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Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all
- tomohelix 3y agoAltman has always been a bit sly, I am not surprised if he has made some backroom deals that don't sit well with the board. But there is a fine line between doing the right thing and unable to do anything at all. Sometimes, it is better to have the moderately bad guy that can at least bring progress instead of a virtuous leader that can't win a fight. I guess only time will tell. Right now though, OAI is not looking good and depend on how Microsoft was involved in all of this, someone's seat might get a bit shaky.
- famouswaffles 3y agoTinfoil? Hat time. Everyone from Greg to Sam to Ilya keep hanging on "AGI for the benefit of humanity". According to OpenAI's constitution: AGI is explicitly carved out of all commercial and IP licensing agreements, including the ones with Microsoft. Nuclear. Well apparently, the board decides what will be AGI. But 3 (everyone now left except ilya) of those board members don't even work at Open AI and are only privy to what the rest share. Yesterday, this is what Altman said, "On a personal note, like four times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple of weeks, I’ve gotten to be in the room when we pushed the veil of ignorance back" He goes on to say, "By next year, the model capabilities will take such a leap forward that No one would have expected" Now keep in mind, while we can all speculate on just how much the next iteration will be better, the idea that they could be sitting on something noticeably better is not far fetched at all. Open AI sat on GPT-4 for 8 months before announcing it to the public. https://www.youtube.com/live/ZFFvqRemDv8?si=yUnLvk1gHNocxUVu https://www.youtube.com/live/ZFFvqRemDv8?si=yUnLvk1gHNocxUVu 2 days ago, Sam is asked about what's left for AGI. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NjpNG0CJRMM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NjpNG0CJRMM He says they can push Language Models much farther but that there are more breakthroughs required. But here's where it gets weird. He immediately starts talking about Super Intelligence and "discovering new physics" as the bar. He says, "If it can't discover new physics, I don't think it's a super intelligence". Nobody asked you about this Sam.. In No prior podcast 2 weeks ago with Ilya, he says Transformers can obviously get us to AGI. https://twitter.com/burny_tech/status/1725578088392573038 https://twitter.com/burny_tech/status/1725578088392573038 To Ilya, they built AGI internally, and Altman wanted to release/monetize it early and tried to undersell it as being far away from AGI to the rest of the board. Ilya considers it AGI, or something extremely close to it, and deserving of far more caution, and so decided to convince the board that Altman was underselling the capabilities of their newer models and was risking a premature release of AGI. If true, then it could be seen as Altman lying about something that is foundational to their mission (which is to safely and responsibly release AGI out into the world) and subsequently fired him. Characterizing Dev Day as "too far" makes more sense in this scenario. Ultimately, the only reason SOTA LLM Agents aren't particularly dangerous is competence. If you suddenly bumped the latter up while laying the grounds for the former..
- tomohelix 3y agoI am pretty positive on AI and LLMs and all this stuff. But even so I really doubt OAI could have made something so much better than GPT to the point that it worth sacking its CEO in such a manner. Sam has always been a salesman, that is true and the board knows it. It would take much more than just a disagreement on the value and urgency of a deal to get rid of him. I think it has to be active sabotage and some kind of business maneuver that basically kill the company as it is right now while not telling the board about it.
- grfn 3y agoIt does not mean that it is objectively many times better than GPT. It can be a disagreement of interpretation, Ilya and co strongly believing that it is not safe to release, while Sam thinking everything is fine. The capabilities themselves are not very relevant.
- woeirua 3y agoIt’s still just extremely hard to see sacking your CEO over this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- windowshopping 3y agoAnytime I hear someone even hypothesizing with a tin foil hat that some company has developed AGI today in 2023, I hear it the same way I hear someone speculating about UFOs. It's so absurd that all I can do is shake my head and look around the room hoping to make eye contact with someone sane who is wearing the same expression of raised eyebrows that I am. I could write an essay on why the existence of AGI in 2023 is a comical prospect, but it just seems to be a given to me... It isn't worth the effort because if someone can't see that for themselves already, no amount of explanation from me is going to change their mind. But in one sentence, try asking ChatGPT to reverse a string of 20+ digits, like 473936482738338373926. It can't do it. It's a super trivial task, but it can't do it. Because it doesn't really understand anything. It's just an incredibly advanced Markov chain. It isn't a mind. It can't reason. They are no closer to AGI than we were 10 years ago. Chatgpt's text generation capabilities have fooled people into thinking that OpenAI has made substantial progress on creating a reasoning consciousness. But it hasn't. It hasn't at all. And it's so easy to realize that if you interact with the thing.
- sigmar 3y ago"not ideal element to it" is quite the quote. This four person board wants to be in charge of the most capable artificial intelligence on the planet, but seems to be less organized than the average school board[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725718391548207246 https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725718391548207246
- convexstrictly 3y ago"it's interesting that someone with a 2014 bachelor's and a 2021 master's, with no experience other than a few years as a low-level employee at Open Philanthropy and then a strategy position at a Georgetown center, somehow leapfrogged onto the board of one of the most important organizations in the world." https://twitter.com/stuartbuck1/status/1725695721729380357 https://twitter.com/stuartbuck1/status/1725695721729380357
- lamp987 3y ago"one of the most important organizations in the world" lol
- deanCommie 3y agoI am a frequent critic of both overhype of LLMs, and OpenAI specifically, but.....that is an indisputable statement.
- totallywrong 3y agoReally? What would happen if OpenAI dissapeared tomorrow and ChatGPT closed down? In practice, nothing. Ask yourself the same question about the truly important organizations in the world.
- hotnfresh 3y agoHype might die down and some of the hundreds to thousands (yeah…) of doomed (because, even optimistically, most are plainly never gonna be worth the resources going into them) AI boondoggles at various startups and bigcos might get cancelled sooner than they’re otherwise gonna be. Which might be bad for my personal short-term employment prospects, so here’s hoping that doesn’t happen. We can ride this BS to the next speculation bubble if we believe in ourselves. And don’t look down.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoI want to hope this means the OpenAI non-profit is looking for more ways to give code away and to democratize and share it's wins. Rather than increasingly commercialize & sell a product. I'm pretty afraid though this might mean instead cutting off & restricting access to this technology, under the pretension of safeguarding humanity from it's use. There's court intrigue discussions aplenty but I want to know what the intent is here, what this signals as coming next.
- g42gregory 3y agoI seriously doubt it. If they are so much more into the AI safety than Sam Altman is, how could they possibly entrust you with the code? :-)
- rirarobo 3y agoI think you're right that this move by Ilya is to refocus on the non-profit mission, so less urgency to commercialize and sell products, and instead more focus on core research. Based on Ilya's statements, it doesn't seem like safety was the main motivation in the decision, so maybe there's a hope that they'll be more open, but it doesn't seem to indicate either way, so possible that they'll stay tight lipped regardless.
- dilyevsky 3y agoThe remaining leadership seems to be heavy on doomer / pro censorship ideas so good luck with that
- victor9000 3y agoI wouldn't count on it, Ilya has stated that he's against open sourcing models that might be seen as "too powerful"
- convexstrictly 3y agoKara Swisher: The board members felt Altman was manipulative and headstrong. https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725733594310512775 https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725733594310512775
- dilyevsky 3y agoIn other words “good at being a ceo”
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y agoIf your definition of a ceo is that cynical, sure. Average people expect more; which I understand is an awful lot to all of, checks notes, the best paid person in a company. Seriously, if a ceo needs to stoop to manipulation to get things done then they’ve lost control of the entire company and manipulation is forestalling the inevitable. Sure, a bad ceo can create large returns for investors but people who hold such myopic views of success navigate life with their training wheels still on.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoRumors that they had a breakthrough that Sam wanted to deploy but Ilya didn’t. Makes me wonder what sort of capability they actually have in-house but not available for us plebs. And if they have that in-house, how reasonable is it to assume that the US government (or perhaps even other state governments) also have access to it?
- rirarobo 3y agoBased on Ilya's comments [1] it sounds like it was more about a disagreement around the original non-profit mission, and making sure that AI benefited all of humanity. Perhaps Ilya felt Sam was focusing too much on profit and power with his recent world tour and then dev day? Regardless, it's certainly rare, for one of the core scientists to maintain control over their creation, rather than the other way around. Typically the VC business guy would be pushing the scientist out. 1. https://nitter.net/GaryMarcus/status/1725707548106580255 https://nitter.net/GaryMarcus/status/1725707548106580255
- famouswaffles 3y agoIt would be weird for this sort of disagreement to reach a feverpitch that would see the CEO sacked without some much better model in the background though. Like Dev Day was characterized as "too far". How ? How is that interfering with the mission to benefit all humanity? It's all very weird.
- MVissers 3y agoHow is profit-sharing chatgpt stores benefiting humanity?
- Auracle 3y agoFunding further development in to AGI in the long term and creating new ways to make people more efficient in the short term?
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
- a1o 3y agohttps://nitter.net/GaryMarcus/status/1725707548106580255 https://nitter.net/GaryMarcus/status/1725707548106580255
- icy_deadposts 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing thread: Ilya Sutskever "at the center" of Altman firing? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38314299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38314299 - Nov 2023 (252 comments) (I mean there are a lot of related ongoing threads but it's all relative)
- karmasimida 3y agoThis coup is badly executed though. OpenAI’s reputation is hurt irreparably Maybe it is a good thing now other companies can finally have a window to catch up
- Barrin92 3y ago>This coup is badly executed though I've seen this language used a few times now. A company's CEO is appointed by, and serves the goals of the board. Not the other way around. When the board perceives that the CEO isn't doing this, they can fire him. That's neither metaphorically or literally a coup. Especially bad narrative in this case because openAI has given itself a charter (and legal structure that subjects the for-profit arm to the non-profit) that stresses safe and broadly beneficial AI development. If this is Ilya, the chief scientist, wanting to take it back into that direction, from Altman, a salesman, that will not hurt its reputation. (maybe it's stock value)
- karmasimida 3y agoIt will be viewed this way by the public, and media, and yes me. Unless they can bring solid evidence of Sam has some irredeemable misconduct to the table. Otherwise, this is exactly what a coup is, a grab of power, with the current power center, not knowing about it. The board needs to explain themselves immediately, if they think this is idealogical disagreement, they should come clean, and tell us so. Not some nefarious language on Sam's candidance. I am nobody, just a user of OpenAI's API. However, if this is how the current management structure functions in OpenAI, I will have serious concern over OpenAI's ability to execute next. The exit of talents is now destined, OpenAI as a company is hurt irreparably.
- MVissers 3y agoThey said it in the statement, they quoted to chapter of the company that they should focus on AI for the betterment of humanity. I can't say if this will work, but I think the message is pretty clear. No more random product launches like the GPT store, but rather focus on the core: building the AI, testing it and launching when it's safe. To be honest, I've also found them getting too diluted in offerings. Why not let other startups focus on those things? Let Openai focus on the core models and give tools to others to build/finetune things. They can be the infrastructure of the AI world, they don't need to create every product. Again, we will only know in the future if this is the right decision. But there is a strong case to be made here, especially with the company's original mission and non-profit status.
- convexstrictly 3y agoGreg Brockman & Sam Altman: "Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon. - At 12:19pm, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23pm, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post. - As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior." https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594
- AmericanOP 3y agoIlya and Mira are mad. They discount the trust-based permission society grants Open AI because of its affiliation with the YC and Silicon Valley model just for LLMs.
- golergka 3y agoSociety gives some kind of trust based permission to OpenAI? What?
- AmericanOP 3y agoIP permissiveness is the basis for LLM quality. Those laws have not been written yet.
- convexstrictly 3y agoThis is no way to run an $80B company! This thread was detached. I was referring to https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594
- danielmarkbruce 3y agoWhen you have a board who is out of their depth and no real owner, you are going to have problems.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoYou’re right. It’s instead how you run a nonprofit built to further the the vision of a once-in-a-generation ML researcher, without having it stolen out from under you.
- junofan 3y agoIt seems incredibly risky to give Microsoft’s lawyers $10bn worth of reason to take a close look at a novel corporate structure and surrounding case law. Why not cut a deal for a spin out?
- bugglebeetle 3y agoUnless their contract had a specific stipulation that Altman shake hands on a stage with Nadella every three months or something, this seems largely irrelevant. So long as OpenAI continues to honor the deal terms about technology access, I don’t see how they’re exposed.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> It seems incredibly risky to give Microsoft’s lawyers $10bn worth of reason to take a close look at a novel corporate structure and surrounding case law. Presumably, Microsoft’s lawyers did that before they bought into the novel corporate structure. I mean, its Microsoft, not Elon Musk. Due diligence is a thing.
- danielmarkbruce 3y agoGiven this sounds like an alignment/strategy issue... OpenAI might find themselves in a big old defamation lawsuit. The press release clearly reads: "he did something really bad but we can't tell you exactly what". People have sued for less...
- siva7 3y agoI don't know but Sutskever comes of like a psycho on an ego trip who wants you to believe he is the good guy.
- the_common_man 3y agoHuh?
- ignoramous 3y agoI don't know him either but in his interviews, Ilya's always been composed, considerate, and measured. Not sure what ticked you off.
- golergka 3y agoIt looks like they’re actually got full fledged AGI and are panicking.
- AmericanOP 3y agoWell, that answers if we should continue to build for the GPT platform Sam introduced 11 days ago. Sad. Thanks for posting.
- siva7 3y agoThe whole coup was very unprofessional. How can i trust such a leadership? It’s not clear if the path taken by sam will be discontinued regarding the GPT platform
- CamperBob2 3y agoI imagine he'll head straight to Microsoft, who basically have a fork of the model. The language in that license agreement is about to become rather important. Numerous lawyers are going to wake up stuck to their sheets tomorrow morning. Not just IP attorneys, but defamation specialists.
- kristjansson 3y agoAlso the contracts and antitrust lawyers tasked with figuring out how to defend OAIs claim to all the Azure compute they rely on. If they’re suddenly competing with their main supplier and contending for the input they buy from that supplier … oof
- siva7 3y agoMaybe they will switch over to Google for compute. Openai without the business genius is just Google research.
- eh_why_not 3y agoIt's mind-blowing that a company of this significance was left in the hands of four people, two of whom are complete unknowns in the field - or at least utterly unclear what credentials got them there.
- zarkenfrood 3y agoone thing that has apparent through this saga is how many people think Sam was a driving force behind the development and engineering. His departure may impact capital raising but not model development. Ilya is the driving force there and his commitment to the original idea l may bring OpenAI closer to the original investors aims.
- amai 3y agoAmericans can’t understand why someone might be driven by ideas and not be driven by money.
- mrangle 3y agoI couldn't imagine a statement that would better predict company failure at the hands of its competition.
- amai 3y agoSutskever is simply much more interested in doing research like https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment than just earning money.
- Jensson 3y agoI can see why, being able to give hard rules the AI can't break wouldn't just solve alignment but also solve the hallucination problem. It is the kind of breakthrough that would be worth trillions.