Agreed. Starting from before the anthropic exodus, I suspect the timeline looks like:
(2015) Founding: majority are concerned with safety
(2019) For profit formed: mix of safety and profit motives (majority still safety oriented?)
(2020) GPT3 released to much hype, leading to many ambition chasers joining: the profit seeking side grows.
(2021) Anthropic exodus over safety: the safety side shrinks
(2022) chatgpt released, generating tons more hype and tons more ambitious profit seekers joining: the profit side grows even more, probably quickly outnumbering the safety side
(2023) this weeks shenanigans
The safety folks probably lost the majority a while ago. Maybe back in 2021, but definitely by the time the gpt3/chatgpt motivated newcomers were in the majority.
Maybe one lesson is that if your cofounder starts hiring a ton of people who aren’t aligned with you, you can quickly find yourself in the minority, especially once people on your side start to leave.
(2015) Founding: majority are concerned with safety
(2019) For profit formed: mix of safety and profit motives (majority still safety oriented?)
(2020) GPT3 released to much hype, leading to many ambition chasers joining: the profit seeking side grows.
(2021) Anthropic exodus over safety: the safety side shrinks
(2022) chatgpt released, generating tons more hype and tons more ambitious profit seekers joining: the profit side grows even more, probably quickly outnumbering the safety side
(2023) this weeks shenanigans
The safety folks probably lost the majority a while ago. Maybe back in 2021, but definitely by the time the gpt3/chatgpt motivated newcomers were in the majority.
Maybe one lesson is that if your cofounder starts hiring a ton of people who aren’t aligned with you, you can quickly find yourself in the minority, especially once people on your side start to leave.