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I’m genuinely surprised that they stuck to their guns. The PR push behind Altman’s return was convincing enough that I had my doubts. Altman will be more than

I’m genuinely surprised that they stuck to their guns. The PR push behind Altman’s return was convincing enough that I had my doubts. Altman will be more than fine, he’ll get a bucket of money and the chance to prove he is the golden boy he’s been sold to the world. He will get to recruit a team that believes in his vision of accelerating AI for commercial use. This will lead to a more diverse market. I hope for the best for those who remain at OpenAI. I hope for the best for Altman and Brockman.

tempusalaria 3y ago
The whole situation should make it clear that SV media is beholden to VCs and will print anything they tell them to. Bloomberg, the verge and the information all went to bat for Altman in a big way on this.
- zaptheimpaler 3y ago
  You could say the same thing if they were rooting for the board instead..
  - tempusalaria 3y ago
    It’s not the job of the media to root for anyone. The media should dispassionately report the truth. In this case they did not do so.
    - _factor 3y ago
      In most cases they do not. We haven’t had unfiltered media for a very long time now. Your voice is blocked from a large audience by many many barriers if you mention any forbidden keywords together.
      - staunton 3y ago
        > We haven’t had unfiltered media for a very long time now. When did we have it?
- lajawfe 3y ago
  Yes, I felt the same. In every piece, there was very little news but a lot of fluff to lead the public with opinions. Probably VCs saw their money burning and wanted Sam back at the helm to protect their asset.
- browserman 3y ago
  Kara Swisher was basically working as Altman’s press secretary
  - ignoramous 3y ago
    I don't get the vibe that Swisher particularly likes techbros or billionaires, let alone bat for them.
    - bmitc 3y ago
      Have you read her recent Tweets on the matter? She was definitely editorializing quite subjectively in favor of Altman. That's not exactly unbiased journalism happening.
      - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        I read her Threads post and do not see the same advocacy you claim here. Just valuable information.
        bmitc 3y ago
        Well I wasn't referring to her Threads posts. I was referring to her recent Tweets.
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Her Threads posts are almost certainly of the same tone and substance as her Tweets.
    - fatbird 3y ago
      She's an access journalist. She'll shill for the biggest voice who'll talk to her.
- ahartmetz 3y ago
  My favorite was that part from Financial Times: "Investors were hoping that Altman would return to a company “which has been his life's work”" As opposed to Sutskever, who they found on the street somehow, yeah?
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    I mean, both of them were involved from the beginning of OpenAI.
- vintermann 3y ago
  I'm also pretty suspicious of people in forums like these who say nothing can compare to GPT4 and they're miles ahead of everyone else etc. How much of that is venture capital speaking? It's not quite where it is (or was) with Tesla, where it was hopeless to know what was sincere and what was just people talking up their investment/talking down their short, but it's getting there.
  - tempusalaria 3y ago
    There are concrete benchmarks like “how good is it at answering multiple choice questions accurately or “how good is it at producing valid code to solve a particular coding problem”. There’s also a chatbot Elo ranking which crowd sources model comparisons https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboar... GPT-4 is the king right now
  - lajawfe 3y ago
    The crypto bros switched to AI hype and are now hyping OpenAI/GPT4 hoping to pump MSFT/NVDA. In every HN conversation where someone mentions competing products, there are people talking it down and saying GPT4 is miles ahead, and in a tone to undermine the competition. I see a pattern and it is definitely not sincere.
    - xvector 3y ago
      You clearly haven't tried GPT-4 if you think people are lying about how much better it is.
  - xvector 3y ago
    I mean, try and compare for yourself. It is quite obviously miles ahead of everything else. I want OpenAI to be absolutely crushed in the free market after this move. But it will take years for anyone to catch up with GPT-4, if even Anthropic is nowhere close.
    - OccamsMirror 3y ago
karmasimida 3y ago
Same If OpenAI ceases to be Sam’s vision someone will replace it. It is a good thing for the ecosystem I guess, we will have more diverse products to choose. But making AI more safe? Not likely. The tech will spread and Ilya will probably not a safer AGI, because he will not control it
tunesmith 3y ago
I read something a while ago: when trying to interpret the truth of what is happening, the value of public statements is only that it's an indication of what that source would like the public to believe. And when looked at that way, that signal does have value. Not as truth, but as motive. So that helped cut through all the cruft with this. There was a lot of effort behind putting across the perception that the board was going to resign and that Altman was going to come back. Looked at through that lens, it makes more sense: the existing board had little incentive to quit and rehire Sam/Greg. The only incentive was if mass resignations threatened their priorities of working on safety and alignment, and I get the sense that most of these resignations are more on the product engineering side. So I don't really think this is a twist that no one saw coming.
pg_1234 3y ago
I think that the pro-capitalist faction forgot that the opposing side are people capable of planing the development of an artificial consciousness. Should they decide to sink to the level of VC scheming briefly, it will be like child's play for them.

tempusalaria 3y ago

The whole situation should make it clear that SV media is beholden to VCs and will print anything they tell them to. Bloomberg, the verge and the information all went to bat for Altman in a big way on this.

zaptheimpaler 3y ago
You could say the same thing if they were rooting for the board instead..
- tempusalaria 3y ago
  It’s not the job of the media to root for anyone. The media should dispassionately report the truth. In this case they did not do so.
  - _factor 3y ago
    In most cases they do not. We haven’t had unfiltered media for a very long time now. Your voice is blocked from a large audience by many many barriers if you mention any forbidden keywords together.
    - staunton 3y ago
      > We haven’t had unfiltered media for a very long time now. When did we have it?
lajawfe 3y ago
Yes, I felt the same. In every piece, there was very little news but a lot of fluff to lead the public with opinions. Probably VCs saw their money burning and wanted Sam back at the helm to protect their asset.
browserman 3y ago
Kara Swisher was basically working as Altman’s press secretary
- ignoramous 3y ago
  I don't get the vibe that Swisher particularly likes techbros or billionaires, let alone bat for them.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Have you read her recent Tweets on the matter? She was definitely editorializing quite subjectively in favor of Altman. That's not exactly unbiased journalism happening.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      I read her Threads post and do not see the same advocacy you claim here. Just valuable information.
      - bmitc 3y ago
        Well I wasn't referring to her Threads posts. I was referring to her recent Tweets.
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Her Threads posts are almost certainly of the same tone and substance as her Tweets.
  - fatbird 3y ago
    She's an access journalist. She'll shill for the biggest voice who'll talk to her.
ahartmetz 3y ago
My favorite was that part from Financial Times: "Investors were hoping that Altman would return to a company “which has been his life's work”" As opposed to Sutskever, who they found on the street somehow, yeah?
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  I mean, both of them were involved from the beginning of OpenAI.
vintermann 3y ago
I'm also pretty suspicious of people in forums like these who say nothing can compare to GPT4 and they're miles ahead of everyone else etc. How much of that is venture capital speaking? It's not quite where it is (or was) with Tesla, where it was hopeless to know what was sincere and what was just people talking up their investment/talking down their short, but it's getting there.
- tempusalaria 3y ago
  There are concrete benchmarks like “how good is it at answering multiple choice questions accurately or “how good is it at producing valid code to solve a particular coding problem”. There’s also a chatbot Elo ranking which crowd sources model comparisons https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboar... GPT-4 is the king right now
- lajawfe 3y ago
  The crypto bros switched to AI hype and are now hyping OpenAI/GPT4 hoping to pump MSFT/NVDA. In every HN conversation where someone mentions competing products, there are people talking it down and saying GPT4 is miles ahead, and in a tone to undermine the competition. I see a pattern and it is definitely not sincere.
  - xvector 3y ago
    You clearly haven't tried GPT-4 if you think people are lying about how much better it is.
- xvector 3y ago
  I mean, try and compare for yourself. It is quite obviously miles ahead of everything else. I want OpenAI to be absolutely crushed in the free market after this move. But it will take years for anyone to catch up with GPT-4, if even Anthropic is nowhere close.
  - OccamsMirror 3y ago

karmasimida 3y ago

Same If OpenAI ceases to be Sam’s vision someone will replace it. It is a good thing for the ecosystem I guess, we will have more diverse products to choose. But making AI more safe? Not likely. The tech will spread and Ilya will probably not a safer AGI, because he will not control it

tunesmith 3y ago

I read something a while ago: when trying to interpret the truth of what is happening, the value of public statements is only that it's an indication of what that source would like the public to believe. And when looked at that way, that signal does have value. Not as truth, but as motive. So that helped cut through all the cruft with this. There was a lot of effort behind putting across the perception that the board was going to resign and that Altman was going to come back. Looked at through that lens, it makes more sense: the existing board had little incentive to quit and rehire Sam/Greg. The only incentive was if mass resignations threatened their priorities of working on safety and alignment, and I get the sense that most of these resignations are more on the product engineering side. So I don't really think this is a twist that no one saw coming.

pg_1234 3y ago

I think that the pro-capitalist faction forgot that the opposing side are people capable of planing the development of an artificial consciousness. Should they decide to sink to the level of VC scheming briefly, it will be like child's play for them.