Robert O'Callahan says goodbye to Google

The only new thing (to me) was the observation that some of our societal timeframes (e.g picking a 4yr university degree) hinge on assuming a specific rate of societal change. If the rate of disruption exceedes that assumption, the timeframes become inadequate.

> AI is developing faster than humans can individually and collectively understand it and adapt to it. People trying to plan their futures, e.g. trying to plan for a world several years in the future as they enter university, can no longer do so the way previous generations could.

Why is uncertainty about the motives of one form of superintelligence terrifying, whilst, at the same time, uncertainty about the motives of another, omnipotent supernatural intelligence comforting? i.e. the “I don’t know God’s plan, but I sleep well knowing He has one” line of reasoning.

A very intriguing thought from a Christian theological perspective is, God created man his his own image, and now we've created AI in our own. And look where we are now!

This raises many intriguing questions:

- Does that mean we have created AI in God's image?

- Or was their "misalignment" between God and us like there seems to be between us and AI?

- Did God cast man out of Eden because he was worried we'd destroy heaven?

- Is the Bible our system prompt or a user prompt?

- Is life an eval to vet whether individual agents err people can contribute to his tasks without going rogue and destroying heaven?

- Are harmful human behaviors in the name of religion unintended "reward hacking"?

- Does this explain the rather weird relationship between God that requires getting twisted into logical pretzels to rationalize?

- Did God go through this crisis himself? ;-)

I'm sure there are many more similar lines of inquiry but I'm just not familiar enough with Christianity to make the connections. Would be fun to read an expert thesis that explores this parallel!

We had people departing from OpenAI, Anthropic and now Google. The pace the frontier open letter was signed by over 1,000 experts. At which point do we believe the message?

Im at a point where i think the way to steer the situation we are in is to steer the machine from the inside, not quit and leave the people with the opposite mindset keep all the economic resources.

I doubt a movement of the people from the outside will work this time when all of the capital is in the other peoples hands. We need at least some of it held by someone with the opposite view to make the movement credible. And I dont think VC and IPO dynamics are compatible with this.

If you are already thinking of quiting, you can organize and internal movement and use the power of your labor to steer things. One person quitting is nothing for the company. The risk of big group quitting at the same time on the other hand... The labor is the only thing the company cares about. So we cannot wait until we are all replaceable by AI and we lose that leverage.

I missed the "Why I left Google" emails! If you haven't been on HN too long, these were a nearly daily staple back in the day.

The thinking was: "Google is a dream job, nobody would be stupid enough to leave it". Yep, once a dream job.

We're getting these posts now for OpenAI and Anthropic, now including Google, but the reasoning is a lot more sinister.

While before it was "Yep, colleagues and free food were great but I wasn't entirely happy for minor reasons X, Y and Z", now it's "I had to leave because I could have destroyed humanity!"

This person is putting his money where his mouth is, so his views are infinitely more valuable to me than those of unsubstantiated naysayers, is there a place to read their views in depth? I couldn't help but notice a religious angle to his blog. So curious how that weaves in. I hope there will be some arguments more rationalist in nature in his writing, there often are with these highly intelligent religious people imho.

Sort of struggling to see an actual reason other than he doesn't like the pace of AI advancement? Also that his current job is very indirectly related to AI? Then somehow ties religion into it.

That's good, I guess, but hasn't Google already long given everyone including the author many reasons to both quit the company as an employee, and delete your Google account as a user?

Just as a user, deleting my Google account 10-11 years ago (don't even remember precisely when) was a great feeling that was received as "insane" by friends and acquaintances. While I think the author is a bit late in quitting (assuming he is genuine in his motives) given this is practically a trend right now, a lot of people should more often say "no" to things that are as ubiquitous as Google.