I found this statement by Sam quite amusing. It transmits exactly zero information (it's a given that models will improve over time), yet it sounds profound and ambitious.

I got the same vibe from him on the All In podcast. For every question, he would answer with a vaguely profound statement, talking in circles without really saying anything. On multiple occasions he would answer like 'In some ways yes, in some ways no...' and then just change the subject.

Yep. I'm not quite sure what he's up to. He takes all these interviews and basically says nothing. What's his objective?

My guess is he wants OpenAI to become a household name, and so he optimizes for exposure.

and boy did the stockholders like that one.

What stockholders. They’re investors at this point. I wish I could get in on it.

They're rollercoaster riders, being told lusterous stories by gold-panners while the shovel salesman counts his money and leaves.

I think you could pretty easily call Nvidia a shovel-seller in this context.

You’re right.

Why should I believe anything he says?

I will believe it when I see it. People like to point at the first part of a logistic curve and go "behold! an exponential".

Ah yes my favorite was the early covid numbers, some of the "smartest" people in the SF techie scene were daily on Facebook thought-leadering about how 40% of people were about to die in the likely case.

Let's be honest, everyone was speculating. Nobody knew what the future would bring, not even you.

The difference is some people were talking a whole lot confidently, and some weren’t.