I'm leaving OpenAI to build Jurassic Park

130 points by j11g a day ago on lobsters | 16 comments

harrigan | 19 hours ago

Congrats on the launch. This is exactly the kind of work the field needs right now. I'm excited to see where the roadmap goes from here, and looking forward to follow-up posts such as "Why we're not worried about emergent reproductive capability" and "Jurassic World: scaling to meet customer demand".

dbushell | 19 hours ago

they put the Velociraptor in the "dim" quadrant, I'm doubting their expertise in this venture

l1npengtul | 19 hours ago

It's a setup for a future post where they discuss how the Velociraptor laid a footgun trap and they'll go "Smart girl" or something like-that.

I have to say upfront, I am critical of the current trends in the AI industry, and the tech industry broadly. However, I am engaging in good faith, and hope that you will as well.

In short, I think much of your announcement, and, frankly, your startup's idea, relies on a very cherry-picked definition of "dinosaur." You write

dinosaur wins against pretty much everything

and

most scientists agreed that a dinosaur could totally destroy a datacenter if it really wanted to.

I am uncertain of these scientists' expertise, and whether their opinion was free of influence and bias, for one simple reason:

We do already have dinosaurs, right now. Hummingbirds, sparrows, warblers, finches, and the black-capped chickadee are all around, and I don't see them winning against "pretty much anything", especially datacentres (except sparrows, they are known to be undefeatable, so I think with them it's a matter of will).

I do agree about energy efficiency.

I don't have a question.

gerikson | 14 hours ago

Thank you for that link. I neglected to consider that emus are badass. However, that further confirms my point — we do not need a flashy new startup to reinvent dinosaurs, as we have perfectly capable members of Dinosauria already.

surprisetalk | 10 hours ago

You might also also enjoy learning about "Terror Birds":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae

I love them. Their closest surviving relatives, the seriemas, are also adorable.

datarama | 6 hours ago

Silicon Valley keeps reinventing the cassowary, I guess.

andrewrk | 6 hours ago

i don't get the joke, can someone explain it to me like i'm five

alexkorban | 6 hours ago

I believe it’s a reaction to this cringeworthy and somewhat disturbing post: https://naomibashkansky.com/blog/telepathy/

andrewrk | 6 hours ago

Oh this makes so much more sense now, thank you

surprisetalk | 5 hours ago

Author here! I personally enjoyed the telepathy post, and I wish them the best with their new startup.

I just found it funny that John Carmack, Gwern, and the telepathy post gained traction in such a short timeframe. It's exciting to watch people so much smarter than me admit they're lost and throw things at the wall. But it's also so scary!

abstract777 | 16 hours ago

Neat project. But the licensing isn’t clear. Can I open my own Jurassic Park?

kaidenshi | 6 hours ago

I suspect you'll run into trademark issues, you might be able to get around it by naming your project "Triassic Playground" instead.

aryeh | 2 hours ago

This is so obviously slop written by an early Jurassic era AI. Note the obvious double em-teeth and oversized droppings.