6 ms·

Yes these people should all be doing more to feed internet drama! If they don't act soon, HN will have all sorts of wild opinions about what's going on and we c

Yes these people should all be doing more to feed internet drama! If they don't act soon, HN will have all sorts of wild opinions about what's going on and we can't have that! Even worse, if we don't have near constant updates, we might realize this is not all that important in the end and move on to other news items! I know, I know, I shouldn't jest when this could have grave consequences like changing which uri your api endpoint is pointing to.

minimaxir 3y ago
No serious company wants drama. Hopefully OpenAI is still a serious company. A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
  > A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation. Haven't we gotten statements from them? The complaint seems to be that we want statements from them every day (or more) now.
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    Emmett made a tweet noting accepting the role, which is not a statement. The board has not given a statement besides the original firing of Sam Altman that kicked the whole thing off.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > No serious company wants drama "All PR is good PR" is a meme for a reason. Many cultures thrive on dysfunction, particularly the kind that calls attention to themselves.
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    That axiom is a relic from the pre-social media days. Nowadays, bad PR going viral can sink a company overnight.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > That axiom is a relic from the pre-social media days. Nowadays, bad PR going viral can sink a company overnight You're saying we're in a less attention-seeking culture today than in pre-social media times?
      - irreticent 3y ago
        I think they were saying the opposite of that.
      - maxbond 3y ago
        [ES: Speculation I have medium confidence in.] Maybe "attention seeking" isn't the right way to look at this. Getting bad press always does reputational damage while giving you notoriety, and I think GP's suggestion that the balance between them has changed is compelling. In an environment with limited connectivity, it's much more difficult for people to learn you even exist to do business with. So that notoriety component has much more value, and it often nets out in your favor. In a highly connected environment, it's easier to reach potential customers, so the notoriety component has less value. Additionally, people have access to search engines, so the reputational damage becomes more lasting; potential customers who didn't even hear about the bad press at the time might search your name and find it. They may not have even been looking for it, they might've searched your name to find you website (whereas before they would have needed to intentionally visit a library and look through the catalog to come across an old story). So it becomes much less likely to net out in your favor.
  - staticman2 3y ago
    That phrase much like "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is not actually true.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    > Many cultures thrive on dysfunction PSA: If you or your culture is dysfunctional and thriving - think about how much more you'll thrive without the dysfunction! (Brought to you by the Ad Council.)
- dylan604 3y ago
  > No serious company wants drama Unless you're TNT, cause they "know drama"
sackfield 3y ago
You can either act like a professional and control the messaging or let others fill the vacuum with idle speculation. I'm quite frankly in shock as to the level of responsibility displayed by people whose position should demand high function.
- kspacewalk2 3y ago
  It seems evident that the board was filled at least in part by people whose understanding of the business world and leadership skills is a tier or three below what a position of this level requires. One wonders how they got the job in the first place.
  - cosmojg 3y ago
    This is America. Practically anyone can start a nonprofit or a company. More importantly, good marketing may attract substantial investment, but it doesn't necessarily imply good leadership.
    - kspacewalk2 3y ago
      Clearly corporations are a dime a dozen. What's shocking is the disconnect between the standout quality of the technical expertise (and resulting products!) and the abysmal quality of leadership.
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  Really? I’ve always assumed (known) there is no actual difference between high level execs and you: they just think higher of themselves.
  - kevinventullo 3y ago
    In fact, I think the chaos we’ve seen over the last few days shows precisely the difference between competent and incompetent leadership. I think if anyone from, say, the board of directors of Coca-Cola was on the OAI board, this either wouldn’t have happened or would have played out very differently.
x0x0 3y ago
Convincing two constituencies: employees and customers, that your company isn't just yolo-ing things like ceos and so forth seems like it is a pretty good use of ceo time!
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
My favorite hypothesis: Ilya et al suspected emergent AGI (e.g. saw the software doing things unprompted or dangerous and unexpected) and realized the Worldcoin shill is probably not the one you want calling the shots on it. For the record, I don't think it's true. I think it was a power play, and a failed coup at that. But it's about as substantiated as the "serious" hypotheses being mooted in the media. And it's more fun.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Absolutely wild to me that people are drawing a straight line between a text completion algorithm and AGI. The term "AI" has truly lost all meaning.
  - dwaltrip 3y ago
    LLMs predict language, and language is a representation of human concepts about the world. Thus, these models are constructing, piece by piece, conceptual chains about the world. As they learn to construct better and more coherent conceptual chains, something interesting must be happening internally.
    - mvdtnz 3y ago
      No they are not.
      - gnaritas99 3y ago
        [dead]
      - cjbprime 3y ago
        (You're probably going to have to get better at answering objections than merely asserting your contradiction of them.)
        diffeomorphism 3y ago
Andrex 3y ago
I cannot say whether you deserve the downvotes, but an alternative and grounded perspective is appreciated in this maelstrom of news, speculation and drama.
insanitybit 3y ago
> HN will have all sorts of wild opinions about what's going on and we can't have that! Uh, or investors and customers will? Yes, people are going to speculate, as you point out, which is not good. > we might realize this is not all that important in the end and move on to other news items! It's important to some of us.
gexla 3y ago
Thank you! I get the sense that none of this matters and it's all a massive distraction. News Company which does research and doesn't care about money makes a decision to do something which aligns with research and not caring about money. From the OpenAI website... "it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world" Big tech co makes a move which sends its stock to an all time high. Creates research team. Seems like there could be a "The Martian" meme here... we're going to Twitter the sh* out of this.
kyleyeats 3y ago
This sarcastic post is the best understanding of public relations I've seen in an HN post.
ssnistfajen 3y ago
The speculations are rampant precisely because the board has said absolute nothing since the leadership transition announcement on Friday. If they had openly given literally any imaginable reason to fire Sam Altman, the ratio of employees threatening to quit wouldn't be as high as 95% right now.
quickthrower2 3y ago
They have customers and people deciding if they want to be customers.
concordDance 3y ago
OpenAI becoming a Microsoft department is awful from an X risk point of view.

minimaxir 3y ago

No serious company wants drama. Hopefully OpenAI is still a serious company. A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation.

6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
> A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation. Haven't we gotten statements from them? The complaint seems to be that we want statements from them every day (or more) now.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  Emmett made a tweet noting accepting the role, which is not a statement. The board has not given a statement besides the original firing of Sam Altman that kicked the whole thing off.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> No serious company wants drama "All PR is good PR" is a meme for a reason. Many cultures thrive on dysfunction, particularly the kind that calls attention to themselves.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  That axiom is a relic from the pre-social media days. Nowadays, bad PR going viral can sink a company overnight.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > That axiom is a relic from the pre-social media days. Nowadays, bad PR going viral can sink a company overnight You're saying we're in a less attention-seeking culture today than in pre-social media times?
    - irreticent 3y ago
      I think they were saying the opposite of that.
    - maxbond 3y ago
      [ES: Speculation I have medium confidence in.] Maybe "attention seeking" isn't the right way to look at this. Getting bad press always does reputational damage while giving you notoriety, and I think GP's suggestion that the balance between them has changed is compelling. In an environment with limited connectivity, it's much more difficult for people to learn you even exist to do business with. So that notoriety component has much more value, and it often nets out in your favor. In a highly connected environment, it's easier to reach potential customers, so the notoriety component has less value. Additionally, people have access to search engines, so the reputational damage becomes more lasting; potential customers who didn't even hear about the bad press at the time might search your name and find it. They may not have even been looking for it, they might've searched your name to find you website (whereas before they would have needed to intentionally visit a library and look through the catalog to come across an old story). So it becomes much less likely to net out in your favor.
- staticman2 3y ago
  That phrase much like "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is not actually true.
- maxbond 3y ago
  > Many cultures thrive on dysfunction PSA: If you or your culture is dysfunctional and thriving - think about how much more you'll thrive without the dysfunction! (Brought to you by the Ad Council.)
dylan604 3y ago
> No serious company wants drama Unless you're TNT, cause they "know drama"

sackfield 3y ago

You can either act like a professional and control the messaging or let others fill the vacuum with idle speculation. I'm quite frankly in shock as to the level of responsibility displayed by people whose position should demand high function.

kspacewalk2 3y ago
It seems evident that the board was filled at least in part by people whose understanding of the business world and leadership skills is a tier or three below what a position of this level requires. One wonders how they got the job in the first place.
- cosmojg 3y ago
  This is America. Practically anyone can start a nonprofit or a company. More importantly, good marketing may attract substantial investment, but it doesn't necessarily imply good leadership.
  - kspacewalk2 3y ago
    Clearly corporations are a dime a dozen. What's shocking is the disconnect between the standout quality of the technical expertise (and resulting products!) and the abysmal quality of leadership.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Really? I’ve always assumed (known) there is no actual difference between high level execs and you: they just think higher of themselves.
- kevinventullo 3y ago
  In fact, I think the chaos we’ve seen over the last few days shows precisely the difference between competent and incompetent leadership. I think if anyone from, say, the board of directors of Coca-Cola was on the OAI board, this either wouldn’t have happened or would have played out very differently.

x0x0 3y ago

Convincing two constituencies: employees and customers, that your company isn't just yolo-ing things like ceos and so forth seems like it is a pretty good use of ceo time!

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

My favorite hypothesis: Ilya et al suspected emergent AGI (e.g. saw the software doing things unprompted or dangerous and unexpected) and realized the Worldcoin shill is probably not the one you want calling the shots on it. For the record, I don't think it's true. I think it was a power play, and a failed coup at that. But it's about as substantiated as the "serious" hypotheses being mooted in the media. And it's more fun.

mvdtnz 3y ago
Absolutely wild to me that people are drawing a straight line between a text completion algorithm and AGI. The term "AI" has truly lost all meaning.
- dwaltrip 3y ago
  LLMs predict language, and language is a representation of human concepts about the world. Thus, these models are constructing, piece by piece, conceptual chains about the world. As they learn to construct better and more coherent conceptual chains, something interesting must be happening internally.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    No they are not.
    - gnaritas99 3y ago
      [dead]
    - cjbprime 3y ago
      (You're probably going to have to get better at answering objections than merely asserting your contradiction of them.)
      - diffeomorphism 3y ago

Andrex 3y ago

I cannot say whether you deserve the downvotes, but an alternative and grounded perspective is appreciated in this maelstrom of news, speculation and drama.

insanitybit 3y ago

> HN will have all sorts of wild opinions about what's going on and we can't have that! Uh, or investors and customers will? Yes, people are going to speculate, as you point out, which is not good. > we might realize this is not all that important in the end and move on to other news items! It's important to some of us.

gexla 3y ago

Thank you! I get the sense that none of this matters and it's all a massive distraction. News Company which does research and doesn't care about money makes a decision to do something which aligns with research and not caring about money. From the OpenAI website... "it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world" Big tech co makes a move which sends its stock to an all time high. Creates research team. Seems like there could be a "The Martian" meme here... we're going to Twitter the sh* out of this.

kyleyeats 3y ago

This sarcastic post is the best understanding of public relations I've seen in an HN post.

ssnistfajen 3y ago

The speculations are rampant precisely because the board has said absolute nothing since the leadership transition announcement on Friday. If they had openly given literally any imaginable reason to fire Sam Altman, the ratio of employees threatening to quit wouldn't be as high as 95% right now.

quickthrower2 3y ago

They have customers and people deciding if they want to be customers.

concordDance 3y ago

OpenAI becoming a Microsoft department is awful from an X risk point of view.