Philipp Winter

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Philipp Winter

Philipp Winter

@__phw

I improve Internet privacy and security.

Katılım Nisan 2012
74 Takip Edilen1.5K Takipçiler
Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Feynman wrote about this forty years ago: “They have every opportunity to do something, and they are not getting any ideas. […] Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys. You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!”
Dwarkesh Patel@dwarkesh_sp

Terence Tao spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study - no teaching, no random events of committees, just unlimited time to think. But after a few months, he ran out of ideas. Terence thinks that mathematicians and scientists need a certain level of randomness and inefficiency to come up with new ideas.

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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Today I voted in the Primary Elections in Illinois, a state that does not require a photo ID to vote. I had to provide a name, address, and date of birth to get my ballot – all usually part of the endless data leaks found online. Not hard to cast a vote in someone else’s name.
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Just signed up for an email delivery API service. The confirmation emails never arrived. Classic “you had one job!”
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
There’s a reason they call him “Sam Snakeman.”
Rob Wiblin@robertwiblin

Huge repository of information about OpenAI and Altman just dropped — 'The OpenAI Files'. There's so much crazy shit in there. Here's what Claude highlighted to me: 1. Altman listed himself as Y Combinator chairman in SEC filings for years — a total fabrication (?!): "To smooth his exit [from YC], Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm's website announcing the change. But the firm's partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the post." "...Despite the retraction, Altman continued falsely listing himself as chairman in SEC filings for years, despite never actually holding the position." (WTAF.) 2. OpenAI's profit cap was quietly changed to increase 20% annually — at that rate it would exceed $100 trillion in 40 years. The change was not disclosed and OpenAI continued to take credit for its capped-profit structure without acknowledging the modification. 3. Despite claiming to Congress he has "no equity in OpenAI," Altman held indirect stakes through Sequoia and Y Combinator funds. 4. Altman owns 7.5% of Reddit — when Reddit announced its OpenAI partnership, Altman's net worth jumped $50 million. Altman invested in Rain AI, then OpenAI signed a letter of intent to buy $51 million of chips from them. 5. Rumours suggest Altman may receive a 7% stake worth ~$20 billion in the restructured company. 5. OpenAI had a major security breach in 2023 where a hacker stole AI technology details but didn't report it for over a year. OpenAI fired Leopold Aschenbrenner explicitly because he shared security concerns with the board. 6. Altman denied knowing about equity clawback provisions that threatened departing employees' millions in vested equity if the ever criticised OpenAI. But Vox found he personally signed the documents authorizing them in April 2023. These restrictive NDAs even prohibited employees from acknowledging their existence. 7. Senior employees at Altman's first startup Loopt twice tried to get the board to fire him for "deceptive and chaotic behavior". 9. OpenAI's leading researcher Ilya Sutskever told the board: "I don't think Sam is the guy who should have the finger on the button for AGI". Sutskever provided the board a self-destructing PDF with Slack screenshots documenting "dozens of examples of lying or other toxic behavior. 10. Mira Murati (CTO) said: "I don't feel comfortable about Sam leading us to AGI" 11. The Amodei siblings described Altman's management tactics as "gaslighting" and "psychological abuse". 12. At least 5 other OpenAI executives gave the board similar negative feedback about Altman. 13. Altman owned the OpenAI Startup Fund personally but didn't disclose this to the board for years. Altman demanded to be informed whenever board members spoke to employees, limiting oversight. 14. Altman told board members that other board members wanted someone removed when it was "absolutely false". An independent review after Altman's firing found "many instances" of him "saying different things to different people" 15. OpenAI required employees to waive their federal right to whistleblower compensation. Former employees filed SEC complaints alleging OpenAI illegally prevented them from reporting to regulators. 16. While publicly supporting AI regulation, OpenAI simultaneously lobbied to weaken the EU AI Act. By 2025, Altman completely reversed his stance, calling the government approval he once advocated "disastrous" and OpenAI now supports federal preemption of all state AI safety laws even before any federal regulation exists. Obviously this is only a fraction of what's in the apparently 10,000 words on the site. Link below if you'd like to look over. (I've skipped over the issues with OpenAI's restructure which I've written about before already, but in a way that's really the bigger issue.)

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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
The passport likely originally belonged to somebody who actually exists but it’s unclear how Epstein got ahold of it.
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Got a response from the Austrian government: The passport photo may have been replaced after issuance. In 1982, passport photos were stamped. You can see the stamp underneath the photo but it was supposed to cover the photo too.
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Much like the Internet, AI is an amplifier. Sensible usage makes you better, irresponsible usage makes you worse. With the Internet, the negative end of this spectrum is addiction: porn, gambling, social media. With AI, it’s a hyper-persuasive propaganda machine that can convince you of just about anything that’s against your self interest.
Dan Hockenmaier@danhockenmaier

Four types of people at every company now yes, people get 10x better when the go from bottom right to top right but also, people get 10x worse when they go from bottom left to top left

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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
@RoseSilicon I think AI acts as an amplifier. Sloppy software will become worse while quality software (the minority) will become more robust.
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Sei K.
Sei K.@RoseSilicon·
@__phw Ai is making it worse while it’s advocates insist it will make software cheaper
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Software prices are increasing while quality is decreasing. Should really be factored into inflation. The most basic features stopped working. Headphones disconnect randomly. Laptop kernel panics, like it’s Windows 95 all over again.
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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
I’ve worked with folks who performed well according to these metrics, yet their code was overly tactical and accrued significant technical debt. Much time had to be spent cleaning up. One can indeed get a sense of who’s productive but it’s more complicated.
Apoorva Govind@Appyg99

@Austen Engineers are some of the easiest people to measure output from. It’s easily a function of code produced + Linears closed + Bugs fixed + features developed. Every top notch engineering org I’ve been at knew exactly who is productive and by how much.

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Philipp Winter
Philipp Winter@__phw·
Software integration tests are often a net negative: flaky, slow, incomprehensible, test the wrong thing. Bad tests are only good for finding bugs in tests themselves.
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