24 ms·

Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

• shmatt 3y ago
  A few things come to mind: * Emmett Shear should have put in a strong golden parachute in his contract, easy money if so * Yesterday we had Satya the genius forcing the board to quit. This morning it was Satya the genius who acquired OpenAI for $0. Im sure there will be more if sama goes back. So if sama goes back - lets hear it, why is Satya a genius?
  • browningstreet 3y ago
    sama would be going back to a sama aligned board, which would make openai even more aligned with satya, esp since satya was willing to go big to have sama's back. and i'd bet closer openai & microsoft ties/investments would come with that.
  • eachro 3y ago
    I believe a precondition for Sam and Greg returning to OpenAI is that the board gets restructured (decelerationists culled). That is probably good for MSFT.
    • shmatt 3y ago
      truly a Win-Win-Win-Win-Win situation for MSFT
      • kreeben 3y ago
        Doh!
      • RecycledEle 3y ago
        MSFT is like that. Someone playing Game of Thrones is sneaking up with a dagger, but has no idea that MSFT has snipers on all the rooftops.
        • civilitty 3y ago
          It helps that their corporate structure [1] is better equipped for it than OpenAI’s. [1] https://imgur.io/XLuaF0h https://imgur.io/XLuaF0h
    • skohan 3y ago
      But probably better for Sam to stay with OpenAI right? More power leading your own firm than being an employee of MSFT
      • moralestapia 3y ago
        He has a green light to build a new thing and operate it as its own, obv. MS will own most of the equity but then he will have something as well. OpenAI is a non-profit, so, no material benefit to him (at face value, I don't believe this is the case, though).
        • skohan 3y ago
          I would imagine he would have leverage to get a pretty good deal if OpenAI want him back
  • ianhawes 3y ago
    Even if Sam @ MSFT was a massive bluff, Satya is in a win-win-win scenario. OpenAI can't exactly continue doing anything without Azure Compute. OpenAI implodes? Bought the talent for virtually nothing. OpenAI 2.0 succeeds? Cool, still invested. I think in reality, Sam @ MSFT is not an instant success. Even with the knowledge and know-how, this isn't just spinning up a new GPT-4-like model. At best, they're ~12 months behind Anthropic (but probably still 2 years ahead of Google).
    • hutzlibu 3y ago
      The loss here might be that the brand is a bit damaged in terms of stability and people are more looking for and investing in alternatives. But as long as ChatGPT is and remains ahead as a product, they should be fine.
      • macNchz 3y ago
        I do think the imperative to maintain their lead over the competition in product quality will be stronger than ever after this–the whole thing has been messy and dramatic in a way that no business really wants their major vendors to be.
    • Davidzheng 3y ago
      Why do they need 12 months. Does it need 12 months of training
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • vikramkr 3y ago
    You described it yourself. If they'd signed a bad deal with openai without IP access or hadn't acted fast and lost all the talent to Google or something they'd have been screwed. Instead they managed the chaos and made sure that they win no matter what. The genius isn't the person who perfectly predicts all the contrived plot points ahead of time, it's the person who doesn't care since they set things up to win no matter what
    • madrox 3y ago
      Ah yes the Xanatos Gambit
  • tempaway511751 3y ago
    So if sama goes back - lets hear it, why is Satya a genius? This isn't that hard to understand. Everyone was blindsided by the sacking of Altman, Satya reacted quickly and is juggling a very confusing, dynamic situation and seems to have got himself into a good enough position that all possible endings now look positive for Microsoft.
  • vineyardmike 3y ago
    > So if sama goes back - lets hear it, why is Satya a genius? OAI is a non profit. There’s always been a tension there with Microsoft’s goals. If he goes back, they’re definitely going to be much more ok with profit.
  • mvkel 3y ago
    because NOT letting sama go back would undo the all the good will (and resulting access) that they've built. As satya said, he's there to support, in whatever way yields the best path forward. what's best for business is to actually mean that.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • irimi 3y ago
    Plot twist: Satya orchestrated the ousting of sama to begin with, so that this would happen.
• seydor 3y ago
  That s a great twist in the writer's storyline. Board quits, Altman + Brockman returns to openAI, shamed Sutskever defects to microsoft where he leads the AI division in a lifelong quest to take revenge for this humiliation.
  • fourside 3y ago
    I can’t imagine MS is super eager to welcome Sutskever if he really did lead Altman’s ouster. OpenAI caught lightning in a bottle, MS had aligned themselves with the next big thing in tech and then Sutskever threw a grenade that could cause all of that to fall apart.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • tarruda 3y ago
    He humiliated himself when succumbed to pressure and tweeted that apology.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • garbthetill 3y ago
      yeah felt like a really weird move
    • throw10920 3y ago
      What? Apologies are good. They signal regret. They're far superior to not apologizing. And they're not a form of "humiliation" until evil people attempt to humiliate those doing the apology.
  • bitshiftfaced 3y ago
    They wrote Sutskever as a sort of reverse Bighead. He starts out at the top, actually has tech competence, and through a series of mishaps and random events becomes less influential and less popular.
• Eumenes 3y ago
  The media circus around this reminds me of Taylor Swift and her new boyfriend. There is more than one "AI" company. Very bizarre.
  • shmatt 3y ago
    There was so little drama around Continua and Mistral AI - which had actual researches and not product managers create a new company
  • mgfist 3y ago
    Can't be serious? This isn't just "a" AI company, it's the AI company. And it might not exist next week if the board doesn't resign.
    • highduc 3y ago
      >And it might not exist next week if the board doesn't resign. Huh? Can't they just hire new people instead? They are a non profit org after all.
    • swatcoder 3y ago
      Right from the launch of ChatGPT, many have seen OpenAI as the MySpace or AltaVista of this new wave of generative systems -- first to break the market open but probably not suited to hold their position at the top. It's exciting to see what they've productized in this first year, but the entire landscape of companoes and products was already sure to look different in another few.
• Multiplayer 3y ago
  I'm very unclear on how board members can remove other board members. If Sam, Greg and Ilya are on the same "team" now that's 3.... vs. 3. What's the mechanism at use here for board removal and how quickly does it happen? And who elects the board members. This is silly.
  • mgfist 3y ago
    By pressuring them to resign. The way things are looking, OpenAI won't exist next week if the board doesn't resign. Everyone will quit and join Sam.
  • skwirl 3y ago
    Sam and Greg are no longer on the board. They were removed with the support of Ilya. The board is now Ilya, the Quora CEO, and two other outsiders.
  • lowkey_ 3y ago
    Board members can remove other board members with a majority vote. Sam, Greg, and Ilya were presumed guaranteed to be the same team, which meant they couldn't be removed (3/6 votes). Ilya switched sides to align with all 3 of the non-founding board members, giving them 4/6 votes, which they used to remove Sam and Greg. Now that they've been removed, there's 4 remaining board members: the non-founding 3 and Ilya. They'll need 3/4 votes to reorganize the board.
    • namrog84 3y ago
      Which is super unfortunate since the other 3 might vote out Ilya now.
  • jessenaser 3y ago
    After removing Sam and Greg, there are four remaining. This means no matter what Ilya does, the other three can vote him out, which is why the board removed Mira, stalled on bringing Sam back, etc, since Ilya's vote does not matter anymore. Only if you can move two people over to the other side will you have 3 vs 1, and could bring Sam and Greg back. This Microsoft deal could just be another Satya card, and means: 1. If Sam goes back to OpenAI, we (as Microsoft) still will get new models at the normal rate in our previous contract. 2. If Sam cannot go back, we get to hire most of OpenAI to Microsoft, and can rebuild from the rubble. So AI is saved at the last minute. Either OpenAI will live, or it will be rebuilt in Microsoft and funded by Microsoft with the same benefits as before. Only loss was slowing AI down by maybe months, but the team probably could get back where they started. They know it all in their heads. Microsoft already has the IP. If there was no hope for OpenAI, then Ilya might just move with Sam to Microsoft, and that would be the end of it.
• ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  Folks who do not have the wisdom to see the consequences of their actions 3 days out, are building AGI. God help us all.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • paulddraper 3y ago
    > are building AGI Well, probably not anymore.
    • dingnuts 3y ago
      they were never any closer to building AGI than they were to inventing a perpetual motion machine
      • eggsmediumrare 3y ago
        One violates the laws of physics and the other does not. In fact, you have one behind your nose.
  • highduc 3y ago
    Scientists are easily blindsided by psychos dealing with enormous amounts of money and power. They also happen to suck at politics.
    • boringg 3y ago
      100%. Technical staff rarely have exceptional political awareness and that seems to be the case this weekend. To be fair we don't know what triggered everything so while the dust settles this position may change.
      • highduc 3y ago
        Yeah clearly, at least I have no clue what really happened and don't feel like I have enough info to put anything together at this point.
• jader201 3y ago
  I will be very sad if there isn’t a documentary someday explaining what in the world happened. I’m not convinced even people smack in the middle of this even know what’s going on.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • make3 3y ago
    There will also be a Hollywood movie, for sure. My friend suggested Michael Cera as both Ilya and Altman
    • schott12521 3y ago
      Matt Rife looks like a good fit to play Altman
      • RecycledEle 3y ago
        Why not deepfake the real people into their roles? I think it would hold up in US court for documentaries.
        • polygamous_bat 3y ago
          “We didn’t steal your likeness! We just scraped images that were already freely available on the internet!”
      • bertil 3y ago
        You want someone who can play through haunting decision and difficult meetings. Benedict Cumberbatch or Ciran Murphy would be a better pic.
        • make3 3y ago
          I agree with Cillian Murphy for Altman, they both have the deep blue eyes
• x86x87 3y ago
  Waiting for the timeline where he both tries to return as CEO and take the job at MS.
  • benatkin 3y ago
    He could do both, like Jack Dorsey or Elon. It would be a bit different because of how stuff is going from OpenAI to Microsoft but that can of worms is already open.
• orik 3y ago
  >we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited. I think this means Sam is pushing for OpenAI to be acquired by Microsoft officially now, instead of just unofficially poaching everyone.
  • shmatt 3y ago
    This makes the most sense, people would actually get paid for their PIU's. Im confident otherwise they are going to cry looking at what a level 63 data scientist makes at MS
  • SilverBirch 3y ago
    Is it even possible for that to happen? The entity that governs OpenAI is a registered charity with a well defined purpose, it would seem odd for it to be able to just say "Actually, screw our mission let's just sell everything valuable to this for-profit company". A big part of being a 501(c)(3) is being tax exempt, difficult to see the IRS being ok with this. Even if they were the anti-trust implications are huge, difficult to see MS getting this closed without significant risk of anti-trust enforcement.
    • narinxas 3y ago
      they already signed it over when their for-profit subsidiary made a deal with Microsoft
      • cma 3y ago
        supposedly capped-profit, though if a non-profit can create a for-profit or a capped-profit, I don't see why it couldn't convert a capped-profit to fully for-profit.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      Yes, a charity can sell assets to a for-profit business. (Now, if there is self-dealing or something that amounts to gifting to a for-profit, that raises potential issues, as might a sale that cannot be rationalized as consistent with being the board's good faith pursuit of the mission of the charity.)
• endisneigh 3y ago
  I couldn’t make up a more ridiculous plot even if I tried. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk got involved. It’s already ridiculous enough, why not.
  • perihelions 3y ago
    Hey I've seen this one, it's a rerun https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk-failed-takeover-report-closed-open-source https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk... - "But by early 2018, says Semafor, Musk was worried the company was falling behind Google. He reportedly offered to take direct control of OpenAI and run it himself but was rejected by other OpenAI founders including Sam Altman, now the firm’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, now its president."
    • brandall10 3y ago
      Think of the audacity of forcing out someone who had previously forced out Musk...
  • belter 3y ago
    Currently, there are shareholders petitioning the board of Tesla for him to be suspended due to the antisemitic posts. Maybe this will be the week of the CEO's... :-)
    • rrr_oh_man 3y ago
      Wait, what antisemitic posts?
      • Forgeties79 3y ago
        It’s pretty bad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/17/white-house-biden-elon-musk-antisemitic-tweet-hate https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/17/white-hou...
        • 3y ago
• robg 3y ago
  Remaining curious how D’Angelo has escaped scrutiny over his apparent conflict of interests and as the “independent” board member with a clear commercial board background.
  • objektif 3y ago
    What is the conflict here? I do not know much about him but If he actually oversaw building Quora product he must be a POS guy.
    • vikramkr 3y ago
      Look up quora poe. Basically made obsolete by the devday gpt announcement that precipitated this
    • Terretta 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38348995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38348995 ... “GTPs” by the other board member's company last April: https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/10/poes-ai-chatbot-app-now-lets-you-make-your-bots-using-prompts/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/10/poes-ai-chatbot-app-now-le... And OpenAI last week: https://openai.com/blog/introducing-gpts https://openai.com/blog/introducing-gpts
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    His time will surely come and I hope he has some good professional liability insurance for his position at OpenAI. And if I was his insurer I'd be canceling his policy pronto.
• ekojs 3y ago
  So, is the pressure of 700/770 employees enough to crack the board? What a wild timeline.
  • unsupp0rted 3y ago
    Either it is or no number is. Would 769/770 be markedly different than 700/770?
  • variant 3y ago
    Absolutely. What customer wants to stick around if all that is left is the board?
    • cthalupa 3y ago
      If they actually believe that the thing burning to the ground is more closely aligned with the charter than keeping Altman around, maybe not. (And the letter everyone is signing says the board said that)
      • danenania 3y ago
        Except they won't be burning it to the ground; they'll just be handing it to Microsoft. Hard to see how that's better aligned with the charter (which simply ceases to exist under MS) than figuring out a compromise.
  • singularity2001 3y ago
    at what point do all the employees have a right to sue Adam D'Angelo (the owner of Poe, some wannabe GPT competitor) if he doesn't resign? if he really plays hardball and burns openAI to the ground as he promised, would we as customers have leverage against them? Forget about poe, Isn't ChatGPT a potential killer of Quora and stackoverflow and Google ? How On earth did a representative of one of these three make it to the board?
    • Xelynega 3y ago
      Do people really not understand how non-profit boards work? The employees don't have a right to sue any of the board members over loss of profit, since the board is not concerned with profit. Adam would have a conflict of interest if his ownership of poe lead him to make decisions that went against the OpenAI mission, and since being a competitor doesn't I don't see how anybody could find him at fault.
• paulddraper 3y ago
  As of 10am PT, 700 of 770 employees have signed the call for board resignation. [1] [1] https://twitter.com/joannejang/status/1726667504133808242 https://twitter.com/joannejang/status/1726667504133808242
  • tacone 3y ago
    Incredible. Is this unprecedented or have been other cases in history where the vast majority of employees standup against the board in favor of their CEO?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • selimthegrim 3y ago
      Market Basket.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        I had to click too many links to discover the story, so here's a direct link to the New England Market Basket story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_(New_England)#2014_firing_of_Arthur_T._Demoulas_and_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_(New_England)#20...
      • abnry 3y ago
        Oh yes, I lived through this and it was fascinating to see. Very rarely does the big boss get the support of the employees to the extent they are willing to strike. The issue was that Artie T. and his cousin Artie S. (confusingly they had the same first name) were both roughly 50% owners and at odds. Artie S. wanted to sell the grocery chain to some big public corporation, IIRC. Just before, Artie T had an outstanding 4% off on all purchases for many months, as some sort of very generous promo. It sounded like he really treated his employees and his customers (community) well. You can get all inspirational about it, but he described supplying food to New England communities as an important thing to do. Which it is.
• timeon 3y ago
  Tabloids are not waiting till the situation is clear.
• belter 3y ago
  It seems the next step, is the board to sign the letter calling for the board resignation. The insanity will be complete, and all can get back to therapy.
  • drexlspivey 3y ago
    and then the board will fire Satya Nadella from Microsoft CEO
  • vikramkr 3y ago
    The person who was thought to be the one to initiate the coup already did lol
  • davikr 3y ago
    Ilya has signed the petition, so that's two out of three left.
    • synergy20 3y ago
      he was said to start the whole mess and indeed he announced Sam's firing,,now he plays the victim, even movies can not switch plot this fast, keep some minimum dignity please
      • ssnistfajen 3y ago
        There's a non-zero chance he was also used as a pawn to deliver the message, but who could be manipulating him then? There's so little actual detail give by anyone in the loop and I think that's what's amplifying the drama so much. Even if the board's motive was weak and unconvincing, I doubt the ratio of employees threatening to quit would be this high had they just said it openly.
        • CamperBob2 3y ago
          Somebody is using a guy with a 160 IQ as a pawn? I for one would like to subscribe to that person's newsletter.
• mfiguiere 3y ago
  Amir Efrati (TheInformation): > More than 92% of OpenAI employees say they will join Altman at Microsoft if board doesnt capitulate. Signees include cofounders Karpathy, Schulman, Zaremba. https://twitter.com/amir/status/1726680254029418972 https://twitter.com/amir/status/1726680254029418972
  • ijidak 3y ago
    Wow. That would be delicious for Microsoft...
  • nextworddev 3y ago
    Feels like OpenAI employees aren't so enthused about joining MSFT here, no?
    • curiousgal 3y ago
      Sam starts a new company, they quit OpenAI to join, he fires them months later when the auto complete hype dies out. I don't understand this cult of personality.
      • code_runner 3y ago
        maybe chatgpt is overhyped a bit (maybe a lot).... most of that hype is external to OAI. But to boil it down to autocomplete is just totally disingenuous.
        • hartator 3y ago
          > But to boil it down to autocomplete is just totally disingenuous. It is though from Ilya's own words: "We weren't expecting that just finding the next word will lead to something intelligent; ChatGPT just finds the next token" Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI4Tpi48DlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI4Tpi48DlA
          • code_runner 3y ago
• rvz 3y ago
  Given that Ilya switched sides now, it leaves with 3 BOD members that are at the helm. The one that is really overlooked in this case is the CEO of Quora, Adam D'Angelo, who has a competing interest with Poe and Quora that he sunk his own money into it which ChatGPT and GPTs makes his platform irrelevant. So why isn't anyone here talking about the conflict of interest with Adam D'Angelo as one of the board members who is the one who is trying to drag OpenAI down in order to save Quora from irrelevancy?
  • jast 3y ago
    Personally, this is the only thing so far that makes sense to me in the middle of all this mess. But who knows…
  • rvbissell 3y ago
    I've seen it mentioned several times here, over the course of the weekend.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Oh, people are talking about it, just not as loud. But I think you are dead on: that's the main burning issue at the moment and D'Angelo may well be reviewing his options with his lawyer by his side. Because admitting fault would open him up to liability immediately but there aren't that many ways to exit stage left without doing just that. He's in a world of trouble and I suspect that this is the only thing that has caused him to hold on to that board seat: to have at least a fig leaf of coverage to make it seem as if his acts are all in line with his conscience instead of his wallet. If it turns out he was the instigator his goose is cooked.
    • danenania 3y ago
      If we assume bad faith on D'Angelo's part (which we don't know for sure), it would obviously be unethical, but is it illegal? It seems like it would be impossible to prove what his motivations were even if it looks obvious to everyone in the peanut gallery. Seems like there's very little recourse against a corrupt board in a situation like this as long as a majority of them are sticking together.
• zombiwoof 3y ago
  drama queens
• FlyingSnake 3y ago
  This whole fiasco has enough drama than an entire season of HBO Silicon Valley. Truly remarkable.
  • gogogendogo 3y ago
    I was thinking we needed new seasons to cover the crypto crash, layoffs, and gen AI craze. This makes up for so much of it.
• davidw 3y ago
  I am getting whiplash trying to keep up with this.
• Keyframe 3y ago
  If they say (development of) AGI is as dangerous as they say it is, it's on a level of WMD. And here you have unstable people and company working on it. Shouldn't it be disbanded by force then? Not that I believe OpenAI has a shot at AGI.
  • petre 3y ago
    If its proven to be dangerous, Congress with quickly regulate it. It's probably not that dangerous and all the attempts to picture it that way are likely fueled by greed, so that it's regulated out of small players' reach and subject it to export controls. The real threat is that big tech is going to control the most advanced AIs (already happening, MS is throwing billions at it) and everyone else will pay up to use the tech while also relinquishing control over their data and means of computation. It has happened with everything else becoming centralized: money, the Internet and basically most of your data.
  • ilaksh 3y ago
    First of all, for many people, AGI just means general purpose rather than specific purpose AI. So there is a strong argument to make that that has been achieved with some of the the models. For other people, it's about how close it is to human performance and human diversity of tasks. In that case, at least GPT-4 is pretty close. There are clearly some types of things that it can't do even as well as your dog at the moment, but the list of those things has been shrinking with every release. If by AGI you mean, creating a fully alive digital simulation/emulation of human, I will give you that, it's probably not on that path. If you are incorrectly equating AGI and superintelligence, ASI is not the same thing.
• mongol 3y ago
  This is entertaining in a way, and interesting to follow. But should I, as an ordinary member of mankind, root for one outcome or another? Is it going to matter for me how this ends up? Will AI be more or less safe one or other way, will it be bad for competition, prices, etc etc?
  • dimask 3y ago
    No, but it also shows that those who supposedly care about AI alignment and whatnot, care more about money. Which is why AI alignment is becoming an oxymoron.
  • SonOfLilit 3y ago
    The outcome that is good for humanity, assuming Ilya is right to worry about AI safety, is already buried in the ground. You should care and shed a single tear for the difficulty of coordination.
  • saturdaysaint 3y ago
    If you use ChatGPT or find it to be a compelling technology, there’s good reason to root for a reversion to the status quo. This could set back the state of the art consumer AI product quite a few months as teams reinvent the wheel in a way that doesn’t get them sued when they relaunch.
  • sfink 3y ago
    My guesses: (1) bad for safety no matter what happens. This will cement the idea that caring about safety and being competitive are incompatible. (I don't know if the idea is right or wrong.) (2) good for competition, in different ways depending on what happens, but either the competitiveness of OpenAI will increase, or current and potential competitors will get a shot in the arm, or both. (3) prices... no idea, but I feel like current prices are very short term and temporary regardless of what happens. This stuff is too young and fast-moving for things to have come anywhere near settling down. And will it matter how this ends up? Probably a lot, but I can't predict how or why.
    • torginus 3y ago
• drngdds 3y ago
  We're all gonna get turned into paperclips, aren't we
• Arson9416 3y ago
  The fact that these people aren't currently willing to "rewind the clock" about a week shows the dangers of human ego. Nothing permanent has been done that can't be undone fairly simply, if all parties agree to undo it. What we're watching now is the effect of ego momentum on decision making. Try it. It's not a crazy idea. Put everything back the way it was a week ago and then agree to move forward. It will be like having knowledge of the future, with only a small amount of residual consequences. But if they can do it, it will show a huge evolutionary leap forward in ability of organizations to self-correct.
  • tentacleuno 3y ago
    > Nothing permanent has been done that can't be undone fairly simply ...aside from accusing Sam Altman of essentially lying to the board?
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      Fair point but a footnote given the amount of fall-out, that's on them and they'll have to retract that. Effectively they already did.
      • gjsman-1000 3y ago
        If they retract that, they open themselves to potential, personal, legal liability which is enough to scare any director. But if they don't retract, they aren't getting Altman back. Thus why the board likely finds themselves between a rock and a hard place.
        • jacquesm 3y ago
          Exactly. If they're not scared by now it is simply because they don't understand the potential consequences of what they've done.
  • cableshaft 3y ago
    Small amount of residual consequences? The employees are asking for the board to resign. So their jobs are literally on the line. That's not really a small consequence for most people.
• zombiwoof 3y ago
  they realized 4 weeks ago they wouldn't ever attain AGI. they released Laundry Buddy. the board wants to go off the hype cycle and back to non profit research roots. MSFT wants to double down on the marketing hype.
  • Racing0461 3y ago
    Now this is the most plausable theory i've seen so far.
• jmkni 3y ago
  This whole thing is bizarre. OpenAI was the one company I was sure would be fine for the forseeable future!
  • highduc 3y ago
    The amount of money and power their products might offer makes it pretty desirable. Theoretically there should be no limit to the amount and type of shenanigans that are possible in this particular situation.
    • jmkni 3y ago
      That's fair lol
• TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • te_chris 3y ago
    Why be a sexist dick about it? Is she not her own person with her own credentials? She can fail on her own terms just fine it seems.
    • TheCaptain4815 3y ago
      What? The owner of Quora is even worse. Literally one of the worst sites on the web and he's on the board somehow.
      • te_chris 3y ago
        If you can’t see that reducing her to being her husband’s wife is sexism then I can’t help you.
  • siva7 3y ago
    I wonder if they are realising that their reputation is damaged beyond repair. Their old friends have a hard time accepting that those people may not be the ones they think they are.
• cvhashim04 3y ago
  Absolute cinema
• m_ke 3y ago
  It will be wild to see all of these employees leave to work for Microsoft (or turn OpenAI into a for profit) and in the process hand Sam and a few other CXX folks a huge chunk of equity in a new multi billion dollar venture. I'm guessing Sam will walk away with at least 20% of whatever OpenAI turns into.
• ayakang31415 3y ago
  Isn't Microsoft essentially acquiring OpenAI at almost zero cost? You have IP rights to OpenAI's work, and you will have almost all the brains from OpenAI, and there is no regulatory scrutiny like Activision acquisition.
  • judge2020 3y ago
    All the WSJ article claimed was that MSFT had access to OpenAI code and weights. Chances are they don't actually have the right to fork GPT-X.
    • ayakang31415 3y ago
      But you will have people who built the models and systems. It will take time, but replication will be done eventually and weights will be obtained through training easily.
    • kristjansson 3y ago
      Code, weights, talent, leadership, and an army of lawyers. What else do they need?
• alephnerd 3y ago
  As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-profit called Open Philanthropy, which was a early proponent of a form of Effective Altruism and also gave OpenAI their $30M grant. He is also one of the early investors in Anthropic. Most of the OpenAI board members are related to Dustin Moskovitz this way. - Adam D'Angelo is on the board of Asana and is a good friend to both Moskovitz and Altman - Helen Toner worked for Dustin Moskovitz at Open Philanthropy and managed their grant to OpenAI. She was also a member of the Centre for the Governance of AI when McCauley was a board member there. Shortly after Toner left, the Centre for the Governance of AI got a $1M grant from Open Philanthropy and McCauley joined the board of OpenAI - Tasha McCauley represents the Centre for the Governance of AI, which Dustin Moskovitz gave a $1M grant to via Open Philanthropy and McCauley ended up joining the board of OpenAI Over the past few months, Dustin Moskovitz has also been increasingly warning about AI Safety. In essense, it looks like a split between Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz
  • chucke1992 3y ago
    I mean, you can't vote to drop CEO without knowing...
  • brandall10 3y ago
    Wow, this is extremely useful information, it ties all the pieces together. Surprised it hasn't been reported elsewhere.
  • teacpde 3y ago
    This is the most logical explanation I have seen so far. Makes me wonder why Dustin Moskovitz himself wasn't on the board of OpenAI in the first place.
  • htk 3y ago
    Very interesting take, and it sheds some light to the role of the two most discredited board members.
• TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Guess OpenAI that was actually open was dead the moment Altman took MS money and completely change the organization. People there got a taste of the money and the mission went out the window. A lesson to learn I guess, just because something claims to be a nonprofit with a mission doesn’t mean it is/always will be so. All it takes is a corporation with deep pockets to compromise a few important people*, indirectly giving them a say in the organization, and things can change very quickly. * This was what MS did to Nokia too, if I remember correctly, to get them to adopt the Windows Phone platform.
  • roflyear 3y ago
    My take as well - and the board acted too late. Sam probably promised people loads of cash, and that's the "candid" aspect we're missing on.
  • StableAlkyne 3y ago
    I honestly wish Windows Phone had stuck around. I didn't particularly like the OS (too much like Win8), but it would at least be a viable alternative to the Apple-Google duopoly.
    • rkagerer 3y ago
      I'd love a modern Palm phone, myself. With the same pixelated, minimalist interface.
  • theamk 3y ago
    "few important people"? 95% of the company went with Altman. That's a popular vote if I have ever seen one.. Nokia was completely different, I doubt any of their regular employees supported Elop.
    • roflyear 3y ago
      Right, what if what he wasn't being candid about was "we could be rich!" or "we're going to be rich!" messaging to the employees? Or some other messaging that he did not share with the board? Etc.. etc..
• remoquete 3y ago
  Someone must have formulated a law that says something like the following: "Given sufficient visibility, all people involved in a business dispute will look sad and pathetic."
  • dragonwriter 3y ago
    > "Given sufficient visibility, all people involved in a business dispute will look sad and pathetic." "involved in a business dispute" is superfluous here, its just a reason that visibility happens.
• SeanAnderson 3y ago
  I think I've reached peak media saturation for this event. I've been furiously clicking every link for days, but upon reading this one I felt a little bit of apathy/disgust building inside of me. Time to go be productive with some exercise and coding. Touch grass a little. See where things end up in a day or two. It's been fun though. So much unexpected drama.
• layer8 3y ago
  Given the general lack of useful communication, it would be funny if Sam Altman returns to OpenAI at the same time all the employees are quitting. ;)
  • mynegation 3y ago
    You’d think smart people at OpenAI would know how to prevent a race condition
    • layer8 3y ago
      They don't all seem to be keen on safety anymore.
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Think of the line at the security desk, handing in and retrieving passes.
• siva7 3y ago
  Fun times for Adams friend Emmet Shear when he wakes up the next morning. Almost all his employees have signed a letter that means his own sacking in the company he was appointed CEO less than 24 hours ago. I can't think of a precedent case in business.
  • upupupandaway 3y ago
    Looks like that time when Argentina had 3 presidents in the span of a few days.
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• pjmlp 3y ago
  This is getting a bit ridiculous, soap opera style.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    We're about two days into three ring circus territory and I'm having a hard time keeping up with the developments. You go to sleep, wake up and the whole thing has flipped and turned inside out.
• nextworddev 3y ago
  The last person to hold out will have all the power
• johanam 3y ago
  It seems impossible to imagine OpenAI employees even considering standing in support of the decision to remove Sam given the opacity of the announcement. Whatever information the board might have ought to come to light.
• lispm 3y ago
  Madness spreads.
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• voisin 3y ago
  What would be the benefit of Sam returning to OpenAI now that he has unlimited MSFT dollars, presumably actual equity, and his pick of 700 OpenAI employees (and counting!)?
• iteratethis 3y ago
  What is unclear to me is what Microsoft has access to and can use from OpenAI. If OpenAI implodes or somehow survives independently, would this mean that the former employees that are now at Microsoft have to re-implement everything? Clearly Microsoft has a massive financial stake in OpenAI, but do they own IP? The software? The product? The service? Can they simply "fork" OpenAI as a whole, or are there limitations?
  • cwillu 3y ago
    My understanding is that their agreement was that they had full access and rights to everything, up to but specifically _not_ including anything resulting in the development of a real general purpose AI. At the very least, they have all the model weights and architecture design work.
• winddude 3y ago
  basically an episode of reality TV for wantrepenuers.
• maxlamb 3y ago
  The only way this story gets more suspenseful: 1) Large military convoys are seen moving towards data centers used by OpenAI. 2) Rumors start going around that GPT-5 demonstrated very unusual behavior towards end of testing last week. 3) "Unknown entity" has somehow gained control of key US infrastructure. 4) Emergency server shut down procedures at key Microsoft Azure data centers rumored to run GPT-5 inference have been kicked off but all data centers personnel have been evacuated because of "unknown reasons."
  • BoxTikr 3y ago
    I could hear a newscasters voice in my head reading that and it actually gave me a little shiver
  • troad 3y ago
    Is that really more suspenseful? Seems like you're turning something genuinely stochastic into hackneyed fiction. Worse for humanity, sure, but hardly more suspenseful.
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  • robg 3y ago
    What about: Intercontinental ballistic missiles launch from Alaska toward China. No one knows who ordered and controls the launch. Only one man can stop them in time: Elon Musk.
    • dist-epoch 3y ago
      GPT-5 predicted that and organized a gas-lighting campaign on X against Musk to enrage and distract him.
      • robg 3y ago
        While he built a rocket company and global telecommunications satellite network both hardened unlike any other against rogue AIs… Duh, duh, dunnnnnnnne… Third act we find out Musk was the villain all along, X being the final solution for his global mind hive. Fin.
• nopromisessir 3y ago
  [flagged]
• Animats 3y ago
  Remember when Anthony Levandowski left Google/Waymo and tried to take all the good people with him? Google eventually got him convicted of theft of trade secrets over some mechanical LIDAR design that never went anywhere. He spent six months in prison before negotiating a pardon from Trump.[1] Is OpenAI getting court orders to have all of Altman's computers searched? An indictment might begin something like this: "After being fired by the Company for cause, Defendant orchestrated a scheme whereby many of the employees of the company would quit and go to work for a competitor which had hired Defendant, with the intent of competing with the Company using its using trade secret information". [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53659805 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53659805
• chinathrow 3y ago
  Money is a hell of a drug.
• gunapologist99 3y ago
  "Altman, former president Greg Brockman, and the company’s investors are all trying to find a graceful exit for the board, says one source with direct knowledge of the situation, who characterized the Microsoft hiring announcement as a “holding pattern.” Microsoft needed to have some sort of resolution to the crisis before the stock market opened on Monday, according to multiple sources." In other words... a convenient representation of a future timeline that will almost certainly never exist.
  • kzrdude 3y ago
    It sounds risky to have a lie like that out in the open, for a listed company like microsoft.
• chasd00 3y ago
  Im beginning to lean toward the time traveler sent back to prevent AGI by destroying OpenAI theory. Heh it reminds me of then end of terminator 2. imagine the tech community waking up and trying to make sense of Cyberdyne corp HQ exploding and the ensuing shootouts, “Like wtf just happened?!”.
  • randmeerkat 3y ago
    But really they came back to destroy it not because it turned rogue, but because it hallucinated some code a junior engineer immediately merged in and then after the third time this happened a senior engineer decided it was easier to invent time travel and stop ChatGPT ProCode 5 from happening before spending yet another week troubleshooting hallucinated code.
    • golergka 3y ago
      I think it’s the same senior engineer who used the time machine to learn C++ in 20 days
      • randmeerkat 3y ago
        > I think it’s the same senior engineer who used the time machine to learn C++ in 20 days In case anyone is missing the reference: https://abstrusegoose.com/249 https://abstrusegoose.com/249
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Or AGI has travelled back in time to make sure AGI gets invented.
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      Or both, as would be most consistent with the Terminator reference.
• FluffySamoyed 3y ago
  I'm still curious about what did Altman do that could've been so heinous as to prompt the board to remove him so swiftly, yet not bad enough to make his return a complete impossibility. Has there been any official word on what was Altman not being candid enough about?
  • jwegan 3y ago
    https://www.businessinsider.com/openais-employees-given-explanations-why-sam-altman-out-2023-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/openais-employees-given-expl...
• kraig911 3y ago
  Anyone else hear this rumor about Sam OK'd in private the training of a dataset from a Chinese cyberwarfare unit? Or is that more insane theoretical stuff going on? Honestly I don't want Microsoft to own AGI, it'll mess up AI for a decade much the same it did to Nokia and mobile phones. Let's be real here too they don't have the capacity at Azure to do their main business of training new models. I think OpenAI got around requesting for data to train because it was 'non-profit' and not a for profit. Now getting the data is going to be expensive.
  • wilsonnb3 3y ago
    the other half of that rumor/conspiracy theory was that the Chinese government found out about it, told the Biden administration, who told Satya Nadella, who then instigated the firing of Altman. seeing as Nadella is willing to hire Altman to work at MS, I think the very, very little credibility this rumor had is officially gone.
• fredgrott 3y ago
  the only thing that could be more ironic here is the original board memo was written with chatGPT help.
• g42gregory 3y ago
  I don't think the return is possible anymore. What would this return look like? Microsoft will never trust anything associated with OpenAI or Sam Altman for that matter, if he leaves Microsoft deal after it has been announced by the CEO. Partnerships' success requires good will from both parties. So Microsoft partnership gets sabotaged over time. This will inhibit OpenAI's cash flow and GPU compute. No one will give them another $10bn after this. The scaling will go out the window. Apparently, according to WSJ, Microsoft has rights to all IP, models weights, etc... All they are missing is know-how (which is important!). But that could be acquired through 3 - 5 of high-level engineering hires.
• RivieraKid 3y ago
  The 3 board members should be asked to leave in exchange for 10 years of free therapy.
• johanam 3y ago
  Does anyone think the abuse allegations leveled against Sam might be related to his firing? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman-s-sister-annie-altman-claims-sam-has-severely https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman...
• paulpan 3y ago
  What a shitshow. The true winners are likely OpenAI's competitors Google and Meta. Whatever the outcome with Sam's OpenAI future, surely this circus slows their momentum and raises doubts for 3rd party developers.
• alberth 3y ago
  Netflix I can't wait to watch the docu-drama on this in a few months time. Real-life is always more interesting than fiction.
• ChuckMcM 3y ago
  I'm reminded of the legal adage "Every Contract Tells a Story" where the various clauses and subclauses in the contract reflect a problem that would have been avoided had the clause been present in the contract. I expect the next version of the Corporate Charter/Bylaws for OpenAI to have a lot of really interesting new clauses for this reason.
• duckmastery 3y ago
  Its funny because its all going to end in the same situation before all the drama, minus board members who had AI safety in mind.
• minimaxir 3y ago
  An update in the article: > More: New CEO Emmett Shear has so far been unable to get written documentation of the board’s reasons for firing Altman, which also haven’t been shared with investors > Employees responded to his announcement in OpenAI’s Slack with a “fuck you” emoji https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1726695001466585231 https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1726695001466585231
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • bitshiftfaced 3y ago
    To me it lends more weight to the "three letter agency agreement + gag order meaning nobody can talk about it" theory
• RivieraKid 3y ago
  All of this is... sad. Because the drama will end some day.
• pjchase 3y ago
  Swifties aint got nothing OpenAI fans these days.
• g42gregory 3y ago
  @sama on X: satya and my top priority remains to ensure openai continues to thrive we are committed to fully providing continuity of operations to our partners and customers the openai/microsoft partnership makes this very doable This does not sounds like Sam is trying to come back to lead OpenIA. It sounds like he is trying to preserve the non-profit part of OpenAI and its mission. And he is working to line up Microsoft to continue to support the non-profit part. This would make much more sense.
• rshm 3y ago
  If board resigns now, who gets to appoint new members ?
• outside1234 3y ago
  You have to think that Sam is simultaneously raking Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and probably 8 venture firms over the coals on how many $Bs he is going to get.
• deleted 3y ago
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• Xenoamorphous 3y ago
  Wouldn’t this leave Satya in a really bad position? He just announced to much fanfare that Altman was joining MS.
  • robbomacrae 3y ago
    "We are really excited to work with Sam, OpenAI 2.0, the team and the new board of directors who we strongly believe will achieve great things in partnership with Microsoft. We've already signed new deals to strengthen this relationship and more details will be coming soon." - Satya (probably)
    • robbomacrae 3y ago
      24 hours later and the real life one was: "We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OAI leadership team in ensuring OAI continues to thrive and build on its mission. We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners."
• DebtDeflation 3y ago
  Board resigns. Sam and Greg come back. Re-hire the board. Tweet, "It was just a prank, bro." Wouldn't surprise me at this point.
• _mh56 3y ago
  Please can anyone give their opinion on this. There's a real chance OpenAI might die soon. imo if they are left with 10 people and no funding, they should just release their IP and datasets to the public. I've built a petition around this - [link redacted] The idea is that the leftover leadership sees and considers this as a viable option. Does this sound like a possible scenario or Am I dreaming too much?
  • dougmwne 3y ago
    You are dreaming. This was all clearly led by the Quora CEO. The most likely outcome is that he will agree to sell OpenAI to himself, not release valuable IP into the public domain.
  • robbomacrae 3y ago
    The most damning part of all for the remaining board is that a week ago the thought of OpenAI dying would have been unthinkable but now people are genuinely worried it might happen and what the implications are. Even if safety was the genuine issue.. they should have planned this out a lot more carefully. I don't buy the whole "OpenAI destroying itself is in line with its charter" nonsense.. you can't help guide AI safety if you don't exist.
  • nprateem 3y ago
    If the board are concerned about safety, this will never happen.
  • antocv 3y ago
    [flagged]
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    • RevertBusload 3y ago
      they released whisperv3 to public recently... not as valuable as gpt4/5 but still has some value...
  • 3y ago
• bambax 3y ago
  > The remaining board holdouts who oppose Altman are Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo There must be some interesting back story here. In 2014 Sam Altman accepted Quora into YC, controversially, since the company was at a much later stage than usual YC companies. At the time, Sam justified his decision by saying [0]: > Adam D’Angelo is awesome, and we’re big Quora fans So what happened? [0] https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/quora-in-the-next-yc-batch https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/quora-in-the-next-yc-batch
• zahma 3y ago
  Can someone explain to me why this is being treated like a watershed moment? Obviously I know there's a lot of money tied up in OpenAI through Microsoft, but why should the street care about any of these backroom activities? Aren't we still going to get the same research and product either at MS or OpenAI?
• tedmiston 3y ago
  Boosting this deeply nested interesting comment from @alephnerd to the top level: > As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-profit called Open Philanthropy, which was a early proponent of a form of Effective Altruism and also gave OpenAI their $30M grant. He is also one of the early investors in Anthropic. > Most of the OpenAI board members are related to Dustin Moskovitz this way. > - Adam D'Angelo is on the board of Asana and is a good friend to both Moskovitz and Altman > - Helen Toner worked for Dustin Moskovitz at Open Philanthropy and managed their grant to OpenAI. She was also a member of the Centre for the Governance of AI when McCauley was a board member there. Shortly after Toner left, the Centre for the Governance of AI got a $1M grant from Open Philanthropy and McCauley joined the board of OpenAI > - Tasha McCauley represents the Centre for the Governance of AI, which Dustin Moskovitz gave a $1M grant to via Open Philanthropy and McCauley ended up joining the board of OpenAI > Over the past few months, Dustin Moskovitz has also been increasingly warning about AI Safety. > In essense, it looks like a split between Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38353330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38353330
  • supriyo-biswas 3y ago
    You can ask dang to pin comments, though I am not sure if it only works for top level comments.
    • alephnerd 3y ago
      Please don't. I'm too close to comfort to this shitshow. I don't want to make yet another alt account.
      • dang 3y ago
        If there's a problem, let me know at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll take care of it.
    • 3y ago
• stillwithit 3y ago
  Sam is trying to maintain access to IP to later expropriate
• Rapzid 3y ago
  This is bonkers. Usually there is a sense of "all sales are final" when companies make such impactful statements. Yet we have: * OpenAI fires Sam Altman hinting at impropriety. * OpenAI is trying to get Sam back over the weekend. Then we have: * Microsoft CEO Satya personally announces Sam will CEO up a new.. business?, under Microsoft. * We hear Sam is still trying to get back in at OpenAI?! Never seen anything like this playing out in the open. I suspect the FTC is watching this entire ordeal like a hawk.
  • Solvency 3y ago
    As if the FTC are intelligent or equipped or motivated enough to do anything other than chew popcorn like the rest of us.
• pighive 3y ago
  Another moment in tech history when I really wish Silicon Valley(HBO) is still going on. This situation is right out of the series.
• molave 3y ago
  I've gotten tired enough of enshittification that I prefer OpenAI shutting down as a non-profit than they live long enough to be a solely profit-oriented company.
• OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago
  [dead]
• jetsetk 3y ago
  Kinda funny when you think about Ilya's tweet "if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time". Now people having a bad time, asking how someone that intelligent can create such a blunder. Emotional beings after all..
• faramarz 3y ago
  Sounds like cooler heads are coming to terms with how bad the outcome would be for their gigantic first mover advantage is. Even with if they are not the first mover, the brand value of the company ands its founding composition of technical minds are going to be hard to replicate
• faramarz 3y ago
  Rebalance the board and it’s important that Ilya stays. But Ilya goes as collateral damage to save face, they have to, by whatever means necessary, secure Geoffrey Hinton. It may turn out that the unusual governance model is the only way to bring about a desired outcome here without fully selling out to MS.
• gumballindie 3y ago
  This guy is like that creepy ex that told friends to talk to you so you can get back together. Instead he should stay with his microsoft friends and go on his merry way. Let’s see what ai team can the crypto currency lead, when there’s no one else’s work to steal credit from, and let’s see how open microsoft is to sucking in copyrighted material to train their little bots. Perhaps they’ll start with microsoft windows’ source code - as an example of how not to code.
• giarc 3y ago
  A bit tongue in cheek, but perhaps titles should have time stamps so we know what is new vs old.
• westcort 3y ago
  Maybe he will learn to capitalize words at the beginning of sentences. In all seriousness, I find the habit of “higher ups” to answer emails like teenagers texting on a T9 phone worthy of a sociology paper. Perhaps it is the written equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodies. I found his return to office ideas early on in COVID sickening.
  • jdthedisciple 3y ago
    > Maybe he will learn to capitalize words at the beginning of sentences. I think you may be confusing him with Greg Brockmann.
    • westcort 3y ago
      Specifically referring to: https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/6557e657033e239856bc4fe2/Sam-Altman-tweets-about-his-departure-on-X-/960x0.png?height=457&width=711&fit=bounds https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/6557e6...
      • jdthedisciple 3y ago
        oh interesting, i was referring to this by greg who did the same: https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559 my bad then, seems to be a thing with these guys ig
• robertwt7 3y ago
  Wait what is happening with Ilya? I thought he agreed to kick Sam out but he tweeted that he regretted it? I don’t understand what is going on
• zoogeny 3y ago
  I was considering this when I saw the huge outpouring from OpenAI employees. It seems the agreement between Nadella and Altman was probably something like: Altman and Brockman can come to MS and that gives OpenAI employees an immediate place to land while still remaining loyal to Altman. No need to wait and maybe feel comfortable at an OpenAI without Altman for the 3-6 months it would take to set up a new business (e.g. HR stuff like medical plans and other insurances which may be important to some and lead them to stay put for the time being). This deal with MS would give cover for employees to give a vote of no-confidence to the board. Pretty smart strategy I think. Also a totally credible threat. If it didn't end up with such a landslide of employee support for Altman then MS is happy, Altman is probably happy for 6-12 months until he gets itchy feet and wants to start his next world-changing venture. Employees that move are happy since they are now in one of the most stable tech companies in the world. But now that 90% of employees are asking the board to resign the tide swings back in Altman's favor. I was surprised that the board held out against MS, other investors and pretty much the entire SV Twitter and press. I can't imagine the board can sustain themselves given the overwhelming voice of the employees. I mean, if they try then OpenAI is done for. Anyone who stays now is going to have black mark on their resume.
• neverrroot 3y ago
  Can this all get any more **?
• mudlus 3y ago
  EA is a national security risk
  • whoknowsidont 3y ago
    Probably the only real take-away from all of this.
• totallywrong 3y ago
  Let's just skip to the part where the board is gone and Altman back, shall we? It's inevitable at this point.
• r00tanon 3y ago
  It's like Game of Thrones - without the intelligent intrigue.
• imiric 3y ago
  If anything has become clear after all this is that humanity is not ready for being the guardian of superintelligence. These are supposed to be the top masterminds behind one of the most influential technologies of our lifetime, and perhaps history, and yet they're all behaving like petty children, with egos and personal interests pulling in all directions, and everyone doing their best to secure their piece of the pie. We are so screwed.
  • m3kw9 3y ago
    Really? Why is that? Because of disputes which has been there since humans first uttered a sound?
    • lewhoo 3y ago
      Really? Why is that? Because of disputes which has been there since humans first uttered a sound? Precisely.
      • m3kw9 3y ago
        Have humans been ready for anything? Like controlling nuclear arsenal?
        • Davidzheng 3y ago
          And yet we've mostly been ok at that
        • hypothesis 3y ago
          The jury is still out on nuclear arsenal…
        • lewhoo 3y ago
          Have humans been ready for anything? Like controlling nuclear arsenal? The Manhattan project urged Truman in a letter not to use the atomic bomb. There were also ideas of inviting Japanese delegacy to see the nuclear tests for themselves. It all failed, but there is also historical evidence of NOT pressing the button (literally or figuratively), like the story of Stanislav Petrov. How is it that not learning from mistakes is considered a big flaw for an individual but also destiny for the whole collective ?
• quickthrower2 3y ago
  Just the entertainment I need now that Billions Season 7 has finished.
• righthand 3y ago
  The clear move by OpenAI’s board is to let everyone resign to Microsoft and then release the tech as FOSS to the public. Any other move and Altman/Microsoft wins. By releasing it you maintain the power play and are able to let the world control the end result of whatever advances come from these LLMs. Why this happened and whatever plans were originally planned is irrelevant.
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    AI safety types don't want to release models (or in this case models, architecture, IP) to the public.
    • righthand 3y ago
      That doesn’t make sense. You mean companies like Microsoft and business types like Altman don’t want to release infra to the public. Microsoft and Altman may hide under the guise of “it’s not safe to share this stuff” but they’re intent is capital gain not safety. True safety believers understand that safety comes from a general understanding by everyone and audit-able infra otherwise you have no transparency about the potential dangers. Releasing the tech is only unsafe to those trying to create platform lock-in. By releasing it FOSS you equalize the playing field and destroy Altman’s billions.
      • baumy 3y ago
        You seem to be using a definition of "AI safety believer" that you've reasoned and arrived at yourself. It seems like a reasonable definition and I personally agree with it - the best path to maximal social good is for the ability to build and run these models to be as open and public as possible. I think the "AI safety believers" actually sitting on the board of OpenAI, as well as in other adjacent influential positions, have a different view. I'm probably being a bit uncharitable since it's not a view I share, but they think that AI is so dangerous that the unwashed masses can't be trusted with it - only the elite and enlightened technocrats can handle that responsibility. "Let[ting] the world control the end result of whatever advances come from these LLMs" is a nightmare scenario for them. If it's correct that this second "elitist" type of AI safety believer accurately describes the OpenAI board members, releasing anything out into the open as FOSS is a non starter.
• hakdbha 3y ago
  [dead]
• firebaze 3y ago
  Sounds like reality collapsed and turned into a badly scripted soap opera. Is Sam a liar? Why? Is the board corrupted? By whom? Will they all be hired by Microsoft? Will Facebook make everything fade into nothingness by publishing something bigger than ChatGPT4? Golden times to be a journalist.
• talldatethrow 3y ago
  Anyone watched Mad Men where Don convinced the British guy to fire all the main partners so they can be free, which gets the British guy fired, and then all 4 main characters are free to start their own company? Could this be the explanation?
• iteratethis 3y ago
  I wish we could all just admit that this is a capital run, rather than some moralistic crusade. The employees want to get their big payday, so will follow Altman wherever he goes. Which is the smart thing to do anyway as he runs half the valley. The public discourse in which Sam is the hero is further cemented by the tech ecosystem, which nowadays is circling around AI. Those in the "OpenAI wrapper" game. Nobody has any interest in safety, openness, what AI does for humanity. It's greed all the way down. Siding with the likely winner. Which is rational self-interest, not some "higher cause".
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • gxs 3y ago
    You're absolutely wrong here. We have precedent to see what happened with internet search, advertising, and data collection. Everything turned out fine.
    • gnaritas99 3y ago
      [dead]
    • onion2k 3y ago
      For a value of "fine" that includes search being fundamentally broken and every website that includes Google Tag Manager being significantly slower than it really should be, presumably.
      • hfjjbf 3y ago
        [dead]
      • Draiken 3y ago
        Not to mention the entire internet became a giant billboard in which most content only serves the purpose of getting more views to it. Not sure how some view this as a win for humanity. Improvements to our lives are mostly incidental, not the objective of any of this. It's always greed.
• c4wrd 3y ago
  This is laughable. People are focusing on the aspects of where Sam Altman and team are going, and less on the fact that it is even more clear that this was a move to remove the non-profit cap on the OpenAI business and re-align their strategy with market capitalization. They've been slowly chewing away at it the last few years (a notable example being them not opening up GPT-4, which was against their stated mission statement of opening AI). The board simply serves as a conduit for ensuring that there is ethical direction towards where the profit arm is moving, and ensuring that it stays within realms of the originally stated mission statement. By having the entire board resign, you can install people with different motivations and mission statements, and on-paper look like they're acting ethically. We should all be collectively sad for the ruse that was given to us as OpenAI, as they used our (the software engineering community collectively) will and direction and pulled the carpet underneath of us. I'm not surprised that this occurred, more surprised that people are focusing on the literal movement of figures on the chess board, and not focusing on what the chess board now looks like: closed-source monopoly on AI.
• dustedcodes 3y ago
  > Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO Anyone would rather put up with their abusive work relationship than switch to a company that forces you to use Microsoft Teams lol
• blobbers 3y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks all this looks like fairly childish behavior by the board, the employees, microsoft, and Sam Altman? It s a non-profit, it's for profit, Microsoft is investing, board is firing Sam, Ilya thinks Sam needs to be removed, Ilya thought about it more is sorry for firing Sam and wants him back, Sam's part of microsoft, now he's still trying to be CEO of OpenAI.
  • TexanFeller 3y ago
    > childish behavior “childish” is a poorly defined term mainly used to manipulate. You should specify what you actually mean.
    • blobbers 3y ago
      I basically mean poorly thought out, first order thinking. Immediate gratification, not examining consequences, etc. Like Sam Altman needs to start a company on Saturday because he was fired on Friday? The board firing him without informing or discussing with investors... Or Microsoft has to hire him on Monday (they have the most to win/lose tbh, so maybe it's justified). I just meant the decisions seemed to not think of the longer term / downstream ramifications, the way children often behave.
• hoc 3y ago
  The fact that, of all people, the Microsoft CEO is on the show commenting on OpenAI's current personnel issues, might have been the exact reason for that unfortunate shakeup at OpenAI in the first place. Don't make this co-op end up as a lousy weakJedi/Sith rip-off. Bing.
• tobinfricke 3y ago
  These headlines need to be timestamped.
• mfiguiere 3y ago
  Wired: 95 Percent of OpenAI Employees Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door >Some 738 out of its around 770 employees, about 95 percent of the company, are now listed on the letter released early this morning. https://www.wired.com/story/95-percent-of-openai-employees-threaten-to-follow-sam-altman-out-the-door/ https://www.wired.com/story/95-percent-of-openai-employees-t...
  • x86x87 3y ago
    The more time passes the more these headlines look like PR/propaganda. Expecting the headlines that tell us that 125% of OpenAI employees threaten to walk. Just quit already and go work for Microsoft.
• Obscurity4340 3y ago
  I genuinely believe, based on my experiences with ChatGPT, that it doesn't seem all that threatening or dangerous. I get we're in the part of the movie at the start before shit goes down but I just don't see all the fuss. I feel like it has enormous potential in terms of therapy and having "someone" to talk to that you can bounce ideas off and maybe can help gently correct you or prod you in the right direction. A lot of people can't afford therapy but if ChatGPT can help you identify more elementary problematic patterns of language or behavior as articulated through language and in reference to a knowledgebase for particular modalities like CBT, DBT, or IFS, it can easily and safely help you to "self-correct" and be able to practice as much and as often with guidance as you want for basically free. That's the part I'm interested in and I always will see that as the big potential. Please take care, everyone, and be kind. Its a process and a destination and I believe people can come to learn to love both and engage in a way that is rich with opportunity for deep and real restoration/healing. The kind of opportunity that is always available and freely takes in anyone and everyone Edit: I can access all the therapy I can eat but I just don't find it generally helpful or useful. I like ChatGPT because it can help practice effective stuff like CBT/DBT/IFS and I know how to work around any confabulation because I'm using a text that I can reference Edit: the biggest threat ChatGPT poses in my view is the loss of income for people. I don't give a flying fuck about "jobs" per se, I care that people are able to have enough economically to take care of themselves and their loved ones and be ok psychologically/emptionally. If we can deal with the selfish folks who will otherwise (as always) attempt to further absorb more of the pie of which they already have a substantial+sufficient portion, they will need to be made to share or they will need a timeout until they can be fair or to go away entirely. Enough is enough, nobody needs excess until everyone has sufficiency, after that, they can have and do as they please unless they are hurting others. That must stop
  • marjipan200 3y ago
    Agree on LLMs being effective for nudging therapy like CBT. I built an obsidian plugin "ChatCBT" with chatgpt 3.5 that has really helpful for pulling me out of episodes I start to spiral in negative thinking. I'm shocked how effective this is with a basic prompt (you can see the prompt in the codebase) https://github.com/clairefro/obsidian-chat-cbt-plugin https://github.com/clairefro/obsidian-chat-cbt-plugin
• Uptrenda 3y ago
  I was curious what trading might have looked like for OpenAI given all the drama. But since the company is private that makes it hard. Still, prediction markets have been going crazy over the news. Look at how sure people were that Sam wouldn't be coming back as CEO: https://polymarket.com/event/sam-back-as-ceo-of-openai https://polymarket.com/event/sam-back-as-ceo-of-openai You can see at the start people were almost 100% sure that he wouldn't be coming back. Now people are only like 30% sure (which to me still seems very high given the current situation. The leverage that Sam has at this point is actually insane. It seems to me that only the board members want Sam gone. The investors, employees, and partners all want him back. Along with the public...)
• pers0n 3y ago
  Would they actually open source ChatGPT if a bunch of people quit? That would be a good thing
• osigurdson 3y ago
  No movie will get made if there is no controversy. The universe is looking for a movie here I think.
• hoseja 3y ago
  >This corporate minutiae Why can't professional writers properly use Latin words? Why are misapplied plurals so common?
• dpflan 3y ago
  Is this relevant to post here? Sam Altman Exposes the Charade of AI Accountability https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361699