4 ms·

He wasn't shutting down her academic freedom. However, if you're going to diss what your own company is doing and praise competitors, you probably shouldn't be

by jxi 3y ago

He wasn't shutting down her academic freedom. However, if you're going to diss what your own company is doing and praise competitors, you probably shouldn't be on the board. >During the call, Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, said the board was endangering the future of the company by pushing out Mr. Altman. This, he said, violated the members’ responsibilities. >Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that could be consistent with its mission. This person is too far gone. Life isn't a movie.

sudosysgen 3y ago
This is a non-profit, not a for profit company. Nominally, she's on the board precisely to criticize.
- random_cynic 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - comp_throw7 3y ago
    > A board member cannot sabotage their own company. Criticism (especially valid criticism) is not sabotage, and in any case the board's responsibility is to advance the charter, not to support the (non-profit) company regardless of what it's doing.
kragen 3y ago
that would be true for a for-profit company where her fiduciary duty was to shareholders, but in this case, given the charter in question, not publicly criticizing the company would be more likely to be a breach of her fiduciary duty
jibal 3y ago
> This person is too far gone. Life isn't a movie. This comment is a credibility killer. "This person", as a member of the board of a non-profit, has a duty to keep the non-profit on mission, and even to call for its dissolution if that isn't possible.
- jxi 3y ago
  How far should she go to fulfill her interpretation of that duty? Should she even commit crimes in order to keep the non-profit mission? There's 700+ employees that disagree with her interpretation of the company's mission, and yet she stubbornly maintains that hers is correct and that it's her duty to destroy the company (or even sell it to Anthropic) to fulfill her duty. This is delusion, and she thinks she's some hero that's saving the world by keeping it a non-profit when in reality it's just creating needless chaos and even impacting innocent people's livelihoods.
  - murakamiiq84 3y ago
    She has a legally binding charter (well, assuming OpenAI's charter actually holds up in court, which we may end up seeing as the next logical step in the drama) to use board powers to further the non-profit mission. She does not have a legally binding obligation to commit crimes.
  - kragen 3y ago
    > Should she even commit crimes probably not, but continuing to publish research papers of the kind that got her the job in the first place seems reasonable maybe but that's what altman was criticizing her for, not for committing crimes, which as far as anyone knows she hasn't done > There's 700+ employees that disagree with her interpretation maybe, maybe not, but the standard way that nonprofits and other companies work is that the employees do what the management tells them, the management does what the board tells them, and the board does what the shareholders or the charter tells them, and in all cases, if they refuse, they get fired if you're an employee at the american cancer society and you decide that malaria in africa is a more important cause, you probably shouldn't expect to be able to continue using the acs's assets to fight malaria in africa. it might happen, but you shouldn't be at all surprised if you get fired
    - jxi 3y ago
      Again, who's stopping her from publishing research papers? She felt threatened and decided to retaliate by orchestrating firing Sam. They likely violated RICO by essentially nuking the company's valuation and trying to sell to Anthropic. That is a crime, by the way, so they don't seem above that. They haven't given even a clear reason for firing Sam. "Not being candid" with no evidence doesn't sound like it directly violates "the charter", but you can really argue anything when you're just "interpreting" the charter. Anyway, you can make infinite excuses for their actions and justify them infinite ways. Hopefully you agree that the current situation is a giant mess, and it's caused by their narrow misguided interpretation of their job, and it's at the expense of basically everybody else.

by jxi 3y ago

sudosysgen 3y ago

This is a non-profit, not a for profit company. Nominally, she's on the board precisely to criticize.

random_cynic 3y ago
[flagged]
- comp_throw7 3y ago
  > A board member cannot sabotage their own company. Criticism (especially valid criticism) is not sabotage, and in any case the board's responsibility is to advance the charter, not to support the (non-profit) company regardless of what it's doing.

kragen 3y ago

that would be true for a for-profit company where her fiduciary duty was to shareholders, but in this case, given the charter in question, not publicly criticizing the company would be more likely to be a breach of her fiduciary duty

jibal 3y ago

> This person is too far gone. Life isn't a movie. This comment is a credibility killer. "This person", as a member of the board of a non-profit, has a duty to keep the non-profit on mission, and even to call for its dissolution if that isn't possible.

jxi 3y ago
How far should she go to fulfill her interpretation of that duty? Should she even commit crimes in order to keep the non-profit mission? There's 700+ employees that disagree with her interpretation of the company's mission, and yet she stubbornly maintains that hers is correct and that it's her duty to destroy the company (or even sell it to Anthropic) to fulfill her duty. This is delusion, and she thinks she's some hero that's saving the world by keeping it a non-profit when in reality it's just creating needless chaos and even impacting innocent people's livelihoods.
- murakamiiq84 3y ago
  She has a legally binding charter (well, assuming OpenAI's charter actually holds up in court, which we may end up seeing as the next logical step in the drama) to use board powers to further the non-profit mission. She does not have a legally binding obligation to commit crimes.
- kragen 3y ago
  > Should she even commit crimes probably not, but continuing to publish research papers of the kind that got her the job in the first place seems reasonable maybe but that's what altman was criticizing her for, not for committing crimes, which as far as anyone knows she hasn't done > There's 700+ employees that disagree with her interpretation maybe, maybe not, but the standard way that nonprofits and other companies work is that the employees do what the management tells them, the management does what the board tells them, and the board does what the shareholders or the charter tells them, and in all cases, if they refuse, they get fired if you're an employee at the american cancer society and you decide that malaria in africa is a more important cause, you probably shouldn't expect to be able to continue using the acs's assets to fight malaria in africa. it might happen, but you shouldn't be at all surprised if you get fired
  - jxi 3y ago
    Again, who's stopping her from publishing research papers? She felt threatened and decided to retaliate by orchestrating firing Sam. They likely violated RICO by essentially nuking the company's valuation and trying to sell to Anthropic. That is a crime, by the way, so they don't seem above that. They haven't given even a clear reason for firing Sam. "Not being candid" with no evidence doesn't sound like it directly violates "the charter", but you can really argue anything when you're just "interpreting" the charter. Anyway, you can make infinite excuses for their actions and justify them infinite ways. Hopefully you agree that the current situation is a giant mess, and it's caused by their narrow misguided interpretation of their job, and it's at the expense of basically everybody else.