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It really just seems like the board isn't OK with OpenAI becoming a Microsoft money-machine. Isn't that the obvious interpretation? Once they made that giganti

• YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  Let's call them Adam, Helen and Tasha, not the board. 3 people who have some questionable connections with competitors and have nothing to loose if OpenAI dies. By now they don't have full legitimacy.
  • denton-scratch 3y ago
    Wny didn't you mention Ilya? Has he stood down?
    • YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      He publically apologized for participating in the board decision. Sadly his vote doesn't matter now that Sam and Greg has oficially been removed.
      • gardenhedge 3y ago
        His original vote matter a lot. His name should be mentioned along with the others
  • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > nothing to loose if OpenAI dies To be fair, this was deliberately done. You don't want the person selling you the bombs to be the one deciding how many you use.
    • YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      I think that was done as a safety lever, not a hard force. Outside member could raise the alarm if they feel something is wrong, not make the decision and not inform anyone.
      • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Outside member could raise the alarm if they feel something is wrong, not make the decision and not inform anyone You’re describing an advisory board or oversight council. Like the one Facebook likes to ignore [1]. This was a board, and a non-profit board at that. They were designed to be the deciders. And they have no duty to inform anyone in their charter. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/facebook-oversight-board-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/facebook-overs...
  • reducesuffering 3y ago
    > have nothing to loose if OpenAI dies Not according to Sam Altman: "Development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity." https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1 https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1
    • YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      I said nothing to loose, not nothing to gain.
      • reducesuffering 3y ago
        The word is "lose." You're still not making sense, as the point is they have their lives to lose, possibly.
        • YetAnotherNick 3y ago
          Jesus, get your brain checked. Just to reiterate I said nothing to lose if OpenAI is killed. In your argument they are losing if it is not killed, a polar opposite.
          • reducesuffering 3y ago
            That is hilarious coming from you who can't possibly wrap your head around the meaning. There is a scenario where if OpenAI is killed, it leads to the existential risk that Sam Altman and the board believe can happen. So "if OpenAI is killed," the board does not have "nothing to lose." It is deeply ironic how much this forum complains about EA / lesswrong and yet I see hundreds of practically illiterate uninformed takes here a week. Practically all the tech CEO / VP types joke about it. This place likes to think of itself as high brow but it's closer to Reddit than academic circles.
    • jay_kyburz 3y ago
      Off topic, but I watched The Creator last night and it was super dumb and really did not even attempt imagine what a war against AI might look like. There was really no explanation for why the AI were walking around dressed as people or why they would want to limit themselves to such a degree. I think Terminator did it much better.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• segasaturn 3y ago
  Everything I've read about this situation indicates that the board acted appropriately within their authority as the the leaders of OpenAI, the non-profit. Sam Altman and co. have veered off into wild delusions of grandeur over the last year with their talk of how they're "building God" (out of scraped reddit comments and blog posts) and comparing ChatGPT to the invention of fire. The board has shown that there are still adults in the room in AI development who aren't high off their own fumes, and also aren't interested in becoming lapdogs for M$FT. Thank God.
  • MacsHeadroom 3y ago
    All around a bad take. But FYI OpenAI's explicit mission has always been to build godlike AI which eclipses humanity in its ability to autonomously perform the majority of economically valuable work.
    • segasaturn 3y ago
      ChatGPT ain't that. GPT-4 isn't that either, or GPT-5, or 6, or 7, or any of them. LLMs are a fun gimmick, but regurgitated text from comment sections and blogs isn't even one tenth of one percent of what's needed for "Godlike AI". Consider the self driving taxis in San Fransisco that are defeated by a humble traffic cone. Sam Altman's hype machine is hurting AI research, not helping it, by leading people down flights of fancy and easy dollar signs (like his plan of building a "GPT App Store") instead of the real methodological research that's needed to create AGI.
  • ianbutler 3y ago
    If that's your take away I genuinely fear for the future of AI. This has been the biggest shit show. Yes, they acted within their hard power, but clearly never read the room. Announcing a 6 month transition plan while finding the new CEO and saying Sam wants to spend time with friends and family would have been the adult thing to do. Not shoot from your hip, and accuse him of lying and potentially burning your entire work to the ground, commercial or not. You kind of need to have a plan for something like this, which they clearly did not. I don't care so much if Sam goes back, I literally have no vested interest. It worries me the people left in the room just generally seem incompetent at running a large organization for something that's potentially pretty important.
• oakashes 3y ago
  Sure, the board has the prerogative to stick to that interpretation of its mandate if that's their motivation. But it looks like they won't have much of a company left if they do. Maybe they are fine with that, I guess we will see.
  • sfjailbird 3y ago
    Would be interesting to see if those 700+ signatories will really give up their juicy PPUs and start over at Microsoft, if the board calls their bluff.
    • hackerlight 3y ago
      They'll be compensated in lieu probably given they already have competing offers that promise that
• tsimionescu 3y ago
  Not at all. It may have looked like that in the beginning, but it looks nothing like that now. If that were the reason: Why would they take this huge decision extremely suddenly? Why would they announce it without first consulting with the president of the board? Why would they claim that Sam Altman had been lying to the board in the official announcement? Why would they announce some very weak reasons for that claim of lying to employees, and nothing to anyone outside the company? Why would they immediately start negotiations to bring Sam back? Why would they hire a new CEO that then says he is very much for commercialization, and that commercialization was not the reason for firing Sam? Why would they start a new round of negotiation to bring Sam back? Why would one of the four members of the board who took this turn decide to undo it and become an advocate for bringing Sam back? The whole thing makes no sense at all if the motivation was disagreements over commercialization of their tech - something that has already happened months ago.
  • lugu 3y ago
    I am reading the abrupt announcement as an absence of trust they have in Sam. They must have felt that Sam would jeopardize the control of the board if he felt threatened or severely undermined the mission of the non profit, for example by selling/transferring IP out of OAI to prepare his departure. Because their motivation was the fear Sam inspired them, they acted the way they did. Then, it's hard to justify actions based on suspicious.
• nicce 3y ago
  I will be very sad, when they day comes and AGI is controlled by the money making company, especially if it is because of the actions of OpenAI and not some other entity. It is the end of the humanity as we know it, and the owner has ultimate power over the world, as the gains are exponential once you acquire it. Ultimate reason why someone was clever enough to make OpenAI governance as it is, and why this drama is happening. And why Microsoft is involved so deeply.
  • throw20away 3y ago
    If it was so important, why allow the board to shrink so much? Conjecture from an outsider: I think Altman wanted less governance. I wish money didn’t corrupt as it frequently does. Edit: I wonder what would have happened had Will Hurd not run for president and stayed on the board.
    • nicce 3y ago
      Just pure speculation since I haven’t followed board closely. But what if the thinking about the non-profit company goal was shrinking over time (because of money)? The guys who are left, are the few idealists. They fear taking new members, because finding idealists is hard. If you are not idealist, money and power will corrupt.
• klysm 3y ago
  It’s amusing that this decision just accelerated that outcome
• didibus 3y ago
  Occam Razors would say so. That's my take as well. They just underestimated the fanboy level of religious following that tech CEOs now possess and the scale of impact that would lead too. From their point of view, it was just business as usual, or maybe they thought that the more vocal public voice would be that of those that are more concerned with AI and ethics and that also don't want to see AI fall pray to capital driven incentives, and are supportive of OpenAI specifically because of it's Non for profit arrangement. For example, when Sam became CEO, it led to people leaving and starting Anthropic (now considered OpenAIs biggest competitor), and the reason for that split was because of Sam's increased move away from the core values of OpenAI. It's very possible they assumed that more people felt that way, and would be happy about their firing of Sam.
  • throw20away 3y ago
    Conjecture from the outside: The employees are likely mad their PPUs are not worth what they were last week moreso than the Altman cult. Bringing Altman back may get their money recouped. If the board had waited a month, this likely wouldn’t have blown up so bad after the Thrive Capital purchase.