Everyone involved in building these things has to have some amount of hubris. Its going to come smashing down on them. What's going unsaid in all of this is just how swiftly the tide has turned against this tech industry attempt to save itself from a downtrend.
The whole industry at this point is acting like the tobacco industry back when they first started getting in hot water. No doubt the prophecies about imminent AGI will one day look to our descendents exactly like filters on cigarettes. A weak attempt to prevent imminent regulation and reduced profitability as governments force an out of control industry to deal with the externalities involved in the creation of their products.
If it wasn't abundantly clear...I agree with you that AGI is infinitely far away. Its the damage that's going to be caused by sociopaths (Sam Altman at the top of the list) in attempting to justify the real things they want (money) in their march towards that impossible goal that concerns me.
It becoming more and more clear that for "Open"AI the whole "AI-safety/alignment" thing has been a PR-stunt to attract workers, cover the actual current issues with AI (eg stealing data, use for producing cheap junk, hallucinations and societal impact), and build rapport in the AI scene and politics. Now that they have reached a real product and have a strong position in AI development, they could not care less about these things. Those who -naively- believed in the "existential risk" PR stunt and were working on that are now discarded.
The whole industry at this point is acting like the tobacco industry back when they first started getting in hot water. No doubt the prophecies about imminent AGI will one day look to our descendents exactly like filters on cigarettes. A weak attempt to prevent imminent regulation and reduced profitability as governments force an out of control industry to deal with the externalities involved in the creation of their products.
If it wasn't abundantly clear...I agree with you that AGI is infinitely far away. Its the damage that's going to be caused by sociopaths (Sam Altman at the top of the list) in attempting to justify the real things they want (money) in their march towards that impossible goal that concerns me.