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A few things: 1. It came completely out of left field, at a time when OpenAI has had an astonishingly successful year. 2. It was much more harshly worded than

A few things: 1. It came completely out of left field, at a time when OpenAI has had an astonishingly successful year. 2. It was much more harshly worded than most corporate press releases letting their CEO go, basically accusing Sam Altman of serious wrongdoing. 3. It occurred during market hours and blindsided their investors and partners. 4. It revealed a schism inside the company that the public had little awareness of. 5. It has deep implications for the trajectory of a technology that many see as heralding a revolution at least as significant as — if not more than — agriculture or industry, with truly existential implications for humanity. 6. The revealed schism appears to go right to the heart of heated debates over those existential risks and the right course to navigate through them.

TheCondor 3y ago
7. They did this during a fund raising process.
- joak 3y ago
  This exactly what I find worrisome. They really need the money, no? As I understand the growth of chatGPT (both in number of users and capabilities) is only possible with more servers. I'm right now developing on top of openAI API and I wonder if it's a good idea after all.
  - TheCondor 3y ago
    They use a lot of energy….
    - joak 3y ago
      Energy is getting cheaper by the day thanks to photovoltaics so I don't think it's a problem today. Computer energy needs grow exponentially so at some point we will hit a wall. Hard to estimate when. Energy tech is also an evolving field and fusion might arrive some day
danielvaughn 3y ago
well said
nicoco 3y ago
> at least as significant as — if not more than — agriculture Are there really people out there who believe that? I mean, agriculture was a BIG BIG BIG deal for humanity, it is not unreasonable to thing that this will have been out biggest deal.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Yes. Depending on improvement trajectory and implementation velocity, this could replace a material amount of global aggregate knowledge work. EDIT: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-18/ai-can-do-your-admin-tasks-britain-tells-its-public-workers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-18/ai-can-do... | https://archive.today/b37TG https://archive.today/b37TG ("Bloomberg: AI Can Do Your Admin Tasks, Britain Tells Its Public Workers") > Governments around the world are increasingly turning to AI to help streamline operations and increase productivity in public services as they face higher costs and aging populations. > In the UK, Hunt said that Al is already helping doctors and nurses treat stroke victims, and build high-quality lesson plans for teachers. > Further use of the technology would cut teachers’ workloads by as many as five hours each week over three years, while new technologies could save the country’s police force around 750,000 hours every week he said.
  - jowea 3y ago
    I think that may hold true if we put AI as one part of the greater Computer Revolution.
    - JieJie 3y ago
      It's fair to say influential scholars, ranging from Turing to Wolfram, share the view that thinking computers are an inevitable outcome of computing's evolution. [edited for clarity]
- DavidSJ 3y ago
  It’s of course hard to directly compare, in large part because the AI revolution wouldn’t be possible without the agricultural revolution. But yeah, a lot of people think AI is a BIG BIG BIG BIG (note: I used one more “BIG” than you) deal for humanity.
xcodevn 3y ago
> 5. It has deep implications for the trajectory of a technology that many see as heralding a revolution at least as significant as — if not more than — agriculture or industry, with truly existential implications for humanity. Yes, this is likely to be one of the most important events in human history. We are living through a special period of evolution on Earth.
ants_everywhere 3y ago
> 3. It occurred during market hours and blindsided their investors and partners. (Possibly dumb) question: OpenAI isn't publicly traded right? Do market hours really matter for this sort of thing for private companies?
- mkl 3y ago
  Microsoft is publicly traded, and owns 49% of the for-profit OpenAI Global (the company that makes money with ChatGPT etc.).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Hamcha 3y ago
  It probably scared the downstream, see Microsoft pushing out a press release as soon as possible since they have been investing tons of money and PR into their OpenAPI partnership and needed to calm their investors and partners.
- arbitrage 3y ago
  Good point, and the answer to that is possibly not. But, considering that it isn't ideal to publicize this sort of thing during market hours anyway, regardless of your public/private status, my takeaway is that OpenAI felt that they had to get in front of this news at all costs. I find that very interesting, and I wonder what the competing narrative would have been had they not done that.
- nativeit 3y ago
  Microsoft stock dropped 1% in 30-minutes. Relatively speaking, that’s a precipitous drop.
AYBABTME 3y ago
It seems to me that in the grand scheme of things, this firing will be a side note. The people with the knowledge continue to exist, and the cat is out now. Everybody knows about the huge potential that's ripe for pickings in this field. I really doubt that this huge structural pressure will be flattened by a CEO losing his job.
- patcon 3y ago
  It would be significant if one believed OpenAI was responsible for keeping the cat partially in the bag, and now the bag has holes. In which case, the weakening of OpenAI (or simply a change of trajectory) could be very significant to this historical trajectory. More control vs less control is a very important knob to turn, and it's just been turned if power shifts from OpenAI's closed model approach to players pushing open models. It's up to each person to decide if this is good or bad *shrug* I personally am unsure, but I worry Sam's departure is bad news for our trajectory. (Though I also feared his influence, as I fear anyone with heavy influence.)
binarymax 3y ago
Your comparison to agriculture detracts from your otherwise excellent points. We can survive without AI. Without agriculture - not so much.
- bentcorner 3y ago
  While I agree with you, I think we also could have survived without agriculture, before agriculture.
  - xvilka 3y ago
    But not all of our N billions.
    - Majestic121 3y ago
      The point is that post AI, we will surely grow dependant on AI tech in the same way we are now dependant on agriculture, but were not before. Think all hospitals being administered by AI, all logistical chains bringing food to your plates, etc... it is not far fetched to bet on us relying a lot on AI, iff it works as well as some people think
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
bjelkeman-again 3y ago
Maybe when I can eat and survive on the output from an AI…
- tremon 3y ago
  If Star Trek-style food synthesizers are developed with/by AI synthesis, you just might. More likely though, they'll be of the variant with a big "don't panic" sticker on the front.
  - layer8 3y ago
    The AI will probably secretly inject contraceptives into the synthesized food.
- lbotos 3y ago
  While I understand your point that the ai is still in the box, farmers today are using AI based tools to identify weeds and shoot them with lasers so in effect we are already eating and surviving based on the output from an AI.
guhcampos 3y ago
I need to jump on the wagon here and beg you and others to stop comparing AI to Agriculture, mastering of Fire, the Wheel, Electricity or the Combustion Engine. It's hard to even argue, cause these things stand on very disparate levels of civilizatory pressure. AI has, no question, potential to deeply change human experience, but even if it does, that will be mostly due to extreme optimization of existing processes, not likely the development of new modes of living. And it's very, very, very far from getting there. All this hype over Generational AI is, sadly, more of a Marketing stunt than anything else. Generational AI don't bring any great innovation in what AI can achieve, only in how people perceive what AI already does. GPT's biggest achievement is to sound coherent, not to leap forward human knowledge in any meaning full way.
- lbotos 3y ago
  At what point does "extreme optimization of existing processes" turn into "development of new modes of living?" I think about cars as an "extreme optimization of the wheel" and it completely changed the way people live. (See Suburbs) I do share that AI is quite overhyped, but I think the seeds are juuuuuust starting to germinate.
  - guhcampos 3y ago
    I tend to agree, but when I mention Combustion Engine I don't necessarily mean cars. Cars are indeed just an optimization of horses, depending on how you think. Railways and Ocean Freighters, on the other hand, enable some pretty incredible cases. They allow food and goods to reach otherwise impossible places, regardless of the seasons, which allowed previously impossible developments. And then there's airplanes
  - throwawayyy9237 3y ago
    Some advancements are process improvements, some enable the impossible. Electric bulbs are neat, but there was inneficient artifical light before. On the other hand, a caveman might look at the moon, but he would never land there without modern tools. GAI doesn't allow us to overcome any Human inherent limitations, it's just an efficient tool (in certain scenarios).
foobarian 3y ago
My hot take, the community is hungry for a new success story in a space where the last world changing unicorn was arguably Google, and OpenAI seemed to be it, which attracted a lot of attention. The mess that happened is now just amplifying the attention and also inducing some degree of schadenfreude.
Obscurity4340 3y ago
Re:#4: I guess you could say some internal folks DeeplyMinded him
pomatius 3y ago
>It has deep implications for the trajectory Lol no, CEOs are overated, they don't contribute much to anything. Open AI will be just fine.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"5. It has deep implications for the trajectory of a technology that many see as heralding a revolution at least as significant as - if not more than - agriculture or industry, with truly existential implications for humanity." This use of "many" refers to HN voters not people in general.

TheCondor 3y ago

7. They did this during a fund raising process.

joak 3y ago
This exactly what I find worrisome. They really need the money, no? As I understand the growth of chatGPT (both in number of users and capabilities) is only possible with more servers. I'm right now developing on top of openAI API and I wonder if it's a good idea after all.
- TheCondor 3y ago
  They use a lot of energy….
  - joak 3y ago
    Energy is getting cheaper by the day thanks to photovoltaics so I don't think it's a problem today. Computer energy needs grow exponentially so at some point we will hit a wall. Hard to estimate when. Energy tech is also an evolving field and fusion might arrive some day

danielvaughn 3y ago

well said

nicoco 3y ago

> at least as significant as — if not more than — agriculture Are there really people out there who believe that? I mean, agriculture was a BIG BIG BIG deal for humanity, it is not unreasonable to thing that this will have been out biggest deal.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Yes. Depending on improvement trajectory and implementation velocity, this could replace a material amount of global aggregate knowledge work. EDIT: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-18/ai-can-do-your-admin-tasks-britain-tells-its-public-workers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-18/ai-can-do... | https://archive.today/b37TG https://archive.today/b37TG ("Bloomberg: AI Can Do Your Admin Tasks, Britain Tells Its Public Workers") > Governments around the world are increasingly turning to AI to help streamline operations and increase productivity in public services as they face higher costs and aging populations. > In the UK, Hunt said that Al is already helping doctors and nurses treat stroke victims, and build high-quality lesson plans for teachers. > Further use of the technology would cut teachers’ workloads by as many as five hours each week over three years, while new technologies could save the country’s police force around 750,000 hours every week he said.
- jowea 3y ago
  I think that may hold true if we put AI as one part of the greater Computer Revolution.
  - JieJie 3y ago
    It's fair to say influential scholars, ranging from Turing to Wolfram, share the view that thinking computers are an inevitable outcome of computing's evolution. [edited for clarity]
DavidSJ 3y ago
It’s of course hard to directly compare, in large part because the AI revolution wouldn’t be possible without the agricultural revolution. But yeah, a lot of people think AI is a BIG BIG BIG BIG (note: I used one more “BIG” than you) deal for humanity.

xcodevn 3y ago

> 5. It has deep implications for the trajectory of a technology that many see as heralding a revolution at least as significant as — if not more than — agriculture or industry, with truly existential implications for humanity. Yes, this is likely to be one of the most important events in human history. We are living through a special period of evolution on Earth.

ants_everywhere 3y ago

> 3. It occurred during market hours and blindsided their investors and partners. (Possibly dumb) question: OpenAI isn't publicly traded right? Do market hours really matter for this sort of thing for private companies?

mkl 3y ago
Microsoft is publicly traded, and owns 49% of the for-profit OpenAI Global (the company that makes money with ChatGPT etc.).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Hamcha 3y ago
It probably scared the downstream, see Microsoft pushing out a press release as soon as possible since they have been investing tons of money and PR into their OpenAPI partnership and needed to calm their investors and partners.
arbitrage 3y ago
Good point, and the answer to that is possibly not. But, considering that it isn't ideal to publicize this sort of thing during market hours anyway, regardless of your public/private status, my takeaway is that OpenAI felt that they had to get in front of this news at all costs. I find that very interesting, and I wonder what the competing narrative would have been had they not done that.
nativeit 3y ago
Microsoft stock dropped 1% in 30-minutes. Relatively speaking, that’s a precipitous drop.

AYBABTME 3y ago

It seems to me that in the grand scheme of things, this firing will be a side note. The people with the knowledge continue to exist, and the cat is out now. Everybody knows about the huge potential that's ripe for pickings in this field. I really doubt that this huge structural pressure will be flattened by a CEO losing his job.

patcon 3y ago
It would be significant if one believed OpenAI was responsible for keeping the cat partially in the bag, and now the bag has holes. In which case, the weakening of OpenAI (or simply a change of trajectory) could be very significant to this historical trajectory. More control vs less control is a very important knob to turn, and it's just been turned if power shifts from OpenAI's closed model approach to players pushing open models. It's up to each person to decide if this is good or bad *shrug* I personally am unsure, but I worry Sam's departure is bad news for our trajectory. (Though I also feared his influence, as I fear anyone with heavy influence.)

binarymax 3y ago

Your comparison to agriculture detracts from your otherwise excellent points. We can survive without AI. Without agriculture - not so much.

bentcorner 3y ago
While I agree with you, I think we also could have survived without agriculture, before agriculture.
- xvilka 3y ago
  But not all of our N billions.
  - Majestic121 3y ago
    The point is that post AI, we will surely grow dependant on AI tech in the same way we are now dependant on agriculture, but were not before. Think all hospitals being administered by AI, all logistical chains bringing food to your plates, etc... it is not far fetched to bet on us relying a lot on AI, iff it works as well as some people think
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

bjelkeman-again 3y ago

Maybe when I can eat and survive on the output from an AI…

tremon 3y ago
If Star Trek-style food synthesizers are developed with/by AI synthesis, you just might. More likely though, they'll be of the variant with a big "don't panic" sticker on the front.
- layer8 3y ago
  The AI will probably secretly inject contraceptives into the synthesized food.
lbotos 3y ago
While I understand your point that the ai is still in the box, farmers today are using AI based tools to identify weeds and shoot them with lasers so in effect we are already eating and surviving based on the output from an AI.

guhcampos 3y ago

I need to jump on the wagon here and beg you and others to stop comparing AI to Agriculture, mastering of Fire, the Wheel, Electricity or the Combustion Engine. It's hard to even argue, cause these things stand on very disparate levels of civilizatory pressure. AI has, no question, potential to deeply change human experience, but even if it does, that will be mostly due to extreme optimization of existing processes, not likely the development of new modes of living. And it's very, very, very far from getting there. All this hype over Generational AI is, sadly, more of a Marketing stunt than anything else. Generational AI don't bring any great innovation in what AI can achieve, only in how people perceive what AI already does. GPT's biggest achievement is to sound coherent, not to leap forward human knowledge in any meaning full way.

lbotos 3y ago
At what point does "extreme optimization of existing processes" turn into "development of new modes of living?" I think about cars as an "extreme optimization of the wheel" and it completely changed the way people live. (See Suburbs) I do share that AI is quite overhyped, but I think the seeds are juuuuuust starting to germinate.
- guhcampos 3y ago
  I tend to agree, but when I mention Combustion Engine I don't necessarily mean cars. Cars are indeed just an optimization of horses, depending on how you think. Railways and Ocean Freighters, on the other hand, enable some pretty incredible cases. They allow food and goods to reach otherwise impossible places, regardless of the seasons, which allowed previously impossible developments. And then there's airplanes
- throwawayyy9237 3y ago
  Some advancements are process improvements, some enable the impossible. Electric bulbs are neat, but there was inneficient artifical light before. On the other hand, a caveman might look at the moon, but he would never land there without modern tools. GAI doesn't allow us to overcome any Human inherent limitations, it's just an efficient tool (in certain scenarios).

foobarian 3y ago

My hot take, the community is hungry for a new success story in a space where the last world changing unicorn was arguably Google, and OpenAI seemed to be it, which attracted a lot of attention. The mess that happened is now just amplifying the attention and also inducing some degree of schadenfreude.

Obscurity4340 3y ago

Re:#4: I guess you could say some internal folks DeeplyMinded him

pomatius 3y ago

>It has deep implications for the trajectory Lol no, CEOs are overated, they don't contribute much to anything. Open AI will be just fine.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

"5. It has deep implications for the trajectory of a technology that many see as heralding a revolution at least as significant as - if not more than - agriculture or industry, with truly existential implications for humanity." This use of "many" refers to HN voters not people in general.