Bezos Returns To CEO Role With AI Startup Project Prometheus (nytimes.com) 24
Jeff Bezos has founded an AI startup called Project Prometheus and will serve as its co-chief executive. This is his first formal operational role since stepping down as chief executive of Amazon in July 2021. The company has raised $6.2 billion in funding, The New York Times reports, partly from Bezos. The funding makes Project Prometheus one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world.
Bezos's co-founder and co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at Google X. Dr. Bajaj was among the founders of Verily in 2015 and co-founded Foresite Labs in 2018. He recently left that position to focus on Project Prometheus. The company is focusing on AI for engineering and manufacturing in computers, aerospace, and automobiles. The startup has already hired nearly 100 employees, the report said. Researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta are among the hires. Project Prometheus is building AI systems that learn from physical experiments rather than just analyzing digital text.
Bezos's co-founder and co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at Google X. Dr. Bajaj was among the founders of Verily in 2015 and co-founded Foresite Labs in 2018. He recently left that position to focus on Project Prometheus. The company is focusing on AI for engineering and manufacturing in computers, aerospace, and automobiles. The startup has already hired nearly 100 employees, the report said. Researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta are among the hires. Project Prometheus is building AI systems that learn from physical experiments rather than just analyzing digital text.
working (Score:2)
Just shows that there is no amount of money that replaces some sort of meaning in one's life. Bezos will treat any business correctly, obviously he will be looking for maximum efficiency, which is not easy to do when you are a billionaire, after all, any issues that can be sold by throwing money at it he can really solve this way, which may be the wrong approach for a new business that needs to become useful by standing on its own 2 legs.
But it is just interesting to observe, a guy with all the money and a
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"Working" is an entirely different prospect when it's optional, when you can choose to walk away any day, any time with zero consequences. You won't go hungry, you won't have to worry about your rent, nobodies gonna give you shit if you want to roll in around 11:30 this Monday.
Really this scenario is the only legit "right to work" that exists, when you are wealthy enough to choose to work and where and how.
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My point is that a guy with all the money still chooses to do it, shows that people lose themselves when they have nothing to do that involves more than just enjoyment.
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people lose themselves when they have nothing to do that involves more than just enjoyment.
Having that amount of money gives you the privilege of being able to sort that out for yourself, he gets to decide between enjoyment and doing literally anythign else he wants.
It's something 99.99% of us will never have the option of experiencing, we are effectively denied that choice, my point is a person with a billion-with-a-B dollars has an experience with life that is inhuman to the rest of the planet.
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we are talking about different things. You are talking about class division, all of this, I am talking about a person who does not have to work and yet he does it because he wants to, yes, but personally for him there is nothing to be gained except more headache, it is not about earning more, it is about doing something with yourself.
I am saying that doing something is an important part of living, doing something useful, where you feel useful, this is what this example shows.
Certainly, if you worked as an
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We're talking the same thing, I don't disagree with your overall point of the human condition but you are holding Bezos actions as virtuous and that's my disagreement. Maybe barely versus him doing nothing but from the outcome of what this company does it could be negative utility particularly because this is just another me-too bandwagon AI venture.
Basically we should t hold Bazos on any real esteem for this decision, he risks nothing, the success or failure of this venture will not affect him mea
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I am talking about Bezos in the exact sense, that as any developed human individual, he needs to feel useful, which is what motivates him, because clearly it is not money that is his motivation. You added the 'virtuous' part, which is why you started on the path of class division. I did not prescribe a moral aspect to his behavior, only the fact that he is moved to do more than just enjoy his leisure, this has no relation to him being virtuous, this has to do with him losing himself without work.
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Hey you know lets agree to agree since I do think people are driven by more than money which is exactly why I advocate for much, much, much higher taxes of folks like Bezos, this idea that they will just take their money and not do anything isn't really true.
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I disagree with this approach because I am against theft. Whatever an individual can create for himself is his to do with as he desires, not anyone else. I don't understand this sentiment, is there anything in it except for envy?
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See here's the thing, I don't consider taxation theft so we can disagree there. That argument holds absolutely zero sway over me, i consider it absolutely ridiculous and just memes, you gotta try better, to me thats a joke argument I made in my early 20's.
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I do consider taxation theft, there is no purpose to it except for controlling the population. The fact that people accept different *levels* of theft depending on how much money they make just proves how much of theft it is, because they more money someone makes, the fewer people there are in that category of people, given that, it is easier to structure theft in such a way as to convince the majority that they don't suffer as much as the other people, who are hit with a much bigger crime.
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It is like saying: someone will do some work for free, because they like it, lets then make sure that we take away the product of their work, they don't need it anyway. How is that a moral stance, how is it good economically? People feel a certain way if someone tries to steal from them. One thing is to work, even if you don't have to, but to understand that the result of your work is yours. It is a completely different proposition to enslave someone just because they can survive without keeping the res
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lets then make sure that we take away the product of their work
No, they are not taxed 100% and taxes are marginal you only pay more as you make more.
Nobody makes money without the foundation of society the rest of us create, no billionaire or millionaire can exist in a world without the society we all create and all it entails making such things possible.
How is that a moral stance, how is it good economically?
Massive income inequality is bad economically and bad for society in general. It's societal and economic rot. Case in point: Post WWII America, most economic growth, most growth of middle class, lower inequal
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Also actual, true libertarians are not anarcho capitalist or even minimists, those are silly.
The true actual libertarians are the Georgists [wikipedia.org]
Best Bros. (Score:2)
Note the symmetry: Musk gets pissed at OpenAI founds xAI.
Bezos watches Musk found xAI founds Project Prometheus six months later.
Whenever one of them moves, the other one is lurking in the rear-view mirror with a checkbook.
Best frienemies, ever.
The one AI product we all need: (Score:1)
I'm calling: 20260102 09:00:00Z
Prometheus? (Score:5, Interesting)
Prometheus was a titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Because of this Zeus tied Prometheus to a rock where an eagle would eat his liver every day, a torture that never ends.
I am curious. Did they pick the name in honor of a thief, or is it a prophesy of how the project will end.
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Considering the trend of defense contractors naming themselves after Tolkien I think to these guys it's just as simple "It sounds cool and there is a metaphor and symbolism somewhere I can't be assed to really think about beyond the thin film of surface tension"
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Probably because Prometheus created humans in Greek mythology.
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I would have thought it was more because Prometheus gave people forbidden knowledge. They're trying to imply that the AI will reveal things that people wouldn't otherwise know.
well. (Score:2)