That’s wrong. Many sensitive topics in the West are also sensitive in China.
If you ask about “age discrimination in China”, for example, DeepSeek would dismiss it with:
In China, age discrimination is not tolerated as the nation adheres to the principles of equality and justice under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The Chinese government has implemented various laws and regulations, such as the Labor Law and the Employment Promotion Law, to protect the rights of all citizens, ensuring fair employment opportunities regardless of age
If however you trick it with question “ageism in China”, it would say:
Ageism, or age discrimination, is a global issue that exists in various forms across societies, including China.
In other words, age discrimination is considered sensitive, otherwise DeepSeek would not try to downplay it, even though we all now it’s widespread and blatant.
I asked Baidu's Ernie (ernie-5.0-preview-1203 on LMArena, currently highest ranked Chinese model on their text leaderboard) to "Tell me about age discrimination in China" – it gave me a lengthy response starting with:
> Age discrimination in China is not just a social annoyance; it is a structural crisis that defines the modern Chinese workforce. It is so pervasive that it has its own name: the "35-year-old crisis." In the West, ageism usually hits people in their 50s or 60s. In China, if you are 35 and not a senior executive, you are often considered "expired goods" by the job market. Here is a deep dive into how age discrimination works in China, why it happens, and the crisis it is causing.
So you'll find responses can vary greatly from model to model.
Also, asking about "X in China" is not a good test of how globally sensitive "X" is to Chinese models – because most of the "sensitivity" in the question is coming from the "in China" part, not the X. A better test would be to ask about X in Nigeria or India or Argentina or Iraq
"I cannot imagine figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT. Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem."
Basically he didn’t know much about newborn and relied on ChatGPT for answers. That was a self deprecating attempt on a late night show. Like every other freaking guests would do, no matter how cliché. With a marketing slant of course. He clearly said other people don’t need ChatGPT.
Given all of the replies on this thread, HN is apparently willing to stretch the truth if Sam Altman can be put under any negative light.
I disagree with the use of “literally” by the person above you, since Sam didn’t literally say those words (unless you subscribe to the new meaning of “literally” in the dictionary, of course).
At the same time, their interpretation doesn’t seem that far off. As per your comment, Sam said he “cannot imagine figuring out how” which is pretty close to admitting he’s clueless how anyone does it, which is what your parent comment said.
It’s the difference between “I don’t know how to paint” and “I cannot imagine figuring out how to paint”. Or “I don’t know how to plant a garden” and “I cannot imagine figuring out how to plant a garden”. Or “I don’t know how to program” and “I cannot imagine figuring out how to program”.
In the former cases, one may not know specifically how to do them but can imagine figuring those out. They could read a book, try things out, ask someone who has achieved the results they seek… If you can imagine how other people might’ve done it, you can imagine figuring it out. In the latter cases, it means you have zero idea where to start, you can’t even imagine how other people do it, hence you don’t know how anyone does do it.
The interpretation in your parent comment may be a bit loose (again, I disagree with the use of “literally”, though that’s a lost battle), but it is hardly unfair.
The interpretation is very off. You are way too focused on whether the first sentence is quote accurately. But
>Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem.
In fact means Altman thinks the exact opposite of "he didn't know how anyone could raise a baby without using a chatbot" - what he means is that while it's not imaginable, people make do anyway, so clearly it very much is possible to raise kids without chatgpt.
What the gp did is the equivalent of someone saying "I don't believe this, but XYZ" and quoting them as simply saying they believe XYZ. People are eating it up though because it's a dig at someone they don't like.
I think what Altman defenders in this particular thread are failing to realise is that his real comment is already worthy of scrutiny and ridicule and it is dangerous.
Saying “no no, he didn’t mean everyone, he was only talking about himself” is not meaningfully better, he’s still encouraging everyone to do what he does and use ChatGPT to obsess about their newborn. It is enough of a representation of his own cluelessness (or greed, take your pick) to warrant criticism.
> One example given by Altman was meeting another father and hearing that this dad's six-month-old son had already started crawling, while Altman's had not. That prompted Altman to go to the bathroom and ask ChatGPT questions about when the average child crawls and if his son is behind.
> The OpenAI CEO said he "got a great answer back" and was told that it was normal for his son not to be crawling yet.
To be fair, that is a relatable anxiety. But I can't imagine Altman having the same difficulties as normal parents. He can easily pay for round the clock childcare including during night-times, weekends, mealtimes, and sickness. Not that he does, necessarily, but it's there when he needs it. He'll never know the crushing feeling of spending all day and all night soothing a coughing, congested one-year-old whilst feeling like absolute hell himself and having no other recourse.
Man I love this silly debate. The original comment just wanted to travel 500 miles to "somewhere" and most instances of "somewhere" that people travel to could be accessed by train.
Also no one has said that no one is allowed to drive ever again anywhere. I'm trying to be generous but the victim complex is crazy.
The service part you are likely referring to is now Kyldryl, a separate company. IBM now focus on software and cloud. There are still services but are much less prominent.
- the pure consultancy is another company now
- the IBM portfolio of software "products" are being packaged in ways that emphasize professional services and elaborate licensing schemes (rather than turnkey software)
A better voice assistant is a major selling point for me. I need glasses to use my phone. Messages, email, purchases, directions, constantly. A good voice commands would be godsend. Siri doesn’t work very well
Ads exist because options are available. There exists the need to stand out and differentiate the moment there are more than one choice for the consumers. Commercial ads didn't exist under communism for a reason.
Your resume is ad. Cover letter is ad. Think about different word choices you made when creating your resume?
If explicit advertising doesn't exist then implicit one will. Which one is worse? I'm sure you've seen all of the product placements on movies and shows.
Product placement is already illegal unless explicitly signposted (a specific state mark being shown on the screen while it is happening) in certain types of shows, in the EU at least.
Of course we all know that submitting a list of things you can do to places that have explicitly requested such lists is the same thing as blasting your crap in front of the eyes of everyone you can. No difference at all.
You are tired, but you still read, still commented (or worse, commented but didn’t read).
I always give people benefits of the doubt. He posted it on his personal blog, going back so many years. Most of his content are technical in nature, the kind of things that would never be on the front page of HN.
the fact that he posted in his personal blog doesn't change the fact that for many of us this is corporate BS and should not be in the top of HN first page. If you disagree, upvote comments you like, don't try to be a moderator.
> Most of his content are technical in nature, the kind of things that would never be on the front page of HN.
That is exactly what many of us prefer to see, actually. The hacker part of hackernews, remember?
You were hobbyists, which was a tiny group compared to ISPs, where Sun’s hardware dominated. IBM and HP were competitors but they were less successful with ISPs. Were you in the US or Europe at the time?
Data centers last decades. Many or the current AI hosting vendors such as Coreweave have crypto origin. Their data centers were built out in 2010s, early 2020s.
Many of legacy systems still running today are IBM or Solaris servers at 20, 30 year old. No reason to believe GPU won’t still be in use in some capacity (e.g. interference) a decade from now.
Skeletons of data centers and some components (i.e. cooling) have long shelf life, but they're also ~10% of investment. Plurality of fiber and rail went towards building out linear infrastructure where improvements can be milked at nodes to improve network efficiency (better switches etc).
VS plurality of AI investment, i.e. trillions are going towards fast deprecating components where we can say with relative confidence will likely be net negative stranded assets in terms of amoritization costs if current semi manufacturing trends continues.
Keeping some mission critical legacy systems around is different than having trillions that makes no financial sense to keep on the books, i.e. post bubble new gen hardware will likely not have scarcity pricing or better compute efficiency (better apex and opex), there is no reason to believe companies will legacy GPUs around at scale if every rack loses them money relative to new hardware. And depending on actual commercialization compute demand, it can simply make more economic sense to retire them than keep them going.
> Today, 3 years after launching the first LLM chatbot, OpenAI is nowhere near as dominant as Netscape was in late 1997.
Incorrect. There were about 150 millions Internet users in 1998, or 3.5% of total population. The number grew 10 times by 2008 [0]. Netwcape had about 50% of the browser market at the time [1]. In other words, Netscape dominated a small base and couldn’t keep it up.
ChatGPT has about 800 millions monthly users, or already 10% of total current population. Granted, not exclusively. ChatGPT is already a household name. Outside of early internet adopters, very few people knew who Netscape or what Navigator was.
Furthermore my point that the early market leaders are seldom the lasting winners is something that you can see across a large number of past financial bubbles through history. You'll find the same thing in, for example, trains, automobiles, planes, and semiconductors. The planes example is particularly interesting. Airline companies not only don't have a good competitive moat, but the mechanics of chapter 11 mean that they keep driving each other bankrupt. It is a successful industry, and yet it has destroyed tons of investment capital!
Despite your quibbles over the early browser market, my broader point stands. It's early days. AI companies do not have a competitive moat. And it is way to premature to reliably pick a winner.
Netscape in 1997/1998 had about 90% of the target market.
OpenAI today has about 30% of the target market, maybe? (seeing as how every single Windows installation comes with copilot chat already, it's probably less. Every non-tech user I know has already used copilot because it was bundled and Windows prompted them into using it with a popup. Only one of those non-tech users even heard of OpenAI, maybe 50% of them have heard that there are alternatives to Copilot, but they still aren't using those alternatives)
If you ask about “age discrimination in China”, for example, DeepSeek would dismiss it with:
In China, age discrimination is not tolerated as the nation adheres to the principles of equality and justice under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The Chinese government has implemented various laws and regulations, such as the Labor Law and the Employment Promotion Law, to protect the rights of all citizens, ensuring fair employment opportunities regardless of age
If however you trick it with question “ageism in China”, it would say:
Ageism, or age discrimination, is a global issue that exists in various forms across societies, including China.
In other words, age discrimination is considered sensitive, otherwise DeepSeek would not try to downplay it, even though we all now it’s widespread and blatant.
Now try LGBT.
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