this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Obligatory reminder that billionaires are not our friends. But also, donating to AI research in 2018 is quite a different matter than if he had done so in recent years. Most people in tech were somewhere between neutral and enthusiastic towards machine learning back then and few foresaw the monster it would become. Doubt he's as enthusiastic nowadays, considering what it did to Valve's hardware ambitions.
OpenAI, back then, was also a very different organization. They were mostly a non-profit, claiming to be a research organization who's goals were to ensure AI benefited all of humanity. Hell, I'd say Whisper, which that OpenAI did release, was very positive for humanity. It was when Sam Altman saw big dollar signs in GPT2+ that things started changing fast.
Very much this, in 2023 there was a falling out between Altman and the board of OpenAI over this, and Altman was kicked out. However some big shareholders (Microsoft) made a stink and reversed it.
I think many employees close to Altman also went to strike or theaten to leave. But I think he's bad for the (now) company. They should've stayed non-profit
It wasn't "many employees close to Altman". It was the entire company, including the people who initiated the process of getting him kicked out. The whole thing made absolutely no sense.
And then they faked an employee letter and Lemmy sucked Altman's dick as the board was forced to resign in turn for having principles.
I remember your sins, hive mind.
Wellllllll, I dunno about this take seeing as he's still very enthusiastic about it as of less than a year ago, with some very.. hype-style statements about it.
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/gabe-newell-says-ai-is-a-significant-technology-transition-on-a-par-with-the-emergence-of-computers-or-the-internet-and-will-be-a-cheat-code-for-people-who-want-to-take-advantage-of-it/
If you can mentally separate the technology from the capitalist orgy around trying to shoehorn LLMs into every possible thing, he's not wrong.
The technology has promise, but the reality of what it can be useful for is complete overshadowed by the hype frenzy declaring the end of all knowledge workers and creatives.
LLMs are significantly better at translation than anything we've been able to design, for instance. But that's not flashy, it doesn't generate seed funding or lure investors so it's largely not what people think of when they hear "AI".
Dude, he's just another greedy billionaire. The guy doesn't deserve all the glaze gets
Edit: He's also incredibly wrong, like all other AI cultists. LLMs are a useful tool but they're no where even close to the level of computers or the Internet.
LLMs are not, certainly.
But neural networks ("AI") can do pretty incredible things and the money being poured into LLMs is being spent on AI research (and all of the RAM/graphics cards in the world).
We're only seeing LLMs and image generators because it's what we have the most training data of. The Internet doesn't have hundreds of billions of MRIs or robotic motion plans, so those uses of AI take longer to appear.
Right, he might be a little further down, but he’s absolutely still on the list. There are no good billionaires.
I don't think they've soured on it, but they use it a lot differently than OpenAI does. They still use it as one part of their anti-cheat solution for CS at least. Honestly, that's a great use for it. You train it to watch for suspicious behavior, and then it can automatically be deployed to look at matches that have been reported. They don't use it to replace people. They use it to augment what they do.
Why does this even come up?
Because lots of people worship Gabe despite the fact that he is ungodly wealthy.
I don't think anyone thinks that. What I mean is, its obvious they are not our friends.
Those who you call "worship Gabe" I don't think they are. In example I am a fan of what Valve as a company does. Gabe is just the manifestation and voice we have, so we talk about Gabe as a whole company in example. I do not think there is a "worship" involved or any cult in example. Often its just meme replies for the sake of jokes, that look like a worship..
Talking for me personally at least, I like in example that their goals mostly align with mine, relatively speaking from the entire gaming companies. I wouldn't call myself a worship, but its the only gaming company I want to spent my money on. And its the only company that supports what I value (Open Source, Linux, PC, the way lot of things are handled in Steam). Just talking for myself here.
I was of course using the word "worship" in a non literal way. Let me rephrase to be more literal:
It comes up because there are many people who give Gabe a pass on being a billionaire because it is convenient for them. The choice between Gabe being a billionaire and Valve doing the awesome work for open source is a false choice and a nonsequiter. Gabe should not get a pass for his downright unethical amount of wealth just because he is the CEO of a company you like. Yet he very often does in gaming communities full of people who are, otherwise, in favour of eating the rich. For clarity, eating the rich is also not used literally.
You can appreciate the things Valve does and condemn Gabe for hoarding his vast wealth at the same time.
Lol, I think we had this discussion before. Nice to meet you again. :p
I mean I understand this position of yours. And yes, there can't be rich people without poor people, so in that sense I agree being rich is evil by definition. But there is a difference in how to get rich, either by exploiting the weak or those who need it, or by creating good products people WANT to spend money on willingly, without getting exploited. They can get rich this way, which is not really unethical to me. Its a bit of paradox with this (my) argumentation.
I don't think that Gabe is an evil person, or soulless like other CEOs. Especially because Gabe / Valve makes money by creating good products on a free and open market. Other CEOs make money by selling their soul and users to investors (remind you, Valve and Gabe doesn't have investors).
However, there is something I hate Valve (and Gabe) for actually, and that is having lootboxes AND item market in Steam and their games available. If anything, this is what would I call the most evil thing and exploit Valve (and therefore Gabe) does.
You say that Gabe has earned his wealth ethically. In the next paragraph you defeat your own stance by providing an example of how he earned it unethically. We can agree on this point.
I would further say that no one can earn a billion dollar net worth ethically. No one, not even Gabe. Hence, to the root of the conversation, why this comes up.
I don't think the majority of his money comes from those exceptions. Without the lootboxes and the item market, Valve (and Gaben) would probably make most of the amount of money they do right now. Just because I don't like that part does not defeat my previous argument. My point is, the examples about item market and lootboxes in some of their games are not core to their strategy and their business does not stand on those legs.
Or is your argumentation that Gaben is a bad person, just because of these two points and everyone who hates him hate him for that? Are these the central points you are calling him an evil person? I don't think so. That's not the core issue. Your core issue is, that he is rich. So it does not matter in what ways he earns his money. Therefore reasoning alone how he earned his money is meaningless to discuss at this point. You just try to find a justification and point to it, after i pointed it out. Therefore I don't know how rational it is to hate a person just for being rich (which is the main issue here, because you say nobody can get rich ethically).
I did not assert that he is evil in this conversation, nor did I assert that I or anyone else hates him, justified or otherwise.
Nor did I ever try to use or define "rich", or that "rich" people are evil or that they deserve to be hated.
I believe that a billion dollars of net worth while there are starving and homeless people is an unethical act. I also believe that no one can accumulate a billion dollars of net worth ethically. I hope I have made that stance clear.
I believe that this conversion alone acts as a good explanation of why the original commenter made their comment. I hope it's been cleared up.
Because a lot of people equate "some are less harmful than others" with "I fucking love this guy and think he's a harmless saint!"
It’s 2026, open a window.
I'm on Linux, I do not use Windows.
They're still called windows in Linux.
Those are applications, not the operating system. (Edit: I mean yes, you are right. I just desperately try to dodge it anyway.)
Just one of the reasons Windows should have had its trademark removed.
You forgot to say the distro, but it’s ok I know it’s Arch.
I don't know if I am allowed to say that, because I use EndeavourOS which is almost exactly Arch. Maybe I should start doing that with an asterisk attached to it, as I use Arch, BTW*.
^*EndeavourOS
thx, bro
ha, gotta give you that one :)
(obligatory - same here)