6 ms·
Very unprofessional way to approach this disagreement.
by junofan 3y ago
Very unprofessional way to approach this disagreement.
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoWhen two people have different ideologies and neither is willing to backdown or compromise, one person must "go".
- smoldesu 3y agoOr you introduce an authoritative third party that mediates their interactions. This feels like it wouldn't be a problem if so many high-ranking employees didn't feel so radically different about the same technology.
- fsckboy 3y agowhen did a board or CEO ever introduce an authoritative 3rd party to mediate between them? the board is the authoritative 3rd party.
- oivey 3y agoAltman’s job was to be a go between for the business and engineering sides of the house. If the chief engineer who was driving the company wasn’t going to communicate with him anymore, then he wouldn’t serve much of a purpose.
- junofan 3y agoThere’s no indication that any sort of discussion took place. Major stakeholders like Microsoft appear uninformed.
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoin a power struggle, you have to act quickly
- fsckboy 3y agoI don't think it's that dramatic. In a board meeting, you have to act while the board is meeting. They don't meet every day, and it's a small rigamarole to pull a meeting together, so if you're meeting... vote.
- vanjajaja1 3y agoare you suggesting they brought up a vote on a whim at a board meeting and acted on it same day
- fsckboy 3y agono, I was replying to a comment that said it was a power struggle in which the board needed to act quickly before they lost power. The board may very well have met for this very reason, or perhaps it was at this meeting that the lack of candor was found or discussed, but to hold a board meeting there is overhead, and if the board is already in agreement at the meeting, they vote. It only seems sudden to outsiders, and that suddenness does not mean a "night of the long knives".
- dekhn 3y agoOne imagines in this case the current board discussed this in a non-board context, scheduled a meeting without inviting the chair, made quorum, and voted, then wrote the PR and let Sam, Greg, and HR know, then released the PR. Which is pretty interesting in and of itself, maybe they were trying to sidestep roko or something
- vineyardmike 3y agoBasically half the point of this is that Microsoft isn’t a stakeholder. The board clearly doesn’t care or is actively hostile to the idea of growing “the business”. If they didn’t know then that they weren’t a stakeholder, they know now. MS owns a non controlling share of a business controlled by a nonprofit. MS should have prepared for the possibility that their interests aren’t adequately represented. I’m guessing Altman is very persuasive and they were in a rush to make a deal.
- junofan 3y agoMicrosoft is a stakeholder. It’s absurd to suggest otherwise. The entire stakeholder concept was invented to encompass a broader view on corporate governance than just the people in the boardroom.
- vineyardmike 3y agoThis is a non profit dedicated to researching AI with the goal of making a safe AGI. That’s what the mission is. Sama starts trying to make it a business, restructures it to allow investors, of which MSFT is a 49% owner. He gets ousted and they tell Microsoft afterwards. It’s questionable how much power Microsoft has as a shareholder. Obviously they have a staked interest in OpenAI. What is up in question is how much interest the new leaders have in Microsoft. If I had a business relationship with OpenAI that didn’t align with their mission I would be very worried.
- bushbaba 3y agoThere's more graceful ways to do this though.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoYou've summed AI X-risk in a single sentence. (I.e. an AGI would be one of the two people here.)
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoHow so? It's just another firing and being escorted out the door.
- jdminhbg 3y agoIt's not "just another firing," the statement accused Altman of lying to the board. Either he did and it's a justified extraordinary firing, or he didn't and it's hugely unprofessional to insinuate he did.
- chasd00 3y agoOh man the lawyers have to be so happy I bet they can hardly count.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI read that word as not being forthcoming moreso than actively lying. But I don't read many firing press releases.
- adastra22 3y agoHugely unprofessional and a billion dollar liability.
- janejeon 3y agoThe wording is very clearly hostile and aggressive, especially for a formal statement, and the wording, again, makes it very clear that they are burning all bridges with Sam Altman, and it is very clear that 1. it was done extremely suddenly, 2. with very little notice or discussion with any other stakeholder (e.g. Microsoft being completely blindsided, not even waiting 30 minutes for the stock market to close, doing this shortly before Thanksgiving break, etc). You don't really see any of this in most professional settings.
- fsckboy 3y agoboards give reasons for transparency, and they said he had not been fully candid. You are interpreting that as hostile and aggressive because you are reading into it what other boards have said in other disputes and whatever you are imagining, but if the board learned some things not from Altman that it felt they should have learned from Altman, less than candid is a completely neutral way to describe it, and voting him out is not an indication of hostility. Would you like to propose some other candid wording the board could have chosen, a wording that does not lack candor?
- rdtsc 3y agoIt was actually a great move. Unusual, but it goes with the mission and nonprofit idea. I think it was designed to draw attention and stir controversy on purpose.
- kcb 3y agoIs it a winning move though? The biggest loser in this seems to be the company that was bankrolling their endeavor, Microsoft.
- rdtsc 3y agoAt this stage, no publicity is bad publicity. If they really believe they are in it to change the future of humanity, and the kool-aid got to their heads, might as well show it off by stirring some controversy. Microsoft is bankrolling them but OpenAI probably can replace Microsoft easier than Microsoft can replace OpenAI.
- MrMan 3y ago[dead]
- toyg 3y agoThey don't need Microsoft anymore, they have a queue of potential funders.
- kcb 3y agoYou think those funders will stick with their insistence on the direction of not creating products and making money.
- toyg 3y agoIt's more about "making all the money" Vs "making some of the money", with that "some" still being pretty big. Maybe they won't get 100bn but will get 10bn just fine.
- mochomocha 3y agoIf you know anything about Ilya, it's definitely not out of character.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- junofan 3y agoHaving read up on some background not sure I want this guy in charge of any kind of superintelligence.
- dragonwriter 3y agoWell, I definitely wouldn't want Altman in charge of any superintelligence, so "I'm not sure" would be an improvement, if I expected an imminent superintelligence.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoWhat if - hear me out - what if the firing is the doing of an AGI? Maybe OpenAI succeeded and now the AI is calling the shots (figuratively, though eventually maybe literally too).
- ariym 3y agowhat are you referring to
- hindsightbias 3y agoNot if the AGI was making the decision. A bit demanding to think the Professionalism LLM module isn't a bit hallucinatory in this age. Give it a few more years.