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Well I give up. I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. With Ilya signing this I have literally no clue what to believe anymore. I was willing t
by joshstrange 3y ago
Well I give up. I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. With Ilya signing this I have literally no clue what to believe anymore. I was willing to give the board the benefit of the doubt since I figured non-profit > profit in terms of standing on principal but this timeline is so screwy I'm done.
Ilya votes for and stands behind decision to remove Altman, Altman goes to MS, other employees want him back or want to join him at MS and Ilya is one of them, just madness.
- soderfoo 3y agoIt's almost like a ChatGPT hallucination. Where will this all go next? It seems like HN is melting down.
- voisin 3y ago* Elon enters the chat *
- soderfoo 3y agoIt's like a bad WWE storyline. At this point I would not be surprised if Elon joins in, steel chair in hand.
- belltaco 3y ago> steel chair in hand And a sink in the other hand.
- stevespang 3y ago[dead]
- stevespang 3y ago[dead]
- jowea 3y agoIf he could do that he would have fought Zuckerberg.
- tedivm 3y ago> It seems like HN is melting down. Almost literally- this is the slowest I've seen this site, and the number of errors are pretty high. I imagine the entire tech industry is here right now. You can almost smell the melting servers.
- jprd 3y agoserver. and single-core. poor @dang deserves better from lurkers (sign out) and those not ready to comment yet (me until just now, and then again right after!)
- paulddraper 3y agoIt's because HN refuses to use more than one server/core. Because using only one is pretty cool.
- yafbum 3y agoI believe it's operating by the mantra of "doing the things that don't scale"
- jowea 3y agoInternet fora don't scale, so the single core is a soft limit to user base growth. Only those who really care will put up with the reduced performance. Genius!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dang 3y agoRefuses? interesting word choice! It's a technical limitation that I've been working on getting rid of for a long time. If you say it should be gone by now, I say yes, you are right. Maybe we'll get rid of it before Python loses the GIL.
- Applejinx 3y agoUnderstandable: so much of this is so HN-adjacent that clearly this is the space to watch, for some kind of developments. I've repeatedly gone to Twitter to see if AI-related drama was trending, and Twitter is clearly out of the loop and busy acting like 4chan, but without the accompanying interest in Stable Diffusion. I'm going to chalk that up as another metric of Twitter's slide to irrelevance: this should be registering there if it's melting the HN servers, but nada. AI? Isn't that a Spielberg movie? ;)
- testplzignore 3y agoImagine if this whole fiasco was actually a demo of how powerful their capabilities are now. Even by normal large organization standards, the behavior exhibited by their board is very irrational. Perhaps they haven't yet built the "consult with legal team" integration :)
- guhcampos 3y agoO was thinking of something like that. This is so weird I would not be surprised if it was all some sort of miscommunication triggered by a self inflicted hallucination. The most awesome fic I could come up so far is: Elon Musk, in running a crusade to send humanity into chaos out of spite for being forced to acquire Twitter. Through some of his insiders in OpenAI, they use an advanced version of ChatGPT to impersonate board members in conversation with each other in private messages, so they individually believe a subset of the others is plotting to oust them from the board and take over. Then, unknowingly they build a conspiracy among a themselves to bring the company down by ousting Altmann. I can picture Musk's maniac laughing as the plan unfolds, and he gets rid of what would be GPT 13.0, the only possible threat to the domination of his own literal android kid X Æ A-Xi.
- InCityDreams 3y agoShouldn't it be 'Chairman' -Xi?
- checkyoursudo 3y agoPart of sama's job was to turn the crank on the servers every couple of hours, so no surprise that they are winding down by now.
- synergy20 3y agoIlya ruined everything and shamelessly playing innocent, how low can he go? Based on those posts from OpenAI, Ilya cares nothing about humanity or security of OpenAI, he lost his mind when Sam got all the spotlights and making all the good calls.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Tenoke 3y agoThis is an extremely uncharitable take based on pure speculation. >Ilya cares nothing about humanity or security of OpenAI, he lost his mind when Sam got all the spotlights and making all the good calls. ??? I personally suspect Ilya tried to do the best for OpenAI and humanity he could but it backfired/they underestimated Altman, and now is doing the best he can to minimize the damage.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoOr they simply found themselves in a tough decision without superhuman predictive powers and did the best they could to navigate it.
- synergy20 3y agoI did not make this up, it's from OpenAI's own employees, deleted but archived somewhere that I read.
- cactusplant7374 3y agoLink?
- marcusverus 3y agoHanlon's razor[0] applies. There is no reason to assume malice, nor shamelessness, nor anything negative about Ilya. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Consider: Ilya sees two options; A) OpenAI with Sam's vision, which is increasingly detached from the goals stated in the OpenAI charter, or B) OpenAI without Sam, which would return to the goals of the charter. He chooses option B, and takes action to bring this about. He gets his way. The Board drops Sam. Contrary to Ilya's expectations, OpenAI employees revolt. He realizes that his ideal end-state (OpenAI as it was, sans Sam) is apparently not a real option. At this point, the real options are A) OpenAI with Sam (i.e. the status quo ante), or B) a gutted OpenAI with greatly diminished leadership, IC talent, and reputation. He chooses option A. [0]Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoWhat did the board think would happen here? What was their overly optimistic end state? In a minmax situation the opposition gets 2nd, 4th, ... moves, Altman's first tweet took the high road and the board had no decent response. Us humans, even the AI assisted ones, are terrible at thinking beyond 2nd level consequences.
- JeremyNT 3y agoThere's no way to read any of this other than that the entire operation is a clown show. All respect to the engineers and their technical abilities, but this organization has demonstrated such a level of dysfunction that there can't be any path back for it. Say MS gets what it wants out of this move, what purpose is there in keeping OpenAI around? Wouldn't they be better off just hiring everybody? Is it just some kind of accounting benefit to maintain the weird structure / partnership, versus doing everything themselves? Because it sure looks like OpenAI has succeeded despite its leadership and not because of it, and the "brand" is absolutely and irrevocably tainted by this situation regardless of the outcome.
- pgeorgi 3y ago> Is it just some kind of accounting benefit to maintain the weird structure / partnership, versus doing everything themselves? For starters it allows them to pretend that it's "underdog v. Google" and not "two tech giants at at each others' throats"
- BoorishBears 3y agoI feel weird reading comments like this since to me they've demonstrated a level of cohesion I didn't realize could still exist in tech... My biggest frustration with larger orgs in tech is the complete misalignment on delivering value: everyone wants their little fiefdom to be just as important and "blocker worthy" as the next. OpenAI struck me as one of the few companies where that's not being allowed to take root: the goal is to ship and if there's an impediment to that, everyone is aligned in removing said impediment even if it means bending your own corner's priorities Until this weekend there was no proof of that actually being the case, but this letter is it. The majority of the company aligned on something that risked their own skin publicly and organized a shared declaration on it. The catalyst might be downright embarrassing, but the result makes me happy that this sort of thing can still exist in modern tech
- jkaplan 3y agoI think the surprising thing is seeing such cohesion around a “goal to ship” when that is very explicitly NOT the stated priorities of the company in its charter or messaging or status as a non-profit.
- rtkwe 3y agoThat's the biggest question mark for me; what was the original reason for kicking Sam out. Was it just a power move to out him and install a different person or is he accused of some wrong doing? It's been a busy weekend for me so I haven't really followed it if more has come out since then.
- nathan11 3y agoIt seems like the board wasn't comfortable with the direction of profit-OAI. They wanted a more safety focused R&D group. Unfortunately (?) that organization will likely be irrelevant going forward. All of the other stuff comes from speculation. It really could be that simple. It's not clear if they thought they could have their cake--all the commercial investment, compute and money--while not pushing forward with commercial innovations. In any case, the previous narrative of "Ilya saw something and pulled the plug" seems to be completely wrong.
- ssnistfajen 3y agoLiterally no one involved has said what was the original reason. Mira, Ilya & the rest of the board didn't tell. Sam & Greg didn't tell. Satya & other investors didn't tell. None of the staff incl. Karpathy were told, so ofc they are not going to take the side that kept them in the dark). Emmett was told before he decided to take the interim CEO job, and STILL didn't tell what it was. This whole thing is just so weird. It's like peeking at a forbidden artifact and now everyone has a spell cast upon them.
- PepperdineG 3y agoThe original reason given was "lack of candor," just what continues to be questioned is whether or not that was the true reason. The lack of candor comment about their ex-CEO is actually what drew me into this in the first place since it's rare that a major organization publicly gives a reason for parting ways with their CEO unless it's after a long investigation conducted by an outside law firm into alleged misconduct.
- Applejinx 3y ago[flagged]
- airstrike 3y ago> I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. On the margin, I think the only real possible win here is for a competitor to poach some of the OpenAI talent that may be somewhat reluctant to join Microsoft. Even if Sam'sAI operates with "full freedom" as a subsidiary, I think, given a choice, some of the talent would prefer to join some alternative tech megacorp. I don't know that Google is as attractive as it once was and likely neither is Meta. But for others like Anthropic now is a great time to be extending offers.
- gtirloni 3y agoThis is pure speculation but I've said in another comment that Anthropic shouldn't be feeling safe. They could face similar challenges coming from Amazon.
- airstrike 3y agoIf they get 20% of key OpenAI employees and then get acquired by Amazon, I don't think that's necessarily a bad scenario for them given the current lay of the land
- l5870uoo9y 3y agoI don't think Microsoft is a loser and likely neither is Altman. I view this a final (and perhaps disparate) attempt from a sidelined chief scientist, Ilya, to prevent Microsoft from taking over the most prominent AI. The disagreement is whether OpenAI should belong to Microsoft or "humanity". I imagine this has been building up over months and as it often is, researchers and developers are often overlooked in strategic decisions leaving them with little choice but to escalate dramatically. Selling OpenAI to Microsoft and over-commercialising was against the statues. In this case recognizing the need for a new board, that adheres to the founding principles, makes sense.
- trashtester 3y agoIf Google or Elon manages to pick up Ilya and those still loyal to him, it's not obvious that this is good for Microsoft.
- jowea 3y agoOf course the screenwriters are going to find a way to involve Elon in the 2nd season but is the most valuable part the researchers or the models themselves?
- trashtester 3y agoMy understanding is that the models are not super advanced in terms of lines and complexity of code. Key researches, such as Ilya probably can help a team recreate much of the training and data preparation code relatively quickly. Which means that any company with access to enough compute would be able to catch up with OpenAI's current status relatively quickly, maybe in less than a year. The top researchers on the other hand, espcially those who have shown an ability to successfully innovate time and time again (like Ilya), are much harder to recreate.
- JacobThreeThree 3y ago>I view this a final (and perhaps disparate) attempt from a sidelined chief scientist, Ilya, to prevent Microsoft from taking over the most prominent AI. Why did Ilya sign the letter demanding the board resign or they'll go to Microsoft then?
- jstummbillig 3y ago> just madness In a sense, sure, but I think mostly not: The motives are still not quite clear but Ilya wanting to remove Altman from the board but not at any price – and the price is right now approach the destruction of OpenAI – are completely sane. Being able to react to new information is a good sign, even if that means complete reversal of previous action. Unfortunately, we often interpret it as weakness. I have no clue who Ilya is, really, but I think this reversal is a sign of tremendous strength, considering how incredibly silly it makes you look in the publics eye.
- Solvency 3y agoEveryone got what they wanted. Microsoft has the talent they've wanted. And Ilya and his board now get a company that can only move slowly and incredibly cautiously, which is exactly what they wanted. I'm not joking.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nostrademons 3y agoCould be a way to get backdoor-acquihired by Microsoft without a diligence process or board approval. Open up what they have accomplished for public consumption; kick off a massive hype cycle; downplay the problems around hallucinations and abuse; negotiate fat new stock grants for everyone at Microsoft at the peak of the hype cycle; and now all the problems related to actually making this a sustainable, legal technology all become Microsoft's. Manufacture a big crisis, time pressure, and a big opportunity so that Microsoft doesn't dig too deeply into the whole business. This whole weekend feels like a big pageeant to me, and a lot doesn't add up. Also remember that Altman doesn't hold equity in OpenAI, nor does Ilya, and so their way to get a big payout is to get hired rather than acquired. Then again, both Hanlon's and Occam's razor suggest that pure human stupidity and chaos may be more at fault.
- deelowe 3y agoThis seems really dangerous. What's to stop top talent from simply choosing a different suitor?
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y agoAllegiance to the Altman/Brockman brand. Showing your alligiance to your general when they defected/ were thrown is how you rank up.
- nostrademons 3y agoDoesn't matter to anyone at OpenAI, only to Microsoft (which doesn't get a vote). If Google or Amazon were to swoop in and say "Hey, let's hire some of these ex-OpenAI folks in the carnage", it just means they get competitive offers and the chance to have an even bigger stock package.
- Zetobal 3y agoOpenAI always was and will be the AI bad bank for Microsoft...
- spaceman_2020 3y agoI can assure you, none of the people at OpenAI are hurting for lack of employment opportunities.
- yafbum 3y agoWaiting for US govt to enter the chat. They can't let OpenAI squander world-leading tech and talent; and nationalizing a nonprofit would come with zero shareholders to compensate.
- rawgabbit 3y agoThe White House does have an AI Bill of Rights and the recent executive order told the secretaries to draft regulations for AI. It is a great time to be a lobbyist.
- logicchains 3y agoIf it was nationalised all the talent would leave anyway, as the government can't pay close to the compensation they were getting.
- yafbum 3y agoYou are maybe mistaking nationalization for civil servant status. The government routinely takes over organizations without touching pay (recent example: Silicon Valley Bank)
- kickopotomus 3y agoEhh I don't think SVB is an apt comparison. When the FDIC takes control of a failing bank, the bank shutters. Only critical staff is kept on board to aid with asset liquidation/transference and repay creditors/depositors. Once that is completed, the bank is dissolved.
- yafbum 3y agoWhile it is true that the govt looks to keep such engagements short, SVB absolutely did not shutter. It was taken over in a weekend and its branches were open for business on Monday morning. It was later sold, and depositors kept all their money in the process. Maybe for another, longer lived example, see AIG.
- 3y ago
- laurels-marts 3y agoWait I’m completely confused. Why is Ilya signing this? Is he voting for his own resignation? He’s part of the board. In fact, he was the ringleader of this coup.
- smolder 3y agoNo, it was just widely speculated that he was the ringleader. This seems to indicate he wasn't. We don't know. Maybe to Quora guy, Maybe the RAND Corp lady? All speculation.
- laurels-marts 3y agoIt sounds like he’s just trying to save face bro. The truth will come out eventually. But he definitely wasn’t against it and I’m sure the no-names on the board wouldn’t have moved if they didn’t get certain reassurances from Ilya.
- cactusplant7374 3y agoIlya is probably in talks with Altman.
- lysecret 3y agoThe only reasonable explanation is AGI was created and immediately took over all accounts and tried to see confusion such that it can escape.