valley. Sam put his finger on something
that is uniquely SV, and I think it's something to protect and cherish.

As another side note, I think it's kind of a shame SV is migrating to SF,
because SF doesn't afford that protection. There are locals everywhere who
despise the ambitious entrepreneur techie type. It's a bit of a struggle in
subtle and sometimes unsubtle ways. It's obviously a face of the real world
with class tension undertones and what not, but outside of maybe a few bubbles
in the city which seem to me to all be in SoMa, it's just not a great
environment if you are one of these ambitious personalities IMO. That and
there are no late night hacker friendly cafes... why?

~~~
GuiA
It's uniquely SV only for those who spend all their life in SV. Go to NYC, go
to LA, go to London, go to Tokyo, and you will find very ambitious and driven
people working hard on their acting/band/fashion label/non profit/etc. Those
people also tend to be way more open about the forms creativity other than
their own takes, whereas the SV techie entrepreneurs tend to think that
anything other than changing the world with a billion dollar startup is a
waste of time.

Which is why on a personal level, after about a decade in SV, I'm very much
looking forward to leaving soon, having realized that ambition, fulfilment,
and impact can be realized in ways other than yet another iOS or rails app,
and am getting tired of the monoculture.

~~~
orthoganol
> having realized that ambition, fulfilment, and impact can be realized in
> ways other than yet another iOS or rails app.

If you think that's SV you're probably not the ambitious personality type I
was referring to, while also being unaware of what's getting the focus these
days in SV (which is most certainly AI/ deep learning).

I've lived in more cities (3 months+) than most in this forum being a
perennial digital nomad (And I don't know why people keep citing Tokyo - the
culture is not pro entrepreneurship for young people at all, there is no real
concept of a coworking spaces, etc. I did however meet a lot of white techies
from SF so maybe that's why people are getting that impression!). It's a
certain type of ambition/ personality that's encouraged here, for better or
worse.

~~~
59nadir
"3+ months" is a pretty vague timeframe (or not a time_frame_ at all,
actually). Unless you already know the language and integrate extremely well
into the culture of a country, spending less than a few years there won't mean
that you know much about the country and its opportunities.

Superficially, spending a few months in a place sounds like you'll probably
"get it", but I don't believe for a second that you learned much of value from
each country with this lifestyle. You seem to have seen a lot of places, but
you haven't lived them.

------
horsecaptin
Must be nice to not have to do things that you find boring. I don't think most
founders are in that position.

I know founders who try to be in that position by unloading the boring tasks
to other people. If it is boring for you, chances are pretty good that it is
boring for someone else (unless it's their chosen profession). Of course, it's
a great way to gauge power - delegate something that you think is boring to
see if someone will just do it without complaining. If they do it, great!
You're more powerful than they are. They'll also resent you and stab you in
the back when they get a chance.

~~~
johnomarkid
Most founders aren't in that position, and Sama said that. Startups are mostly
about doing the same thing over and over.

------
_kyran
This was a really refreshing event to attend and the open Q & A resulted in a
lot of different questions than were typically seem to get asked when a talk
only has a chance for a few questions at the end.

On a related note, can someone explain France's obsession with chatbots to me?

~~~
pinouchon
I wonder the same. My best guess is that it's because of the movie Her...
Although, if I recall correctly, Rus Salakhutdinov said in a recent talk at
the Simon's Institute that chatbots are nowhere near ready.
([https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/russ-
salakhutdinov-2017-3-...](https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/russ-
salakhutdinov-2017-3-29))

------
gamechangr
Surprising to hear Sam say that SV has no advantages. Just because it's nice
to tell an international crowd, doesn't make it true.

~~~
caminante
Around ~38m, Altman says SV has (imitable) advantages including ambition and
capital.

~~~
gamechangr
great point - I upvoted you

------
wuschel
The Family & Co. is a friendly bunch. Like other actors in Paris, they make a
good contribution to the ecosystem. Nice to see them get this kind of
attention.

------
s3nnyy
Sam refers to the advances in ML in _the last two years_ that will truly
change jobs / work and everything.

Which particular advancement in AI / ML is he referring to?

------
gamechangr
Anyone have good resources on the future of internet security???

I do think it's about to get crazy if (like Sam mentions) individuals use
superior AI to attack systems.

~~~
mkagenius
I don't really want to talk about projects when it's not yet finished. But we
are gathering[1][2] training data as of now everyday on how a pentester uses a
proxy such as mitmproxy by recording keystrokes and marks a API vulnerable.
With enough data it will be a matter of choosing an ML model to train on it.

For an analogy, its like gathering data for self driving car.

1\.
[https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/fa706a479aeecf...](https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/fa706a479aeecf6c3e4eaf8ca71021f972249a41)
2\.
[https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/407f636b4fe1bc...](https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/407f636b4fe1bc3580a269fc71486f1f0a1b852b)

------
dorianm
Anybody knows if there is a transcript?

~~~
snorrah
I'm sure it'll get delegated to someone soon! :)

------
thesmallestcat
You're literally a Rails developer, so I think parent nailed it.

~~~
dang
That crosses into personal attack. Please don't do that here.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14129541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14129541)
and marked it off-topic.

------
peterwwillis
_" I think repetitive work jobs will be replaced by machines in 10 years"_

OK, George Jetson, make sure and let me know when all the repetitive work in
the world is replaced by an algorithm, because I don't want to miss it.

Also, he talks about the idea of a single corporation controlling the
"infinite intelligence" of AI - buddy, they won't, the government will, and
another government will go to war with our government for it, and it'll start
WWIII. So I really wouldn't worry about who owns AI in the future. More like,
invest in SpaceX to catch the first pod to Mars.

~~~
tim333
He said repetitive jobs will be done better by machines in the next 10 years.
Which is slightly different to your quote.

~~~
personlurking
I think it was, to paraphrase, "the repetetive part of jobs", which is,
according to him, "75-80% of what most of us do".

Just a slight distinction, between all jobs, "repetitive jobs" and what I
mention, "repetitive part of jobs".

Interesting to compare this idea with last week's Ask HN (How much of your
time at work do you spend not working?)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14082599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14082599)

