It’s not about whether I trust Sam Altman or any other Big Tech executive. It’s about the disturbing amount of power these executives have and their ability to act in ways that have profound consequences downstream, from cornering the RAM market to making the world less hospitable to the vision of computing empowering everyday users, not just vendors.

Remember Apple’s 1984 commercial where IBM was personified as Big Brother and where Apple was liberator? Today I feel that Big Tech is today’s Big Brother. I love computing and I have a career devoted to it, but I don’t love Big Tech, and my opinion has soured in the last decade. I used to dream of working for Google, and I still think one of the highlights of my career was working on Spanner as an intern. But that was when Larry Page and Sergey Brin were still in charge, when Google still had “don’t be evil” as its motto.

I’m still trying to think about ways to make a living outside of academia where one can make and sell great, user-respecting tech solutions. I have a lot of ideas about what I’d like to build, but I struggle to think of ways to monetize them.

I was banned at chatgpt with removing all the dialogs opened in tabs. They might have a great product, but if they eager to control even what I have already received from the bot I will not pay them a penny under any circumstances. There are a lot of rival chatbots some of which might not ban me eventually.

Altman says always he has no shares in OAI; Im wondering why he is taking all the stress then? I guess its not easy to be CEO of OAI these days

No, he's clearly a grifter. OpenAI was launched with lofty visions and closed source ages ago, very obviously it's not at all for all the humanitarian missions Altman hyped it up for.

On top of which - these products just aren't that good. They may seem good enough to some at the major loss-leader costs that they're paying right now, but it's unsustainable. Either it has to collapse on its own or it will collapse when inevitably prices have to go up to at least break-even, which they aren't anywhere near.

It's hype and lies sandwiched in a neat little greed burrito.