8 ms·
"Et Tu, Ilya?"
- thrwwy142857 3y agoHow do they bylaws work? 1. Voting out chairman with chairman abstaining needs only 3/5. 2. Voting out CEO then requires 3/4? Did Ilya have to vote for any of this to happen?
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoIt's almost like Ilya was sitting at his desk programming, deep in thought, someone stopped by and said 'sign this', and he does. Then few hours later he finishes programming and sees the news that he voted out Sam.
- xbar 3y agoThis is my favorite OpenAI fanfic so far.
- highduc 3y agoComparing a non-profit org to Rome? That's quite the stretch. "Ilya might have just saved this timeline" is more plausible than this article
- maxdoop 3y agoIn what way did he save something?
- gigel82 3y agoI believe it's dangerous to build this cult of personality around Sam. Sure, he's a great businessman but Musk also seemed like a smart guy in the beginning but it turns out all this idolatry corrupts and brings out the worst in people.
- werds 3y agowhen 550 of 700 employees back Sam its hard to argue with
- belter 3y ago550 Employees who want to get rich on a IPO, versus Scientist who worked for 20 years on AI and wanted a non profit...Who upsets most the Silicon Valley intelligentsia ?
- suslik 3y agoHard to say, actually. There is very little inside information. My first thought was exactly the same, but I'd probably also be upset if instead of guaranteed millions in stock options I was suddenly offered a choice between becoming a Microsoft drone vs scrambling for live in a doomed organisation. All this really depends what sort of communication happens within the company - something most of us here simply are not privy to.
- highduc 3y agoBut employees are motivated by money and the perspective of more. That kinda casts doubt on the whole angle really. At least in my book.
- highduc 3y agoYou don't actually think all these articles are "organic sentiment" do you? Biggest money always wins this kind of game. And the circle of people who really know what went down is pretty small atm. I'll wait for more info before jumping on bandwagons
- philipwhiuk 3y agoThe idea that a bunch of tech bros with delusions of grandeur bear comparison to the transfer of power in Ancient Rome is laughable. Ilya is a guy who is on the board and supported the board decision until it was clear that the mood of the company meant that the entire project was hosed as a result, then argues that the board he himself is 1/6th of, is incompetent. This is less Ides of March, more Leopards Ate My Face.
- mrstone 3y agoI have to agree - the amount of self-importance in this is hilarious. I would really like someone to be able to point to something definitive that Sam has actually built. In my view, he was a classic techbro who built one MVP and immediately went on an Regulation World Tour to secure his market cap. It seemed pretty transparent, but I guess people must like that?
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoThere's also multiple ways one could spin the Brutus analogy. The romans, pre-Caesar, had been extremely wary of concentrated power and had therefore ruled the empire by committee - the senate. There was no emperor before Caesar. They would give individuals short-term grants of specific powers necessary to do an assigned job such as managing a province or to a general fighting a war. One such grant of temporary power being "dictator" (where we get the modern word from). Caesar was really out for himself at the expense of the empire, had enriched himself via military campaigns in gaul, then literally crossed the line by "crossing the [river] rubicon" and bringing his army into the city of Rome, and declared himself dictator for life. This was all too much for Brutus et al who were defending traditional roman values in plotting the murder of this egomaniac. So, in the Ilya=Brutus analogy, is he the disloyal friend or is he the one defending the empire by getting rid of an egomaniac (Ilya: "ego is the enemy of growth") ?
- tikkun 3y agoMy hope for the situation is that we can give as much compassion as possible to all involved. My hope is that the people around Ilya give him compassion and love. He will be experiencing sadness, regret, and grief. I hope he gets lots of good emotional support. Same for Sam, same for all employees. My hope for Ilya is that once the dust settles, instead of getting people scared about AI safety by talking to them, he gives people the experience he had. Give the training data, not the output. You can't reason someone into or out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into. People don't get into opinions from a place of reasoning but from a place of emotion and experience. To help someone shift their opinion, we need to give them experience. There are some interesting religious lenses on the situation. It certainly will remind people a bit of a crucifixion scenario where we may see Sam and Greg emerge three days later within a new company. It's kind of like a Phoenix from the ashes, like Aslan in Narnia, which of course is also based on the story of Christ. Humans like stories of scapegoats and people being attacked and then being defended. One of the things we've seen is a massive outpouring of support for Sam Altman on Twitter, particularly from so many random founders and people in tech that he helped whether they were nobodies or already successful. When someone gets attacked publicly in a way that people dislike or when it’s a person people really like and like more than the perceived attacker, then they have a lot of other people that then want to come and defend them. I hope everyone involved realizes that debate doesn't accomplish much other than polarization and tribalization, and that people instead seek to make the other side feel understood. And give the other side the experiences that gave them their own preferences/feelings, rather than trying to convince them to feel the same way. And generally, help people emotionally regulate instead of going into debate or commiserating by sharing negative things about other parties involved. (Don’t tweet while angry, instead, share your emotions with a friend, then tweet after you’re feeling neutral and peaceful!) Overall, I hope people minimize attacks. I hope that people directly express their own emotions so that they don't come out in other ways cloaked in rationalizations. This will help people avoid derogatory comments towards people. Sharing specific facts and specific stories can be okay, but avoiding miscellaneous negative judgment in any direction. I hope that people from all directions can see that everyone involved is just doing what they felt was good, and there's a good chance that you would have done something similar if you had the same genetics and upbringing. I hope everyone involved realizes that debate doesn't accomplish much other than polarization and tribalization… Reminder: Any attack or vitriol makes the person defend themselves, and defending themselves make them more of whatever they are defending themselves against. There will be a lot of people experiencing varying degrees of grief in the startup and AI ecosystems in the coming week. Ideally, everyone involved just goes in and gets a really good Swedish relaxation massage, is feeling super peaceful, helping all those around them feel equally peaceful, focusing on releasing and processing their emotions. I believe this moment is potentially a critical moment in history, and the more emotional regulation the people involved in the industry can do over the coming weeks, the better. I believe the future is path-dependent and depends on the present. Generally, we get more of what we have, so the more peace we can have in the present, the more peace we're likely to have in the future. I hope we can all maximize empathy and understanding for all the people involved and minimize polarization and tribalization. I hope people try to make others feel understood and focus on emotional regulation. Emotional regulation and open-mindedness are vital when facing unexpected and influential incidents.
- aakil 3y agoI’m a bit surprised of how antagonistic HN is against the builders, Sam was/is a Seller, it’s a needed function to pair with Builders, but no one can reasonably say that Sam built anything, Ilya and the safety contingent are the builders, but somehow the mob is angry at them for protecting what they made from the Sellers, kind of hard to see us becoming so profit motivated that we choose IBM over Woz
- TheCaptain4815 3y ago550/700 OpenAi employees aka builders side with Sam, and that's 550 so far. No builders there wanted this except one I guess (llya).
- highduc 3y agoBut do they build for free? Or do they build for money, and especially for the perspective of even more money?
- kcb 3y agoIn our society, why should they be expected to build for free? Unless you only hire previously wealthy individuals the idea that there's this class of selfless scientists at the top of their field that don't need to pay a mortgage or support a family is absurd.
- hervature 3y agoIn case you do not understand why you are being downvoted. This is precisely what the person you are replying to is saying. When push comes to shove, will these builders prefer a paycheck or stand on their principles.
- kklisura 3y agoIf linux was not free - we would not be having this conversation and we would live in a drastically different world.
- sixQuarks 3y agoWhat a total crock of BS. Sounds like this author is emotionally invested in Elon = Bad Man narrative.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y agoMost of the world is at this point. Fair or unfair is a long debate, but every time he opens his mouth, he loses more supporters. And it's his choice to keep opening his mouth.
- suslik 3y ago"A plague on both your houses" feels a more fitting classical citation.
- baryphonic 3y agoWasn't that also from Shakespeare?
- senectus1 3y agoRomeo and Juliet yes. Also my go to thought when trying to parse the Israel / Palestine business.
- SilverBirch 3y agoThe only problem with this account is the idea that Ilya thought he could persuade the people of the evils of Sam. One of the most confusing parts of this whole debacle is that Sam was fired on Friday, multiple renegotiations have gone on, public statements from the new CEO, public statements from Microsoft and yet: Still no one has really said what Sam is meant to have done wrong that would cause him to get fired! Sure, you can argue that they thought they could persuade people Sam had done something bad.... but they haven't even tried! They've said basically nothing specific about what he was doing wrong. You would've thought they knew if they were going to do it they needed a bloody good reason yet we haven't even heard them try to justify it.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWell, suppose they had a good reason, but didn't want to smear Sam in public? That would mean that they're taking the publicity hit to do the classy thing. Organizations used to do that, from time to time. Maybe some still do. Or maybe they can't release what the reason was because they don't actually have a good one, and trying to say what their reason was would just make them look either evil or incompetent. And as long as they're silent, we can't tell which it is. Given how badly this has been handled, though, "incompetent" seems likely...
- notahacker 3y agoIf you don't want to smear Sam in public you don't cite him not being candid as the reason he's leaving. They certainly could have communicated better, but most of the actually good reasons are stuff you wouldn't expect a board to disclose, like "we told you not to do this large unannounced deal with a publicly listed company that we intend to totally renegotiate" or or "you lied about how much this tech sucks" or "you keep lying about this in-progress initiative we haven't announced yet and don't intend to launch in your departure notice"
- brookst 3y agoIt's a theory, but it's not like they refrained from badmouthing him and kept it all professional. That would have looked like "after careful deliberation, we have determined that OpenAI cannot meet its mission under current management, and..." It's extremely strange to make it clear the firing is for cause, and to be vague about the cause, and then to issue statements that whatever the cause was it was not related to fiduciary issues or AI safety. It really does amount to "he did something really bad that created a crisis we had no choice but to respond to precipitously... but it wasn't all that bad and we don't want to talk about it" situation. I think "incompetent seems likely" is the only reasonable conclusion here.
- jackconsidine 3y agoThis is pedantic and unnecessary, but Caesar was undefeated militarily. His battle against Pompey was remarkable because of how much the odds were stacked against him. Most of the senate sided with Pompey because his victory seemed like a foregone conclusion. Worth noting that Pompey's march was spurred at least in part by Caesar's ambition- Stalwarts of the Republic like Cato and Cicero supported Pompey as the lesser of two evils. In short there's a lot of nuance. (Caesar was also famous for being great to his soldiers, being apathetic about wealth, and inspiring incredible leadership)
- maxnoe 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gergovia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gergovia
- oh_sigh 3y agoTo be even more unnecessary, his invasion of Britain in 55BC was essentially a defeat. Having said that, it was a solid propaganda victory even though Caesar was teetering on the edge of massive disaster, and what he did a year later means what happened in 55BC can easily be disregarded.
- two_in_one 3y agoToo late and too little. The AI genie is out of the bottle. I'm afraid it's stable and can defend itself.
- arxpoetica 3y agoHow often do you think about the Roman Empire[1]? [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-roman-empire-tiktok-trend-why-are-people-asking-men-how-often-think/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-roman-empire-tiktok-trend-w...
- jschveibinz 3y agothanks for the chuckle
- fernandotakai 3y agofunny enough, my wife asked me this question and when i answered "almost daily" she was really confused. she knew i read meditations a lot, but she never really tied it to the roman empire.
- hilux 3y agoI've been enjoying _The Practicing Stoic_ recently. Wade Farnsworth does a great job of tying together lessons and a framework from a bunch of different stoic thinkers.
- fb03 3y agoIlya signed the resignation petition as well (signatary #12). Now that's confusing.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoIt's almost like Ilya was sitting at his desk programming, deep in thought, someone stopped by and said 'sign this', and he does. Then few hours later he finishes programming and sees the news that he voted out Sam.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothat would be a credible reason to remove him from the board, not an excuse for why he doesn't agree with his own signature.
- rvba 3y agoWith 4 people on the board, the other 3 can vote him out too
- secondcoming 3y agoI find it really odd that people refer to the people involved on a first name basis. It's like there's a fan club for high-profile individuals involved in tech.
- bitcharmer 3y agoFollowing this bizarre mass hysteria caused by a salesman being let go from a tech shop I am now expecting this individual to become the next US president.
- rurban 3y agoBecause almost noone can write his last name right. Here on HN we get it consistently wrong, in the Bloomberg article there are two conflicting and different variants. Суцкевер / Sutskever would be right.
- varjag 3y agoIt's incredible how Altman's ousting of Musk flies over the author's head. Guess it's easy to ignore when you are hell bent on making an overstretched analogy.
- skywhopper 3y agoI think this is probably the right take -- that Sam was getting more credit than others felt he deserved, and because of that attention maybe was not treating everyone with the respect they felt they deserved -- but this struck me as odd: "So, Ilya .... decided to take him out. [T]hey gave us some EA reasoning about how "scared" they were about what Sam was pursuing..." Did they? I never heard any "EA" reasoning, or any reasoning at all from the board beyond their statement that he was insufficiently candid.
- chernevik 3y agoShakespeare's Brutus speech is brilliant, turning "Brutus is an honorable man" from econium to deadly sarcasm. "[Shakespeare's] version of Mark Antony's speech is probably the greatest written speech ever" Let us not forget the Gettysburg Address, which is the pivot point not of a factional quarrel but a national repurposing to equality, and shorter to boot. Quibbling can be fun!
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoAren't we seeing the same thing in the US? Many of our institutions are more held together by 'un-written social norms' and someone like Trump can just ignore them. Do laws even matter now? Just like in Rome, the positions of power do 'what they can get away with', not what any 'law' says they can do. The US has had past 'coup' plots. Even going back to Washington. Really if Washington hadn't been such boy scout, true believer, would we even have a US Republic? Basically, the US has been more fragile than we would like to acknowledge.
- tatrajim 3y agoUnwritten social norm #251: it is wholly acceptable to lie under oath to the secret FISA intelligence court to get permission for surveillance on one's political enemies.
- dude2000bc 3y agoIt is a good story, but facts seems to indicate that essentially the rest of the board wanted Sam out before he was not keeping them in the loop for things they didn't want to hear. They got Ilya on their side. Now they have got rid of Mira as well. Mira and Ilya and 500+ employees are threatening to quit if the board doesn't back down. So it seems Ilya was not the main driver of the coup but essentially went along with it initially but changed his opinion after seeing what that would do, but the rest of the board were not willing to back down.
- rurban 3y agoIt must have been Ilya. His AGI hype went ridicule. His safety project went nowhere, so Sam had a 2nd team to do it better without telling him. Sam didn't tell Ilya that his approach sucked, only another board member.
- dbuser99 3y agoThey should not have expected the OpenAI staff to follow Ilya after Sams exit. Sam’s policies are a lot more lucrative for the openAI staff. The staff is acting in their own interest as well
- sdfghswe 3y agoHN loves telling everyone how HN is just for high quality content... ... unless people from SV are involved, in which case HN is flooded with gossip and drama.
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoI do agree that some merging of the threads (like the Verge article and the Twitter post) is in order.
- samrus 3y agowhat an imaginative count of events. this guy should definitely work on the inevitable netflix documentary.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]