Chilling insight from a colleague: current tech founders in AI space are relatively altruistic, but as field matures the business CEOs will take over and make it way more profit-oriented. Happened in several other fields. This might be the friendly good old days of AI.
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Replying to @anderssandberg
Only a problem if one equates profit with bad/evil. Also pretty sure current tech founders aren't completely disinterested in profit-making or they'd all just create NGOs.
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Replying to @sebkrier
I think profits are great. But what are they used for? I rather see them used for Mars, solving ageing, renewable or fixing incarceration than maximizing shareholder value.
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Replying to @anderssandberg @sebkrier
Going to Mars, solving aging, or creating renewable energy would be hugely profitable once achieved, but investing in *developing* such technologies is rarely the most profitable use of, say, a million dollars over a five-year period.
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I'm starting to think that R&D must be "subsidized" by something besides financial motive. Whether that's "scientists + engineers taking below-market wages or spending their own savings to build a cool thing" or "taxpayer dollars" or "investors who want the cool thing to exist".
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or "executives at large firms who want the cool thing to exist"
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It doesn't have to be an altruistic motive -- wanting to personally go to Mars or live longer is a selfish motive! As is wanting to work on interesting problems with fun people! But it's intrinsic interest in the thing for its own sake rather than just ROI.
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In principle, the ROI on research can be spectacularly good. In practice, the point at which even the most "radical" professional investors shell out is usually long after the basic premise has been de-risked a LOT, usually in academia.
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But then how did Elon Musk know with high enough confidence that both Tesla and SpaceX were sound ideas? Reusable rockets hadn't been "de-risked" in the way you're talking about, neither had EVs. So it appears that there is an info barrier between VCs and founders.
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Intrinsic interest. Elon, I presume, actually wants to go to Mars, enough so that he’s motivated to learn enough engineering to evaluate the prospects of the technology himself. He’s not simply skimming one pitch deck out of a thousand that crosses his desk.
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This might indicate that pitch decks are inefficient.
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