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Update on the OpenAI drama: Altman and the board had till 5pm to reach a truce where the board would resign and he and Brockman would return. The deadline has p
by meetpateltech 3y ago
Update on the OpenAI drama: Altman and the board had till 5pm to reach a truce where the board would resign and he and Brockman would return. The deadline has passed and mass resignations expected if a deal isn’t reached ASAP
https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1726055095341875545 https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1726055095341875545
- minimaxir 3y agoMass resignations from whom, I wonder. Other researchers?
- BoorishBears 3y agoPeople who joined OpenAI because the organizations they left were stuck self-sabotaging the way OpenAI's board just did (for the same reasons the board did it)
- j45 3y agoIt’s still common for people are people and triggered often by a list of common things like power, money, and fame.
- dannyw 3y agoPresumably a significant amount of OpenAI employees are motivated by money, at least in some form. The board just vaporised the tender offer, and likely much of their valuation. It’s hard to have confidence in that.
- jasonlotito 3y agoIt's simple collective bargaining. I wonder how many of them oppose unions... until they have a need to work together.
- 46u54uaegr 3y agoI can't speak for every American but I find that plenty of Americans are fine with collective bargaining they just don't want to do it through a union if they're in a lucrative line of work already. Which isn't terribly hard to understand, they don't need or want an advocate whose main role is constantly issuing new demands they never cared about on their behalf. They just want to be able to pool their leverage as high value workers within the organization collectively in times of crisis.
- maskil 3y agoOn the contrary, they seem to be doing it quite fine without a union
- iancmceachern 3y agoAnd with the popularity and success of GPT whatever they do next will likely be wildly successful. The timing couldn't be more perfect.
- username332211 3y agoAlso, most of the human race has an instinctual aversion to plotters and machinations. The board's sudden and rather dubious (why the need to bad-mouth Altman?) actions probably didn't sit well with many. Dante places Brutus in the lowest circle of hell, while Cato is placed outside of hell altogether, even if both fought for the same thing. Sometimes means matter more than ends. If the whole process had been more regular, they could have removed Altman with little drama.
- empath75 3y agoIf you're an engineer at open ai, you just saw probably millions of dollars of personal wealth get potentially evaporated on friday. You're going to quit and go wherever Altman goes next.
- chasd00 3y ago> You're going to quit and go wherever Altman goes next. I won’t be surprised if it’s the open arms of Microsoft. Microsoft embraced and extended OpenAI with their investment. Now comes the inevitable.
- gigel82 3y agoAltman maybe, but not rank&file OpenAI engineers. They'd be leaving the millions in paper money for Microsoft's peanuts.
- tarsinge 3y agoWhy follow Altman? Most smart people are more driven by the mission than a personality cult.
- hilux 3y agoDeca-unicorns don't come along every day. How would Sam Altman build another one? (I'll be impressed if he does.)
- MrMan 3y ago[dead]
- medler 3y agoReally weird phrasing in this tweet. The idea is that Altman and/or a bunch of employees were demanding the board reinstate Altman and then resign. And they’re calling it a “truce.” Oh, and there’s a deadline (5 pm), but since it’s already passed the board merely has to “reach” this “truce” “ASAP.” Edit: an update to the verge article sheds some more light, but I still consider it very sus since it’s coming from the Altman camp and seems engineered to exert maximal pressure on the board. And the supposed deadline has passed and we haven’t heard any resignations announced > Update, 5:35PM PT: A source close to Altman says the board had agreed in principle to resign and to allow Altman and Brockman to return, but has since waffled — missing a key 5PM PT deadline by which many OpenAI staffers were set to resign. If Altman decides to leave and start a new company, those staffers would assuredly go with him.
- Animats 3y ago"Missing a key 5PM PT deadline by which many OpenAI staffers were set to resign." Says who? And did they resign?
- x86x87 3y agoone thing that I am curious about: aren't there non-competes in place here? and even without them, you just cannot start your own thing that just replicates what your previous employer does - this has lawsuit written all over it.
- quotient 3y agoIt's California. Non-competes are void. It is one of the few states where non-competes are not legally enforceable.
- karmasimida 3y agoNah this is California, that won’t work
- sangnoir 3y agoIt'll be tough going with no Azure compute contracts, no GPUs, no billions from Microsoft, no training data, OpenAI capturing all of the value from user-generated content resulted in sites like Reddit and Twitter significantly raising the cost to scrape them.
- pyb 3y ago"Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, must be sacked."
- DriverDaily 3y agoWho sacks the person who sacks?
- p5a0u9l 3y ago[flagged]
- cdme 3y agoCurious to see if turning something off and back on will work out for the OpenAI board like it does in IT generally.
- m3kw9 3y agothe board is the ones that fired him, why would they resign if Sam isn't back?
- jxi 3y agoBecause they won't have a company to "run the board for" anymore if Sam doesn't come back (since so many people have threatened to resign).
- cmdli 3y agoThey also won't have a company if they resign. Not much benefit to them here, is there?
- jxi 3y agoI guess since they're doomed anyway, resignation saves face a little bit more.
- cbozeman 3y agoIf you're going to die, die with honor, not without. Basically the board's choices are commit seppuku and maybe be viable somewhere else down the line, or try to play hardball and fuck your life forever. It's not really that hard a choice, but given the people who have to make it, I guess it kinda is...
- Davidzheng 3y agoDo they need to be viable? I think the point is that they are not motivated by this crap
- mark_l_watson 3y agoQuestion: is there a public statement signed by a large number OpenAI employees saying that they will resign over this? I don’t know. I have seen that three people resigned. If I were an OpenAI employee I think I would wait a month and see how things shake out. Those employees can probably get very highly paid jobs elsewhere, now, or later. The Anthropic founders left OpenAI after Altman shifted the company to be a non-profit controlling a for profit entity, right?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- woeirua 3y agoThere is no scenario here where Sam returns and OpenAI survives as a nonprofit. The board will be sacked.
- thefourthchime 3y agoI agree. The pretense that OpenAI is still an open or a nonprofit has been a farce for a while now, it is an aggressively for-profit, trying to be the next Google company, and everybody knows it.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoClearly people in the non-profit part are trying to bring the organization back to its non-profit origins - after Altman effectively high jacked their agenda and corporatized the organization for his own benefit; turning its name into a meme.
- lordfrito 3y agoIt's possible that it's already too late to course correct the organization. We'll know for sure if/when Altman gets reinstated. If he's reinstated, then that's it, AI will be used to screw us plebs for sure (fastest path to evil domination). If he's not reinstated, then it would appear the board acted in the nick of time. For now.
- shreyshnaccount 3y agoIf they actually care about that part they'd instantly open source gpt4. Wouldn't matter what altman does after that point then
- okdood64 3y ago> The board will be sacked. How does sacking a board work in practice?
- dragonwriter 3y ago> How does sacking a board work in practice? For a nonprofit board, the closest thing is something "the members of the board agree to resign after providing for named replacements". Individual members of the board can be sacked by a quorum of the board, but the board collectively can't be sacked. EDIT: Correction: Actually, nonprofits can have a variety of structures defining who the members are that are ultimately in charge. There must be a board, and there may be voting members to whom the board is accountable. The members, however, defined, generally can vote and replace boards members, and so could sack the board. OTOH, I can't find any information about OpenAI having voting members beyond the board to whom they are accountable.
- salad-tycoon 3y agoBeen reading up on the insight offered up on this site. Seems like a lot of these board members have deep ties around various organizations, governmental bodies, etc. and that seems entirely normal and probable. However, prior to chatgpt and dalle we, the public , had only been allowed brief glimpses into the current state of AI (eg Look this robot can sound like a human and book a reservation for you at the restaurant -Google ; look this robot can help you consume media better -many). As a member of the public it went from “oh cool Star Trek idea, maybe we’ll see it one day with flying cars” to “holy crap, I just felt a spark of human connection with a chat program.” So here’s my question, what are the chances that openAI is controlled opposition and Sam never really was supposed to be releasing all this stuff to the public? I remember he was on his Lex podcast appearance and said paraphrasing “so what do you think, should I do it? Should I open source and release it? Tell me to do it and I will.” Ultimately, this is what “the board is focused on trust and safety” mean right? As in safety is SV techno HR PR dribble for go slow, wear a helmet and seatbelt and elbow protectors , never go above 55, give everyone else the right of way because we are in the for the good humanity and we know what’s best. (vs the Altman style of: go fast, double dog dare smart podcast dude to make unprecedented historical decision to open source, be “wild” and let people / fate figure some of it out along the way.”) The question of openai’s true purpose being a form of controlled opposition is of course based on my speculation but an honest question for the crowd here.
- x86x87 3y agoI don't buy the whole the board is for safety and Sam is pushing too fast argument. This is just classic politics and backstabbing unless there is some serious wrongdoing in the middle that left the board with no option to fire the CEO.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 3y agoAgreed. 'Who benefits' is a good question to ask in situations like these and it looks like a palace coup to me rather than anything with a solid set of reasons behind it. But I'll keep my reservations until it is all transparent (assuming it ever will be).
- adam_arthur 3y agoPretty incredible incompetence all around if true. From the board for not anticipating a backlash and caving immediately... from Microsoft for investing into an endeavor that is purportedly chartered as non-profit and governed by nobodies who can sink it on a whim. And having 0 hard influence on the direction despite a large ownership stake Why bother with a non-profit model that is surreptitiously for profit? The whole structure of OpenAI is largely a facade at this point. Just form a new for profit company and be done with it. Altman's direction for profit is fine, but shouldn't have been pursued under the loose premise of a non profit. While OpenAI leads currently, there are so many competitors that are within striking distance without the drama. Why keep the baggage? It's pretty clear that the best engineering will decide the winners, not the popularity of the CEO. OpenAI has first mover advantage, and perhaps better talent, but not by an order of magnitude. There is no special sauce here. Altman may be charismatic and well connected, but the hero worship put forward on here is really sad and misplaced.
- x86x87 3y agomy question is: why not both? why not pursue the profit and use that to fuel the research into AGI. seems like a best of both worlds.
- cthalupa 3y agoThat's the intent of the arrangement, but there's also limits - when that pursuit of profit begins to interfere with the charter of the non-profit, you end up in this situation. https://openai.com/charter https://openai.com/charter > OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity. My interpretation of events is the board believes that Altman's actions have worked against the interest of building an AGI that benefits all of humanity - concentrating access to the AI to businesses could be the issue, or the focus on commercialization of the existing LLMs and chatbot stuff causing conflict with assigning resources to AGI r&d, etc. Of course no one knows for sure except the people directly involved here.
- thinkcomp 3y agoThis does not solve the company's California AG problem. https://www.plainsite.org/posts/aaron/r8huu7s/ https://www.plainsite.org/posts/aaron/r8huu7s/
- tsunamifury 3y agoThis could all be easily covered over with a few billion dollars. This is just some guy that thinks too small.
- alexallain 3y agoHey I know something about this! I just mailed my organization's RRF-1 a couple of days ago. The author of this post seems to be confused. My organization is on the same fiscal year as OpenAI, and our RRF-1 had to be mailed by November 15th. That explains the supposed "six month" delay. Second, if it's mailed on November 15th, it might not have even been received yet, let alone processed. This post feels like grasping at straws on the basic facts, setting aside the fact that it just doesn't make any sense to imagine a board member filling out the RRF-1 and going "oh wait, was there financial fraud?" the morning of November 15th. (That's ... not how the world works? Under CA law, any nonprofit with 2M of more in revenue has to undergo an audit, which is typically completed before filling out the 990, and the 990 is a pre-req for submitting the RRF-1. That's where you'd expect to catch this stuff, and the board's audit committee would certainly be involved in reviewing the results well in advance.)
- thinkcomp 3y agoThe six-month delay is probably due to an automatic extension if you get an extension from the IRS, and also, you can file the form electronically, in which case mail delays are not a problem. But neither of those issues is the point. The point is that the form needed to be filed at all, and representations needed to be made accordingly. OpenAI handled their audit years ago and hasn't had another one since according to their filings. So that does not seem like it would have been an issue this year. Take a look at the top of the RRF-1 for the instructions on when it's due. Also, the CA AG's website says that OpenAI's was due on May 15th. They just have been filing six months later each year.
- 38321003thrw 3y agoThese updates all seem to be coming from one side. Have they said anything at all?
- xivzgrev 3y agoI am just baffled for so many reasons. Why is the board reversing course? They said they lost confidence in Altman - that’s true whether lots of people quit or not. So it was bullshit Why did the board not foresee people quitting en masse? I’m sure some of it is loyalty to Sam and Greg but it’s also revolting at how they were suddenly fired Why did the interim CEO not warn Ilya about the above? Sure it’s a promotion but her position is now jeopardized too. Methinks she’s not ready for the big leagues Who picked this board anyway? I was surprised at how…young they all were. Older people have more life experience and tend not to do rash shit like this. Although the Quora CEO should’ve known better as well.
- cthalupa 3y agoFrom what we can see, it looks like the majority of the reporting sources are Altman aligned. Look at how the follow up tweet from this reporter read - the board resigning and the governance structure changing is being called a "truce" when it's a capitulation. We might get a better understanding of what actually happened here at some point in the future, but I would not currently assume anything we are seeing come out right now is the full truth of the matter.
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoIt seems to me that Altman uses his influence to manipulate public opinion, which he always does.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoThe board was likely stacked with people who were easily influenced by the big personalities and to check some marks (safety person, academic, demographic etc).
- jacquesm 3y agoSome of those board picks make zero sense to me.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago> I’m sure some of it is loyalty to Sam and Greg but it’s also revolting at how they were suddenly fired Funny how people only use words like revolting for sudden firings of famous tech celebrities like Sam with star power and fan bases. When tech companies suddenly fire ordinary people, management gets praised for being decisive, firing fast, not wasting their time on the wrong fit, cutting costs (in the case of public companies with bad numbers or in a bad economy), etc. If it’s revolting to suddenly fire Sam*, it should be far more revolting when companies suddenly fire members of the rank and file, who have far less internal leverage, usually far less net worth, and far more difficulty with next career steps. The tech industry (and US society generally) is quite hypocritical on this point. * Greg wasn’t fired, just removed from the board, after which he chose to resign.
- shnkr 3y agoThe board has to stick to the charter. unfortunately employees there wants to align with the profit part when they know they can damn lot of money.. obviously they will be with Altman size.
- laurels-marts 3y agoI’m sure everyone at OpenAI thought they hit the winning lottery ticket and will walk away with tens of millions at minimum and the early employees with significantly more. When you vaporize all that for some ideological utopian motives I’m sure many were incredibly pissed and ready to follow Sam into his next venture. If you gonna sacrifice everything and work 60-100hr weeks then you better get your moneys worth.
- slowhadoken 3y agoHas anyone else notice how many techies are on Twitter but still badmouth Twitter?
- throwaway69123 3y agoThe bad mothers are a vocal minority
- astrange 3y agoUsing Twitter causes it to lose money so it's fine.
- rgrs 3y agoUmmm...how exactly?
- astrange 3y agoThe only things you could do to make them money are paying for it, clicking on ads, or working there. Looking at ads without clicking costs them.
- poopslide 3y ago[dead]
- claytongulick 3y agoI recommend you look into ad "impressions" and the compensation model. Clicking an ad is not the only way it is monitized.
- astrange 3y agoThey have both but it's mostly billed per click/app install/follow/video watch. The "brand awareness" advertisers already left except for like, Saudi Arabia.
- 3y ago
- Simon_ORourke 3y agoBut, but... what company will that guy from Quora go on to ruin next, if he's kicked off the OpenAI board now?
- jeffrallen 3y agoDon't worry about him: failure is the surest sign of an impending incidence of "white man about to get another chance to not learn from his failures".
- starfallg 3y agoThe latest update is that investors have been reporting that Sam Altman was talking to them about funding a new venture separate from OpenAI, together with Greg Brockman. This seems to paint the picture that the board was reacting to this news when dismissing Altman. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/18/earthquake-at-chatgpt-developer-as-senior-staff-quit-after-sacking-of-boss-sam-altman https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/18/earthquak...
- lewhoo 3y agoreach a truce where the board would resign and he and Brockman would return That's a funny use of the word truce.
- whatwhaaaaat 3y agoThis is just everyone swallowing the crap Sam Altman drops as truth. I’d guess this sort of narcissist behavior is what got him canned to begin with. Good riddance.