37 ms·

OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

274 points by himaraya 3y ago

mgiannopoulos 3y ago
So any bets on who will play Sam on the Netflix movie/miniseries? :)
- Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
  Lee Pace, of course.
- kylecazar 3y ago
  Simon Helberg was born for this
  - teacpde 3y ago
    Thank you! I have always thought Sam reminds me some actor, but was never able to make the connection.
- blastro 3y ago
  Reload the "Social Network" cast
  - himaraya 3y ago
    Andrew Garfield would make for a good Ilya
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    You know, I feel like there's some territory there for a series of comedy-documentaries (think Drunk History) about various tech companies, with the same cast in every episode.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  Young Ben Stiller
- syspec 3y ago
  [flagged]
yieldcrv 3y ago
Soap opera At this point we should only post if something happens to the consumer product or API
jasonhansel 3y ago
This is why, when you claim to be running a non-profit to "benefit humankind," you shouldn't put all your resources into a for-profit subsidiary. Eventually, the for-profit arm, and its investors, will find its nonprofit parent a hindrance, and an insular board of directors won't stand a chance against corporate titans.
- pkaye 3y ago
  Doesn't Mozilla run the same way with for-profit under a non-profit?
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    How’d that work out for them?
    - cthalupa 3y ago
      They still exist and put out a product used by quite a few people, so quite well? You can't judge a non-profit by the same success metrics as a for-profit.
      - tsunamifury 3y ago
        They have been a consistent downward spiral into irrelevance. So I’d say … not fine.
        sudosysgen 3y ago
        They are the last survivor offering an alternative to Blink and seem to be indefinitely sustainable for their core product. Other companies tried competing against Chrome, and so far Mozilla is the most successful, as everyone else gave up and ship Chrome skins people basically only use by subterfuge or coercion. I'd say that's pretty good.
    - Herring 3y ago
      Looks fine to me, man. I asked chatGPT to summarize this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation) in the context of your question Mozilla Corporation's Experience *Challenges and Adaptation:* Mozilla Corporation has faced financial challenges, leading to restructuring and strategic shifts. This includes layoffs, closing offices, and diversifying into new ventures, such as acquiring Fakespot in 2023 *Dependence on Key Partnerships:* Its heavy reliance on partnerships like the one with Google for revenue has been both a strength and a vulnerability, necessitating adaptations to changing market conditions and partner strategies *Evolution and Resilience:* Despite challenges, Mozilla Corporation has shown resilience, adapting to market changes and evolving its strategies to sustain its mission, demonstrating the effectiveness of its governance model within the context of its organizational goals and the broader technology ecosystem In conclusion, while both OpenAI and Mozilla Corporation have navigated unique paths within the tech sector, their distinct governance structures illustrate different approaches to balancing mission-driven goals with operational sustainability and market responsiveness.
downWidOutaFite 3y ago
Honestly, who cares? CEOs are just for marketing and hobnobbing. The researchers and engineers are what really matters.
g42gregory 3y ago
From the article: "...but Microsoft hasn’t decided whether it wants board representation..." This is not a good sign. Microsoft the largest $10Bn investor, who is in the middle of pushing through the restructuring of the company, hasn't decided if they want board representation? The only reason you would do that if they want to keep their options open, in the future, to hit OpenAI hard (legally and/or to raid the personnel). Board representation would come with a fiduciary responsibility and it looks like they may not want that. I could only imagine the intensity of Microsoft senior engineers screaming that they could replicate all of this in-house (not saying whether it's justified or not).
- Solvency 3y ago
  Microsoft is looking amateur. Even I the layman can take one look at OpenAI's ridiculously convoluted structure and it's laughably threadbare and ill-equipped board members and know something is wrong. Microsoft should have looked at this and forced them to clean up their act before getting in bed with them. Now they're embroiled in the bush league shenanigans.
  - jprete 3y ago
    Microsoft wanted to flip a non-profit explicitly founded for the good of humanity into a for-profit implicitly for the good of Microsoft. That’s already a lot of shenanigans.
  - chucke1992 3y ago
    [flagged]
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Everyone keeps saying that Microsoft made a huge mistake by not having board representation, and I couldn't disagree more. Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI was really ideal from a speed-of-advancement perspective. That is, reams and reams have been written about how Google has to move at such a slow pace with AI productization because, essentially, they have so much to lose. Microsoft saw this first hand with their infamous Tay AI bot, which turned into a racist Hitler lover in a day. Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI was perfect - they could realistically be seen as separate entities, and they let OpenAI take all the risk of misaligned AI, and then only pull in AI into their core services as they were comfortable. Google's lack of this sort of relationship is a direct hindrance to their speed in AI advancement and productization. Microsoft's lack of a board seat gives them a degree of "plausible deniability" if you will. Plus, it's not like Microsoft's lack of a board seat impacts their influence that much. Basically everyone believes that the push to get Altman back has Microsoft's/Nadella's fingerprints all over it. Their billions give them plenty of leverage, and my bet going forward is that even if they don't take a board seat outright, they will demand that board membership be composed of more "professional", higher caliber board members that will likely align with them anyway.
belter 3y ago
As of this moment the website still says under: https://openai.com/our-structure https://openai.com/our-structure Our board "OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner." There is also a prominent red notice that seems made for somebody in Seattle... IMPORTANT *Investing in OpenAI Global, LLC is a *high-risk investment* *Investors could lose their capital contribution and not see any return* *It would be wise to view an investment in OpenAI Global,LLC in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world* I am going to grab more popcorn...
- mr_toad 3y ago
  This is amusing because the first two statements are bland legalese you’ll see in many investments. The last point is wildly speculative futurism.
pyaamb 3y ago
Does the story of Sam raising funds from Saudi investors to start a AI Chip company have any relevance to what happened or is that just a nothing-burger? I don't any people on HN discussing it today
- shoggouth 3y ago
  Is that related to GlobalFoundries?
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    GlobalFoundaries is owned by Mudabala, which is the sovereign fund for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (the emirate with actual power) in the UAE
- next_xibalba 3y ago
  I've seen several people claim it is an "outrageous conflict". I'm not really seeing that. Seems like a well done nothing burger with a side of french cries to me.
- piuantiderp 3y ago
  I mean a good question is how would this be structured. Would it be a new SamAltman company or was it to be part of OpenAI? If so, was it to be a profit or non-profit? The thing is starting to look more and more like, become the biggest name in AI through claiming non-profit status, leverage the brand to go for profit.
rowls66 3y ago
This seems to me like an example of how difficult it is to organize a company around a goal other then making money. As a non-profit, OpanAI was not supposed to be a profit maximizing enterprise. But how is a board supposed to opperate, and set objectives without a clear goal like profit maximization? Usually a boards represents the owners of the business and their interested. The OpenAI board does not represent the owners because there are no owners. So the board is just 6 people and their opionions. Hard to see how that can work.
- jprete 3y ago
  They represent the charter. That is literally the metric.
  - treesciencebot 3y ago
    The problem is not the lack of "metric" itself, its just how vague and subjective that metric is.
    - Nasrudith 3y ago
      Vague and subjective metrics are how you get cults or worse, politics.
- timeon 3y ago
  > This seems to me like an example of how difficult it is to organize a company around a goal other then making money. Hard in sense that for-profit part has actual power here?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Corruption. 7 guys in a room may think they genuinely think one way. But change that picture to 7 guys in a room, alongside $10 billion dollars, and some, if not most, are suddenly going to start thinking in an entirely different way - even without needing to be 'persuaded.' Sums up politics and many other issues in society as well. People themselves don't even know who they are, until they have the freedom and resources to be whatever they want to be.
davidgerard 3y ago
This reads entirely as PR from the VC camp.
richardw 3y ago
The main question at this point should be whether Sam's model or Ilya's model is more likely to succeed in the primary goal of the teams, which is (and should be): how do we stay on the leading edge long enough to figure out safety. All the adults in the room want safety [1], it's just how to really get it. There are very wealthy competitors out there, any of which could end up beating OpenAI if they get half an edge. If you don't beat them, you don't get to figure out safety. If Sam starts another company, you know deep in your soul he'll have all the backing he could ever dream of. Everyone who can sign a check is dying to get in on this. All the smart talent in the world would love to be employee number 1 through 1000. He's figured that you need the money if you want to stay in the game and he's world-class at making that happen. If OpenAI has all the purity of conviction and never gets another dollar because it all flows to SamCo...do they still win and figure out safety? (Plus get some profits, attract staff who want to make bank, get full control of the board anyway, etc) [1] We're nowhere near GPT controlling nukes, elections or the bond market, or desiring to. We need at least a couple massive algo changes before things take off. So some speed at this point isn't thaaat dangerous.
- croes 3y ago
  >Everyone who can sign a check is dying to get in on this. All the smart talent in the world would love to be employee number 1 through 1000. That's sound like the riad to disaster. People who can sign a check and are dying to get in on this, usually lack any moral or ethics. Not a smart move to work for those people just because you fell for a clever salesman.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    The alternative is to work for poor idealists, which isn’t generally very good for putting bread on the table. Something tells me most people are going to go for fucktons of money and working on what they think is interesting. Even if it makes other people even more money.
    - hfjjbf 3y ago
      [dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throwaw12 3y ago
Still wondering why Sam was kicked. He is indeed super smart, but I don't trust his integrity and morality based on his past intentions: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin * pushing for AI regulation
pdntspa 3y ago
I really hope Altman doesn't return to his role. It is nice to see some people showing some spine and standing up to business interestes. "Open"AI is and was a lie for the longest time.
- vanshg 3y ago
  He confirmed he's returning: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609
  - mcast 3y ago
    He’s wearing an OpenAI visitor badge, that only confirms he will either return as an employee or never at all.
  - VectorLock 3y ago
    What's up with these guys not using capital letters?
    - furyofantares 3y ago
      IME that's been common or the norm in plenty of circles for more than 25 years (so probably longer). It became less common when people started phone-posting and when phones started auto-capitalizing by default.
      - 4death4 3y ago
        But it seems like an intentional choice. The default settings on a phone will capitalize automatically.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        jq-r 3y ago
        To be fair, we're on a geek website. Not many have default settings on any of their devices. It think the above is consequence of a "I can afford to write all lowercase/do unconventional thing X". And by "afford" I think here more like "I don't have bosses, nor do I have to please anyone doing conventional things". There was an article or a discussion here a while ago how in a organizational pyramid the people on the botton usually write as normal/nice as possible, while going upwards; people can afford themselves to write however the like, including being super rude if they choose so.
himaraya 3y ago
> With his firing from OpenAI, Altman quickly got the upper hand in terms of public messaging. The board didn’t use a communications or law firm in its dealings, people familiar with the board said, expecting that the OpenAI team would help them. But Altman had loyalty from investors and employees. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-leadership-hangs-in-balance-as-sam-altmans-counte-rebellion-gains-steam-47276fa8 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-leadership-hangs-in-balan...
- paulddraper 3y ago
  The loyalty was significant. The PR was meh
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    It was, but still: perception matters and Sam has - contrary to the board - not made many wrong moves since this whole thing started. Note that this is all extremely rapidly developing and it's very hard to do all of this on the fly when you don't expect to even be in this situation and not miss a beat. The board however has only made things ever more murky with their vague and fig-leaf like defenses. They appear utterly unprepared to deal with the aftermath of their own action, which they and only they knew was coming.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      If they had said "Sam has helped OpenAI tremendously over the years, and we thank him for his invaluable contributions. Going forward, he will be using his skill set to pursue other opportunities, while OpenAI continues its mission to advance AI for the betterment of humanity." That would at least made it seem like they knew what they were doing. But investors would have still beaten them over the head.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Yes, that's true. But that's exactly the kind of thing that would have at least given it a semblance of being an orderly decision and it would have stopped a ton of negative press in its tracks. It's like a dance, you can't just go do the Polka if everybody expects a Waltz, that's going to attract a ton of attention. They should have gotten out in front of any potential blowback to ensure that even if their decision was by the book (which for their sake I hope it was) that it also didn't ruffle the scales of very large dragons.
rrdharan 3y ago
> Altman… regretted not spending more time managing [the board’s] various factions Wild that there can be various factions with apparently only three relevant people (yes I know 3 choose 2 is three, but c’Mon…).
obblekk 3y ago
This is an interesting example of a highly intelligent person actively convincing people to remove some alignment constraints.
Aeolun 3y ago
At the risk of being off topic (well, definitely): > in a post on X, formerly Twitter It keep surprising me that someone can so completely torpedo their brand that news organisations feel compelled to keep referring to the old name so people have some idea of what they’re talking about.
- yeck 3y ago
  Hah, yes. I chuckle to myself every time.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  The last time I recall the press using similar language was when the subject was intentionally damaging their own brand due to a contract grievance: "[glyph] (the artist formerly known as Prince)"
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    It's called the Love Symbol, for what it's worth. Sadly, it doesn't exist in Unicode.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  [flagged]
- crooked-v 3y ago
  Well, and it's an easy hedge against, if or when Elon goes bankrupt enough that he has to sell it, the new owner immediately renaming the service back to Twitter.
1024core 3y ago
Something tells me that it was Ilya who got jealous/resentful of Sam's oversized role and decided he had to be cut down to size.
sensanaty 3y ago
Why are people suddenly jacking Altman off so hard? What has this non-technical dude done other than trying to corner the AI market for himself and implementing insane bullshit like worldcoin for him to deserve such weird devotion?
- TheCondor 3y ago
  Generate a $90B valuation?
- tstrimple 3y ago
  I think the challenge here is the credentials of most of the rest of the board are even more lackluster.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Um...what He's secured the resources and partnerships to grow a $100B company virtually overnight, but he hasn't done anything noteworthy or laudible? HN takes are the best. Humor really is the best medicine.
  - jejeyyy77 3y ago
    OpenAI is a non-profit, so that is mainly irrelevant.
  - sensanaty 3y ago
    So the dude with a billion connections managed to use them to get cash for the startup that deals with the most insanely overhyped piece of technology to have ever been created. No mention of the people actually responsible for any of this? Y'know, the scientists and engineers that actually had to do something to create the crazy technology he's taking credit for, the noteworthy dude is the generic MBA C-suite type that managed to not screw the pooch when given a team of the brightest minds out there?
    - consumer451 3y ago
      > the most insanely overhyped piece of technology to have ever been created. Copying and pasting code from ChatGPT, I created a functional iOS app today based on my design. I have never before written a mobile app, any Swift code, or much of any code aside from Power Apps, in at least 15 years. I am on that hype train.
agnosticmantis 3y ago
Many are speculating that Sam Altman could just move on and create another OpenAI 2.0 because he could easily attract talent and investors. What this misses is all the regulatory capture that he’s been campaigning for. All the platforms have now closed their gardens. Authors and artists are much more vigilant about copyright etc. So it’s now a totally different game compared to 3 years ago because the data is not just there up for grabs anymore.
- shmatt 3y ago
  Exactly. If new Altman AI company is the next big thing, then Astral AI is the next trillion dollar company Easier said than done
- sensanaty 3y ago
  I've never considered this angle, but god it'd be hilarious if this ended up being the case, the dude ruining everything because of his own greed ultimately fucking himself over because of it. Here's to hoping there's still some poetic irony left to dish out in the world.
  - Loughla 3y ago
    Seriously, this will be the exact reason the word schadenfreude exists.
- treesciencebot 3y ago
  "Why Sam Altman (who can have the funding, talent, and the vision OpenAI has right now) can't just create OpenAI 2.0?" is an amazing question that also answers whats OpenAI's moat. People speculated it was the funding, or attracting talent or having "access". Turns out it was none of them (obviously they all have a part, but having all three doesn't mean you can best OpenAI which gives you the fundemental reason why it is so hard to compete with them).
- shoelessone 3y ago
  Is the logic here that training a base model isn’t as easy or even possible in the same way that OpenAI did in the past, and that what they have in a trained model is valuable in that even with all the code and experience it couldn’t be reproduced today with new restrictions?
cqzaaron 3y ago
[flagged]
majikaja 3y ago
[flagged]
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
If Ilya leaves, he should join Carmacks group.
- rictic 3y ago
  Carmack doesn't seem to believe that ASI will be dangerous, while it's currently looking like Ilya is breaking with Sam over this.
yeck 3y ago
Anyone find any sources with new information? Now that we are well past the 5PM (PST) deadline I'm curious if anything has emerged.
- himaraya 3y ago
  Nothing yet. Seems like the meeting hasn't finished. https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726436311215845862?s=61&t=H8FMoBpQZJejpd0hxrwYUA https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726436311215845862?...
utopcell 3y ago
The core decision to be made is: Ilya or Sam ?
noneoftheaboveu 3y ago
What are the exact reasons for Ilya to fire Sam Altman is something I and half a million of other folks are more interested than the question of whether he can replicate open ai or over take it via new venture. Any takes in this thread?
endorphine 3y ago
I only got to know Altman from the Lex Fridman podcast, but he never striked me as particularly ethical or insightful. For a while I felt more hopeful about OpenAI being truly open and benefiting everyone (perhaps I was naive). I hope he doesn't end up being the CEO again.
jimsimmons 3y ago
Paywall
- promiseofbeans 3y ago
  https://archive.ph/hLl2l https://archive.ph/hLl2l
erikgahner 3y ago
https://archive.is/hLl2l https://archive.is/hLl2l
d_sem 3y ago
It's worth knowing the specific reasons why the board fired Sam before assessing the value of this news. Too much rumor and not enough evidence.
- brookst 3y ago
  It seems clear that there weren’t specific reasons, just a kind of final straw in the product announcements that made the board realize how far from the original mission the company had drifted. Turning it into an emergency and surprise coup with innuendo of wrongdoing looks to have been a huge mistake, and may result in total loss of control where a more measured course correction could have succeeded.
  - manyoso 3y ago
    Whatever the case all involved look terrible.
  - itchy_spider44 3y ago
    Ilya is the stereotypical genius mind that is extremely passionate yet disconnected from the real world. He got way too worked up about abstract issues, failed to see the bigger picture and had a meltdown that other board members took seriously because he's a cofounder. He is instrumental in the research but he shouldn't be running the business.
    - shrimpx 3y ago
      > He is instrumental in the research but he shouldn't be running the business. To push back on this a bit. If two yet unknown people, "an Altman" and "an Ilya", both applied to YC to start a company that builds and sells AI models, guess who would get funded. Not the guy who can't build AI models. I find it bizarre that the guy who can build is suddenly the villain-nerd who can't be trusted, and the salesman is the hero, in this community.
      - fidotron 3y ago
cedws 3y ago
The only power MS has is soft power as a backer. Will that win over the board's actual power? If MS pulls investment it will be a catastrophic blow.
- bossyTeacher 3y ago
  That's actually hard power. MS is in a position to destroy OpenAI
  - croes 3y ago
    MS took a large bet on OpenAI and already integrated it in many of its products. Destroying OpenAI good backfire big time.
  - alecco 3y ago
    Any other FAANG would happily fill that position if MS drops the ball.
    - sillysaurusx 3y ago
      Bingo. Compute is fungible. It would be ironic if everyone killed OpenAI by denying them compute though. Still, OpenAI is a peacock feather in Microsoft’s cap. They’re either bluffing, foolish, or prescient to let it go.
      - purplerabbit 3y ago
        Not at this magnitude. If you read the latest Semianalysis article, Microsoft’s current infra project is the largest infra project currently being undertaken by humankind (not sure if that’s overstatement, but regardless, $50B largely and competently directed towards (Open)AI-supporting hardware isn’t something easily replicable)
        a-r-t 3y ago
        Apple is sitting on $162B in cash right now and would definitely benefit from OpenAI's IP.
chasd00 3y ago
"Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce Inc., will be on the new board, several people said. Another possible addition is an executive from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest shareholder — but Microsoft hasn’t decided whether it wants board representation, some people said." hah, Microsoft will be in control from here on out whether they have someone technically on the board or not. They did the embrace and extend now we're on to extinguish.
- cedws 3y ago
  AI doomers will say this is the beginning of the end.
  - kromem 3y ago
    Not the beginning of the end of humanity. But maybe the beginning of the end of OpenAI. A week ago I was saying that it's likely the leading AI company in 5 years time hasn't been founded yet. After the news Friday and looking more at how Ilya sees the future of neural networks, I actually thought there's a decent chance OpenAI might correct course to continue to lead. If it becomes too productized under a strengthened Altman, it's back on the list of companies building into their own obsolescence. The right way to the future is adapting alignment to the increasing complexity of the model. It's not just about 'safety' but about performance and avoiding Goodhart's Law. The way all major players, OpenAI included, are handling that step is by carrying forward the techniques that were appropriate for less complex models. Which is a huge step back from the approach reflected very early on pre-release for GPT-4's chat model. An approach that seemed to reflect Ilya's vision. As long as OpenAI keeps fine tuning to try to meet the low hanging fruit product demand they've created and screwing up their pretrained model on measures that haven't become the industry target, they aren't going to be competitive against yet to exist companies that don't take such naive approaches with the fine tuning step. Right now they have an advantage in Ilya being ahead of the trend, but if Altman returning is at the cost of Ilya's influence, they are going to continue to dig their long term grave in the pursuit of short term success.
    - resource0x 3y ago
lgkk 3y ago
Who wants to own ~search~ gpts? (updated 2023)
manyoso 3y ago
Whole thing is proving what a monumental lie OpenAI is. Was founded by grifters by all available evidence.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  OK dude, I might agree with that if it didn’t just nail my revisions to a CMake file in one try.
  - manyoso 3y ago
    Both can be true.
dang 3y ago
Related ongoing thread: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38326834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38326834 - Nov 2023 (73 comments)
Workaccount2 3y ago
Fired on a Friday just to be back in the office Monday with a new boss lol
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
janejeon 3y ago
So the discussions are definitely happening it seems: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609
- jprete 3y ago
  In Sam’s shoes, as slippery an operator as I’d be, I’d ask a sympathetic employee to register me as a guest just to make that post, whether there were negotiations or not.
- neilv 3y ago
  I don't have enough info to take a position on the current situation there, but I think that's a brilliant selfie. (Pained reaction to having to wear an OpenAI guest ID.)
- jessenaser 3y ago
  Bonus perspective: https://twitter.com/jasonkwon/status/1726348678116548979 https://twitter.com/jasonkwon/status/1726348678116548979
  - irishloop 3y ago
    I... don't know what I expected
  - totallywrong 3y ago
    Well played.
pwb25 3y ago
can't those people just relax? You aren't running some computer club in high school and debate if you should run freebsd or linux Just give him some seat or what he wants, stop acting like some series like Suits
jessenaser 3y ago
Is it so hard to find good people to put on the board? Sam was the CEO OF Y COMBINATOR. Shouldn't he know who is best to put on the board? Find them out? Apparently not? Please say they are not going to put a board just as bad as before. There are no checks and balances. Should Open AI employees be allowed to veto a board decision vote if they have 50% or 67% of the vote? Should Open AI employees be allowed to vote for at least some members to be allowed on the board? Like the Senate voting to confirm a Supreme Court Justice? No matter how good the next board will be, the power rules still apply as before, and the same thing could happen again if no other changes are put in place...
- ytoawwhra92 3y ago
  > Please say they are not going to put a board just as bad as before. Altman had a massive influence on the makeup of the board that ultimately fired him.
- DebtDeflation 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - smolder 3y ago
    "The wife of an actor" is an unfair minimization of her value and career, but that seems to have been your goal.
    - ryeights 3y ago
      Sexism
- layer8 3y ago
  The issue is that the old board has to agree to the new board.
nothrowaways 3y ago
Altman is more powerful than I thought.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I don't think so at all -- the board was simply far dumber than we thought. The board didn't plan or think this through at all. This isn't about Sam being powerful, just about him being a reasonable predictable cofounder Microsoft can work with. It's the rest of the board that shocked Microsoft with how unprofessional their actions were, that they can't be worked with. The very idea that they would fire Sam without even consulting with Microsoft first is such a gigantic red flag in judgment.
  - cthalupa 3y ago
    If the issue is they believe Sam's focus on commercialization is inherently against their charter, Microsoft is key to that - they are the shining example of this shift. Consulting with them would be antithetical to solving the problem. For a for-profit, the pragmatic approach due to Microsoft also being the majority computer provider (We can set aside the investments for the moment - most are in the form of compute credits and come in tranches. OpenAI is not sitting on $10B in cash in their bank accounts or whatever) would make a lot of sense. But they're a non-profit that operate in accordance to their pipe-dream charter. You and I might be skeptical of it or just think it's generally dumb, but non-profits are allowed to believe in pipe-dreams and pursue them. At the very least they still issued a poorly worded statement and have not been able to recover from that, but it is quite possible that their attitude towards the investors in the for-profit is entirely consistent with the charter they are supposed to be following.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Exactly. The board should have been stocked with seasoned professionals not with people who on an idle Friday decide to throw their weight around to see what that feels like without any idea of the possible ramifications of such acts.
- dontupvoteme 3y ago
breadwinner 3y ago
The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.
- sashank_1509 3y ago
  I don’t know if Ilya contributed anything technically to OpenAI in the recent 2-3 years. He is broadly thanked along with Sam in GPT4 List of contributors, he is not mentioned in ChatGPT list of contributors, he is again thanked for advice in the GPT-3 list of contributors. The folks who resigned upon Sams ouster, Jacub Pachocki is credited as lead of GPT-4 , Greg Brockmann is credited for multiple things in GPT-4 ( he was the lead for training infra setup). All of them would have left if Sam left, if anything letting Sam go would significantly hamstring OpenAI than letting Ilya go.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.
  - jessenaser 3y ago
    Sam Altman by Walter Isaacson Releasing 2037...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - spking 3y ago
      Shouldn't it be written by ChatGPT?

274 points by himaraya 3y ago

mgiannopoulos 3y ago

So any bets on who will play Sam on the Netflix movie/miniseries? :)

Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
Lee Pace, of course.
kylecazar 3y ago
Simon Helberg was born for this
- teacpde 3y ago
  Thank you! I have always thought Sam reminds me some actor, but was never able to make the connection.
blastro 3y ago
Reload the "Social Network" cast
- himaraya 3y ago
  Andrew Garfield would make for a good Ilya
- crooked-v 3y ago
  You know, I feel like there's some territory there for a series of comedy-documentaries (think Drunk History) about various tech companies, with the same cast in every episode.
davidgerard 3y ago
Young Ben Stiller
syspec 3y ago
[flagged]

yieldcrv 3y ago

Soap opera At this point we should only post if something happens to the consumer product or API

jasonhansel 3y ago

This is why, when you claim to be running a non-profit to "benefit humankind," you shouldn't put all your resources into a for-profit subsidiary. Eventually, the for-profit arm, and its investors, will find its nonprofit parent a hindrance, and an insular board of directors won't stand a chance against corporate titans.

pkaye 3y ago
Doesn't Mozilla run the same way with for-profit under a non-profit?
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  How’d that work out for them?
  - cthalupa 3y ago
    They still exist and put out a product used by quite a few people, so quite well? You can't judge a non-profit by the same success metrics as a for-profit.
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      They have been a consistent downward spiral into irrelevance. So I’d say … not fine.
      - sudosysgen 3y ago
        They are the last survivor offering an alternative to Blink and seem to be indefinitely sustainable for their core product. Other companies tried competing against Chrome, and so far Mozilla is the most successful, as everyone else gave up and ship Chrome skins people basically only use by subterfuge or coercion. I'd say that's pretty good.
  - Herring 3y ago
    Looks fine to me, man. I asked chatGPT to summarize this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation) in the context of your question Mozilla Corporation's Experience *Challenges and Adaptation:* Mozilla Corporation has faced financial challenges, leading to restructuring and strategic shifts. This includes layoffs, closing offices, and diversifying into new ventures, such as acquiring Fakespot in 2023 *Dependence on Key Partnerships:* Its heavy reliance on partnerships like the one with Google for revenue has been both a strength and a vulnerability, necessitating adaptations to changing market conditions and partner strategies *Evolution and Resilience:* Despite challenges, Mozilla Corporation has shown resilience, adapting to market changes and evolving its strategies to sustain its mission, demonstrating the effectiveness of its governance model within the context of its organizational goals and the broader technology ecosystem In conclusion, while both OpenAI and Mozilla Corporation have navigated unique paths within the tech sector, their distinct governance structures illustrate different approaches to balancing mission-driven goals with operational sustainability and market responsiveness.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago

Honestly, who cares? CEOs are just for marketing and hobnobbing. The researchers and engineers are what really matters.

g42gregory 3y ago

From the article: "...but Microsoft hasn’t decided whether it wants board representation..." This is not a good sign. Microsoft the largest $10Bn investor, who is in the middle of pushing through the restructuring of the company, hasn't decided if they want board representation? The only reason you would do that if they want to keep their options open, in the future, to hit OpenAI hard (legally and/or to raid the personnel). Board representation would come with a fiduciary responsibility and it looks like they may not want that. I could only imagine the intensity of Microsoft senior engineers screaming that they could replicate all of this in-house (not saying whether it's justified or not).

Solvency 3y ago
Microsoft is looking amateur. Even I the layman can take one look at OpenAI's ridiculously convoluted structure and it's laughably threadbare and ill-equipped board members and know something is wrong. Microsoft should have looked at this and forced them to clean up their act before getting in bed with them. Now they're embroiled in the bush league shenanigans.
- jprete 3y ago
  Microsoft wanted to flip a non-profit explicitly founded for the good of humanity into a for-profit implicitly for the good of Microsoft. That’s already a lot of shenanigans.
- chucke1992 3y ago
  [flagged]
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Everyone keeps saying that Microsoft made a huge mistake by not having board representation, and I couldn't disagree more. Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI was really ideal from a speed-of-advancement perspective. That is, reams and reams have been written about how Google has to move at such a slow pace with AI productization because, essentially, they have so much to lose. Microsoft saw this first hand with their infamous Tay AI bot, which turned into a racist Hitler lover in a day. Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI was perfect - they could realistically be seen as separate entities, and they let OpenAI take all the risk of misaligned AI, and then only pull in AI into their core services as they were comfortable. Google's lack of this sort of relationship is a direct hindrance to their speed in AI advancement and productization. Microsoft's lack of a board seat gives them a degree of "plausible deniability" if you will. Plus, it's not like Microsoft's lack of a board seat impacts their influence that much. Basically everyone believes that the push to get Altman back has Microsoft's/Nadella's fingerprints all over it. Their billions give them plenty of leverage, and my bet going forward is that even if they don't take a board seat outright, they will demand that board membership be composed of more "professional", higher caliber board members that will likely align with them anyway.

belter 3y ago

As of this moment the website still says under: https://openai.com/our-structure https://openai.com/our-structure Our board "OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner." There is also a prominent red notice that seems made for somebody in Seattle... IMPORTANT *Investing in OpenAI Global, LLC is a *high-risk investment* *Investors could lose their capital contribution and not see any return* *It would be wise to view an investment in OpenAI Global,LLC in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world* I am going to grab more popcorn...

mr_toad 3y ago
This is amusing because the first two statements are bland legalese you’ll see in many investments. The last point is wildly speculative futurism.

pyaamb 3y ago

Does the story of Sam raising funds from Saudi investors to start a AI Chip company have any relevance to what happened or is that just a nothing-burger? I don't any people on HN discussing it today

shoggouth 3y ago
Is that related to GlobalFoundries?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  GlobalFoundaries is owned by Mudabala, which is the sovereign fund for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (the emirate with actual power) in the UAE
next_xibalba 3y ago
I've seen several people claim it is an "outrageous conflict". I'm not really seeing that. Seems like a well done nothing burger with a side of french cries to me.
piuantiderp 3y ago
I mean a good question is how would this be structured. Would it be a new SamAltman company or was it to be part of OpenAI? If so, was it to be a profit or non-profit? The thing is starting to look more and more like, become the biggest name in AI through claiming non-profit status, leverage the brand to go for profit.

rowls66 3y ago

This seems to me like an example of how difficult it is to organize a company around a goal other then making money. As a non-profit, OpanAI was not supposed to be a profit maximizing enterprise. But how is a board supposed to opperate, and set objectives without a clear goal like profit maximization? Usually a boards represents the owners of the business and their interested. The OpenAI board does not represent the owners because there are no owners. So the board is just 6 people and their opionions. Hard to see how that can work.

jprete 3y ago
They represent the charter. That is literally the metric.
- treesciencebot 3y ago
  The problem is not the lack of "metric" itself, its just how vague and subjective that metric is.
  - Nasrudith 3y ago
    Vague and subjective metrics are how you get cults or worse, politics.
timeon 3y ago
> This seems to me like an example of how difficult it is to organize a company around a goal other then making money. Hard in sense that for-profit part has actual power here?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Corruption. 7 guys in a room may think they genuinely think one way. But change that picture to 7 guys in a room, alongside $10 billion dollars, and some, if not most, are suddenly going to start thinking in an entirely different way - even without needing to be 'persuaded.' Sums up politics and many other issues in society as well. People themselves don't even know who they are, until they have the freedom and resources to be whatever they want to be.

davidgerard 3y ago

This reads entirely as PR from the VC camp.

richardw 3y ago

The main question at this point should be whether Sam's model or Ilya's model is more likely to succeed in the primary goal of the teams, which is (and should be): how do we stay on the leading edge long enough to figure out safety. All the adults in the room want safety [1], it's just how to really get it. There are very wealthy competitors out there, any of which could end up beating OpenAI if they get half an edge. If you don't beat them, you don't get to figure out safety. If Sam starts another company, you know deep in your soul he'll have all the backing he could ever dream of. Everyone who can sign a check is dying to get in on this. All the smart talent in the world would love to be employee number 1 through 1000. He's figured that you need the money if you want to stay in the game and he's world-class at making that happen. If OpenAI has all the purity of conviction and never gets another dollar because it all flows to SamCo...do they still win and figure out safety? (Plus get some profits, attract staff who want to make bank, get full control of the board anyway, etc) [1] We're nowhere near GPT controlling nukes, elections or the bond market, or desiring to. We need at least a couple massive algo changes before things take off. So some speed at this point isn't thaaat dangerous.

croes 3y ago
>Everyone who can sign a check is dying to get in on this. All the smart talent in the world would love to be employee number 1 through 1000. That's sound like the riad to disaster. People who can sign a check and are dying to get in on this, usually lack any moral or ethics. Not a smart move to work for those people just because you fell for a clever salesman.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  The alternative is to work for poor idealists, which isn’t generally very good for putting bread on the table. Something tells me most people are going to go for fucktons of money and working on what they think is interesting. Even if it makes other people even more money.
  - hfjjbf 3y ago
    [dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

throwaw12 3y ago

Still wondering why Sam was kicked. He is indeed super smart, but I don't trust his integrity and morality based on his past intentions: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin * pushing for AI regulation

pdntspa 3y ago

I really hope Altman doesn't return to his role. It is nice to see some people showing some spine and standing up to business interestes. "Open"AI is and was a lie for the longest time.

vanshg 3y ago
He confirmed he's returning: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609
- mcast 3y ago
  He’s wearing an OpenAI visitor badge, that only confirms he will either return as an employee or never at all.
- VectorLock 3y ago
  What's up with these guys not using capital letters?
  - furyofantares 3y ago
    IME that's been common or the norm in plenty of circles for more than 25 years (so probably longer). It became less common when people started phone-posting and when phones started auto-capitalizing by default.
    - 4death4 3y ago
      But it seems like an intentional choice. The default settings on a phone will capitalize automatically.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jq-r 3y ago
        To be fair, we're on a geek website. Not many have default settings on any of their devices. It think the above is consequence of a "I can afford to write all lowercase/do unconventional thing X". And by "afford" I think here more like "I don't have bosses, nor do I have to please anyone doing conventional things". There was an article or a discussion here a while ago how in a organizational pyramid the people on the botton usually write as normal/nice as possible, while going upwards; people can afford themselves to write however the like, including being super rude if they choose so.

himaraya 3y ago

> With his firing from OpenAI, Altman quickly got the upper hand in terms of public messaging. The board didn’t use a communications or law firm in its dealings, people familiar with the board said, expecting that the OpenAI team would help them. But Altman had loyalty from investors and employees. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-leadership-hangs-in-balance-as-sam-altmans-counte-rebellion-gains-steam-47276fa8 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-leadership-hangs-in-balan...

paulddraper 3y ago
The loyalty was significant. The PR was meh
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It was, but still: perception matters and Sam has - contrary to the board - not made many wrong moves since this whole thing started. Note that this is all extremely rapidly developing and it's very hard to do all of this on the fly when you don't expect to even be in this situation and not miss a beat. The board however has only made things ever more murky with their vague and fig-leaf like defenses. They appear utterly unprepared to deal with the aftermath of their own action, which they and only they knew was coming.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    If they had said "Sam has helped OpenAI tremendously over the years, and we thank him for his invaluable contributions. Going forward, he will be using his skill set to pursue other opportunities, while OpenAI continues its mission to advance AI for the betterment of humanity." That would at least made it seem like they knew what they were doing. But investors would have still beaten them over the head.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Yes, that's true. But that's exactly the kind of thing that would have at least given it a semblance of being an orderly decision and it would have stopped a ton of negative press in its tracks. It's like a dance, you can't just go do the Polka if everybody expects a Waltz, that's going to attract a ton of attention. They should have gotten out in front of any potential blowback to ensure that even if their decision was by the book (which for their sake I hope it was) that it also didn't ruffle the scales of very large dragons.

rrdharan 3y ago

> Altman… regretted not spending more time managing [the board’s] various factions Wild that there can be various factions with apparently only three relevant people (yes I know 3 choose 2 is three, but c’Mon…).

obblekk 3y ago

This is an interesting example of a highly intelligent person actively convincing people to remove some alignment constraints.

Aeolun 3y ago

At the risk of being off topic (well, definitely): > in a post on X, formerly Twitter It keep surprising me that someone can so completely torpedo their brand that news organisations feel compelled to keep referring to the old name so people have some idea of what they’re talking about.

yeck 3y ago
Hah, yes. I chuckle to myself every time.
sangnoir 3y ago
The last time I recall the press using similar language was when the subject was intentionally damaging their own brand due to a contract grievance: "[glyph] (the artist formerly known as Prince)"
- crooked-v 3y ago
  It's called the Love Symbol, for what it's worth. Sadly, it doesn't exist in Unicode.
paulddraper 3y ago
[flagged]
crooked-v 3y ago
Well, and it's an easy hedge against, if or when Elon goes bankrupt enough that he has to sell it, the new owner immediately renaming the service back to Twitter.

1024core 3y ago

Something tells me that it was Ilya who got jealous/resentful of Sam's oversized role and decided he had to be cut down to size.

sensanaty 3y ago

Why are people suddenly jacking Altman off so hard? What has this non-technical dude done other than trying to corner the AI market for himself and implementing insane bullshit like worldcoin for him to deserve such weird devotion?

TheCondor 3y ago
Generate a $90B valuation?
tstrimple 3y ago
I think the challenge here is the credentials of most of the rest of the board are even more lackluster.
paulddraper 3y ago
Um...what He's secured the resources and partnerships to grow a $100B company virtually overnight, but he hasn't done anything noteworthy or laudible? HN takes are the best. Humor really is the best medicine.
- jejeyyy77 3y ago
  OpenAI is a non-profit, so that is mainly irrelevant.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  So the dude with a billion connections managed to use them to get cash for the startup that deals with the most insanely overhyped piece of technology to have ever been created. No mention of the people actually responsible for any of this? Y'know, the scientists and engineers that actually had to do something to create the crazy technology he's taking credit for, the noteworthy dude is the generic MBA C-suite type that managed to not screw the pooch when given a team of the brightest minds out there?
  - consumer451 3y ago
    > the most insanely overhyped piece of technology to have ever been created. Copying and pasting code from ChatGPT, I created a functional iOS app today based on my design. I have never before written a mobile app, any Swift code, or much of any code aside from Power Apps, in at least 15 years. I am on that hype train.

agnosticmantis 3y ago

Many are speculating that Sam Altman could just move on and create another OpenAI 2.0 because he could easily attract talent and investors. What this misses is all the regulatory capture that he’s been campaigning for. All the platforms have now closed their gardens. Authors and artists are much more vigilant about copyright etc. So it’s now a totally different game compared to 3 years ago because the data is not just there up for grabs anymore.

shmatt 3y ago
Exactly. If new Altman AI company is the next big thing, then Astral AI is the next trillion dollar company Easier said than done
sensanaty 3y ago
I've never considered this angle, but god it'd be hilarious if this ended up being the case, the dude ruining everything because of his own greed ultimately fucking himself over because of it. Here's to hoping there's still some poetic irony left to dish out in the world.
- Loughla 3y ago
  Seriously, this will be the exact reason the word schadenfreude exists.
treesciencebot 3y ago
"Why Sam Altman (who can have the funding, talent, and the vision OpenAI has right now) can't just create OpenAI 2.0?" is an amazing question that also answers whats OpenAI's moat. People speculated it was the funding, or attracting talent or having "access". Turns out it was none of them (obviously they all have a part, but having all three doesn't mean you can best OpenAI which gives you the fundemental reason why it is so hard to compete with them).
shoelessone 3y ago
Is the logic here that training a base model isn’t as easy or even possible in the same way that OpenAI did in the past, and that what they have in a trained model is valuable in that even with all the code and experience it couldn’t be reproduced today with new restrictions?

cqzaaron 3y ago

[flagged]

majikaja 3y ago

[flagged]

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

If Ilya leaves, he should join Carmacks group.

rictic 3y ago
Carmack doesn't seem to believe that ASI will be dangerous, while it's currently looking like Ilya is breaking with Sam over this.

yeck 3y ago

Anyone find any sources with new information? Now that we are well past the 5PM (PST) deadline I'm curious if anything has emerged.

himaraya 3y ago
Nothing yet. Seems like the meeting hasn't finished. https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726436311215845862?s=61&t=H8FMoBpQZJejpd0hxrwYUA https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726436311215845862?...

utopcell 3y ago

The core decision to be made is: Ilya or Sam ?

noneoftheaboveu 3y ago

What are the exact reasons for Ilya to fire Sam Altman is something I and half a million of other folks are more interested than the question of whether he can replicate open ai or over take it via new venture. Any takes in this thread?

endorphine 3y ago

I only got to know Altman from the Lex Fridman podcast, but he never striked me as particularly ethical or insightful. For a while I felt more hopeful about OpenAI being truly open and benefiting everyone (perhaps I was naive). I hope he doesn't end up being the CEO again.

jimsimmons 3y ago

Paywall

promiseofbeans 3y ago
https://archive.ph/hLl2l https://archive.ph/hLl2l

erikgahner 3y ago

https://archive.is/hLl2l https://archive.is/hLl2l

d_sem 3y ago

It's worth knowing the specific reasons why the board fired Sam before assessing the value of this news. Too much rumor and not enough evidence.

brookst 3y ago
It seems clear that there weren’t specific reasons, just a kind of final straw in the product announcements that made the board realize how far from the original mission the company had drifted. Turning it into an emergency and surprise coup with innuendo of wrongdoing looks to have been a huge mistake, and may result in total loss of control where a more measured course correction could have succeeded.
- manyoso 3y ago
  Whatever the case all involved look terrible.
- itchy_spider44 3y ago
  Ilya is the stereotypical genius mind that is extremely passionate yet disconnected from the real world. He got way too worked up about abstract issues, failed to see the bigger picture and had a meltdown that other board members took seriously because he's a cofounder. He is instrumental in the research but he shouldn't be running the business.
  - shrimpx 3y ago
    > He is instrumental in the research but he shouldn't be running the business. To push back on this a bit. If two yet unknown people, "an Altman" and "an Ilya", both applied to YC to start a company that builds and sells AI models, guess who would get funded. Not the guy who can't build AI models. I find it bizarre that the guy who can build is suddenly the villain-nerd who can't be trusted, and the salesman is the hero, in this community.
    - fidotron 3y ago

cedws 3y ago

The only power MS has is soft power as a backer. Will that win over the board's actual power? If MS pulls investment it will be a catastrophic blow.

bossyTeacher 3y ago
That's actually hard power. MS is in a position to destroy OpenAI
- croes 3y ago
  MS took a large bet on OpenAI and already integrated it in many of its products. Destroying OpenAI good backfire big time.
- alecco 3y ago
  Any other FAANG would happily fill that position if MS drops the ball.
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
    Bingo. Compute is fungible. It would be ironic if everyone killed OpenAI by denying them compute though. Still, OpenAI is a peacock feather in Microsoft’s cap. They’re either bluffing, foolish, or prescient to let it go.
    - purplerabbit 3y ago
      Not at this magnitude. If you read the latest Semianalysis article, Microsoft’s current infra project is the largest infra project currently being undertaken by humankind (not sure if that’s overstatement, but regardless, $50B largely and competently directed towards (Open)AI-supporting hardware isn’t something easily replicable)
      - a-r-t 3y ago
        Apple is sitting on $162B in cash right now and would definitely benefit from OpenAI's IP.

chasd00 3y ago

"Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce Inc., will be on the new board, several people said. Another possible addition is an executive from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest shareholder — but Microsoft hasn’t decided whether it wants board representation, some people said." hah, Microsoft will be in control from here on out whether they have someone technically on the board or not. They did the embrace and extend now we're on to extinguish.

cedws 3y ago
AI doomers will say this is the beginning of the end.
- kromem 3y ago
  Not the beginning of the end of humanity. But maybe the beginning of the end of OpenAI. A week ago I was saying that it's likely the leading AI company in 5 years time hasn't been founded yet. After the news Friday and looking more at how Ilya sees the future of neural networks, I actually thought there's a decent chance OpenAI might correct course to continue to lead. If it becomes too productized under a strengthened Altman, it's back on the list of companies building into their own obsolescence. The right way to the future is adapting alignment to the increasing complexity of the model. It's not just about 'safety' but about performance and avoiding Goodhart's Law. The way all major players, OpenAI included, are handling that step is by carrying forward the techniques that were appropriate for less complex models. Which is a huge step back from the approach reflected very early on pre-release for GPT-4's chat model. An approach that seemed to reflect Ilya's vision. As long as OpenAI keeps fine tuning to try to meet the low hanging fruit product demand they've created and screwing up their pretrained model on measures that haven't become the industry target, they aren't going to be competitive against yet to exist companies that don't take such naive approaches with the fine tuning step. Right now they have an advantage in Ilya being ahead of the trend, but if Altman returning is at the cost of Ilya's influence, they are going to continue to dig their long term grave in the pursuit of short term success.
  - resource0x 3y ago

lgkk 3y ago

Who wants to own ~search~ gpts? (updated 2023)

manyoso 3y ago

Whole thing is proving what a monumental lie OpenAI is. Was founded by grifters by all available evidence.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
OK dude, I might agree with that if it didn’t just nail my revisions to a CMake file in one try.
- manyoso 3y ago
  Both can be true.

dang 3y ago

Related ongoing thread: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38326834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38326834 - Nov 2023 (73 comments)

Workaccount2 3y ago

Fired on a Friday just to be back in the office Monday with a new boss lol

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

janejeon 3y ago

So the discussions are definitely happening it seems: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726345564059832609

jprete 3y ago
In Sam’s shoes, as slippery an operator as I’d be, I’d ask a sympathetic employee to register me as a guest just to make that post, whether there were negotiations or not.
neilv 3y ago
I don't have enough info to take a position on the current situation there, but I think that's a brilliant selfie. (Pained reaction to having to wear an OpenAI guest ID.)
jessenaser 3y ago
Bonus perspective: https://twitter.com/jasonkwon/status/1726348678116548979 https://twitter.com/jasonkwon/status/1726348678116548979
- irishloop 3y ago
  I... don't know what I expected
- totallywrong 3y ago
  Well played.

pwb25 3y ago

can't those people just relax? You aren't running some computer club in high school and debate if you should run freebsd or linux Just give him some seat or what he wants, stop acting like some series like Suits

jessenaser 3y ago

Is it so hard to find good people to put on the board? Sam was the CEO OF Y COMBINATOR. Shouldn't he know who is best to put on the board? Find them out? Apparently not? Please say they are not going to put a board just as bad as before. There are no checks and balances. Should Open AI employees be allowed to veto a board decision vote if they have 50% or 67% of the vote? Should Open AI employees be allowed to vote for at least some members to be allowed on the board? Like the Senate voting to confirm a Supreme Court Justice? No matter how good the next board will be, the power rules still apply as before, and the same thing could happen again if no other changes are put in place...

ytoawwhra92 3y ago
> Please say they are not going to put a board just as bad as before. Altman had a massive influence on the makeup of the board that ultimately fired him.
DebtDeflation 3y ago
[flagged]
- smolder 3y ago
  "The wife of an actor" is an unfair minimization of her value and career, but that seems to have been your goal.
  - ryeights 3y ago
    Sexism
layer8 3y ago
The issue is that the old board has to agree to the new board.

nothrowaways 3y ago

Altman is more powerful than I thought.

crazygringo 3y ago
I don't think so at all -- the board was simply far dumber than we thought. The board didn't plan or think this through at all. This isn't about Sam being powerful, just about him being a reasonable predictable cofounder Microsoft can work with. It's the rest of the board that shocked Microsoft with how unprofessional their actions were, that they can't be worked with. The very idea that they would fire Sam without even consulting with Microsoft first is such a gigantic red flag in judgment.
- cthalupa 3y ago
  If the issue is they believe Sam's focus on commercialization is inherently against their charter, Microsoft is key to that - they are the shining example of this shift. Consulting with them would be antithetical to solving the problem. For a for-profit, the pragmatic approach due to Microsoft also being the majority computer provider (We can set aside the investments for the moment - most are in the form of compute credits and come in tranches. OpenAI is not sitting on $10B in cash in their bank accounts or whatever) would make a lot of sense. But they're a non-profit that operate in accordance to their pipe-dream charter. You and I might be skeptical of it or just think it's generally dumb, but non-profits are allowed to believe in pipe-dreams and pursue them. At the very least they still issued a poorly worded statement and have not been able to recover from that, but it is quite possible that their attitude towards the investors in the for-profit is entirely consistent with the charter they are supposed to be following.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Exactly. The board should have been stocked with seasoned professionals not with people who on an idle Friday decide to throw their weight around to see what that feels like without any idea of the possible ramifications of such acts.
dontupvoteme 3y ago

breadwinner 3y ago

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

sashank_1509 3y ago
I don’t know if Ilya contributed anything technically to OpenAI in the recent 2-3 years. He is broadly thanked along with Sam in GPT4 List of contributors, he is not mentioned in ChatGPT list of contributors, he is again thanked for advice in the GPT-3 list of contributors. The folks who resigned upon Sams ouster, Jacub Pachocki is credited as lead of GPT-4 , Greg Brockmann is credited for multiple things in GPT-4 ( he was the lead for training infra setup). All of them would have left if Sam left, if anything letting Sam go would significantly hamstring OpenAI than letting Ilya go.
mrtksn 3y ago
Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.
- jessenaser 3y ago
  Sam Altman by Walter Isaacson Releasing 2037...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - spking 3y ago
    Shouldn't it be written by ChatGPT?