4 ms·

> There's no way to read any of this other than that the entire operation is a clown show. In that reading Altman is head clown. Everyone is blaming the board,

> There's no way to read any of this other than that the entire operation is a clown show. In that reading Altman is head clown. Everyone is blaming the board, but you're no genius if you can't manage your board effectively. As CEO you have to bring everyone along with your vision; customers, employees and the board.

lambic2 3y ago
I don't get this take. No matter how good you are at managing people, you cannot manage clowns into making wise decisions, especially if they are plotting in secret (which obviously was the case here since everyone except for the clowns were caught completely off-guard).
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Can't help but feel it was Altman that struck first. MS effectively Nokia-ed OpenAI - i.e. buyout executives within the organization and have them push the organization towards making deals with MS, giving MS a measure of control over said organization - even if not in writing, they achieve some political control. Bought-out executives eventually join MS after their work is done or in this case, they get fired. A variant of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Guess the OpenAI we knew, was going to die one way or another the moment they accepted MS's money.
- JeremyNT 3y ago
  Consider that Altman was a founder of OpenAI and has been the only consistent member of the board for its entire run. The board as currently constituted isn't some random group of people - Altman was (or should have been) involved in the selection of the current members. To extent that they're making bad decisions, he has to bear some responsibility for letting things get to where they are now. And of course this is all assuming that Altman is "right" in this conflict, and that the board had no reason to oust him. That seems entirely plausible, but I wouldn't take it for granted either. It's clear by this flex that he holds great sway at MS and with OpenAI employees, but do they all know the full story either? I wouldn't count on it.
  - 93po 3y ago
    There’s a LOT that goes into picking board members outside of competency and whether you actually want them there. They’re likely there for political reasons and Sam didn’t care because he didn’t see it impacting him at all, until they got stupid and thought they actually held any leverage at all
  - random_cynic 3y ago
    If he has great sway with Microsoft and OpenAI employees how has he failed as a leader? Hackernews commenters are becoming more and more reddit everyday.
topspin 3y ago
> In that reading Altman is head clown. That's a good bet. 10 months ago Microsoft's newest star employee figured he was on the way to "break capitalism." https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-agi-break-capitalism https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-agi-break-capitalis...
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  AGI hype is a powerful hallucinogen, and some are smoking way too much of it.
  - 93po 3y ago
    I think it’s overly simplistic to make blanket statements like this unless you’re on the bleeding edge of the work in this industry and have some sort of insight that literally no one else does.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
      I can be on the bleeding edge of whatever you like and be no closer to having any insight into AGI anymore than anyone else. Anyone who claims they have should be treated with suspicion (Altman is a fine example here). There is no concrete definition of intelligence, let alone AGI. It's a nerdy fantasy term, a hallowed (and feared!) goal with a very handwavy, circular definition. Right now it's 100% hype.
      - coder-3 3y ago
        You don't think AGI is feasible? GPT is already useful. Scaling reliably and predictably yields increases in capabilities. As its capabilities increase it becomes more general. Multimodal models and the use of tools further increase generality. And that's within the current transformer architecture paradigm; once we start reasonably speculating, there're a lot of avenues to further increase capabilities e.g. a better architecture over transformers, better architecture in general, better/more GPUs, better/more data etc. Even if capabilities plateau there are other options like specialised fine-tuned models for particular domains like medicine/law/education. I find it harder to imagine a future where AGI (even if it's not superintelligent) does not have a huge and fundamental impact.
sebzim4500 3y ago
He probably didn't consider that the board would make such an incredibly stupid decision. Some actions are so inexplicable that no one can reasonable foresee them.

lambic2 3y ago

I don't get this take. No matter how good you are at managing people, you cannot manage clowns into making wise decisions, especially if they are plotting in secret (which obviously was the case here since everyone except for the clowns were caught completely off-guard).

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
Can't help but feel it was Altman that struck first. MS effectively Nokia-ed OpenAI - i.e. buyout executives within the organization and have them push the organization towards making deals with MS, giving MS a measure of control over said organization - even if not in writing, they achieve some political control. Bought-out executives eventually join MS after their work is done or in this case, they get fired. A variant of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Guess the OpenAI we knew, was going to die one way or another the moment they accepted MS's money.
JeremyNT 3y ago
Consider that Altman was a founder of OpenAI and has been the only consistent member of the board for its entire run. The board as currently constituted isn't some random group of people - Altman was (or should have been) involved in the selection of the current members. To extent that they're making bad decisions, he has to bear some responsibility for letting things get to where they are now. And of course this is all assuming that Altman is "right" in this conflict, and that the board had no reason to oust him. That seems entirely plausible, but I wouldn't take it for granted either. It's clear by this flex that he holds great sway at MS and with OpenAI employees, but do they all know the full story either? I wouldn't count on it.
- 93po 3y ago
  There’s a LOT that goes into picking board members outside of competency and whether you actually want them there. They’re likely there for political reasons and Sam didn’t care because he didn’t see it impacting him at all, until they got stupid and thought they actually held any leverage at all
- random_cynic 3y ago
  If he has great sway with Microsoft and OpenAI employees how has he failed as a leader? Hackernews commenters are becoming more and more reddit everyday.

topspin 3y ago

> In that reading Altman is head clown. That's a good bet. 10 months ago Microsoft's newest star employee figured he was on the way to "break capitalism." https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-agi-break-capitalism https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-agi-break-capitalis...

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
AGI hype is a powerful hallucinogen, and some are smoking way too much of it.
- 93po 3y ago
  I think it’s overly simplistic to make blanket statements like this unless you’re on the bleeding edge of the work in this industry and have some sort of insight that literally no one else does.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    I can be on the bleeding edge of whatever you like and be no closer to having any insight into AGI anymore than anyone else. Anyone who claims they have should be treated with suspicion (Altman is a fine example here). There is no concrete definition of intelligence, let alone AGI. It's a nerdy fantasy term, a hallowed (and feared!) goal with a very handwavy, circular definition. Right now it's 100% hype.
    - coder-3 3y ago
      You don't think AGI is feasible? GPT is already useful. Scaling reliably and predictably yields increases in capabilities. As its capabilities increase it becomes more general. Multimodal models and the use of tools further increase generality. And that's within the current transformer architecture paradigm; once we start reasonably speculating, there're a lot of avenues to further increase capabilities e.g. a better architecture over transformers, better architecture in general, better/more GPUs, better/more data etc. Even if capabilities plateau there are other options like specialised fine-tuned models for particular domains like medicine/law/education. I find it harder to imagine a future where AGI (even if it's not superintelligent) does not have a huge and fundamental impact.

sebzim4500 3y ago

He probably didn't consider that the board would make such an incredibly stupid decision. Some actions are so inexplicable that no one can reasonable foresee them.