OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever reportedly likes to burn effigies and lead ritualistic chants at the company.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This article is pretty clearly clickbait.

      If you have a team of burners, jokingly burning an effigy of the thing you are committed to combatting isn’t a “spiritual” action as much a nod to Burning Man.

      At one point I worked in an open office where the sales team would cheer and throw a Nerf football to each other when they’d make a sale.

      It’d be weird as shit to write an article on that behavior claiming that the sales team at that company was suddenly adopting professional sports practices.

      If you want to know what’s actually going on behind closed doors there, this The Atlantic piece is excellent and in part comes from an upcoming book by one of the authors whose been researching that very topic.

      The TLDR is that rapidly growing a product that’s become an unexpected success while trying to stay committed to long term research goals is a giant mess.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yeah dude, throwing a football around a sales office is totally the same thing as burning effigies.

        • The Barto@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Some people throw footballs in celebration while others start cults to worship an advanced ai and burn effigies of it for some reason.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, the workplace is too woke these days. I can’t even burn an effigy in my cube without it becoming a whole thing.

    • Blue and Orange@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      OpenAI employees don’t really exist, everything that has been going on is just a rogue AI fucking with us!