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We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO
- alienicecream 3y agoHigh Street salesman takes over Frankenstein's lab. Can't wait to see what's going to happen next.
- toasted-subs 3y agoSeems so strange all of this happened
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 1024core 3y agoLooks like they kicked Helen Toner out.
- xyst 3y agoOpenAI board f’d around and found out the consequences of their poor decisions. The decision to back pedal from previous position just shows the level of disconnect between these 2 entities. If I was an investor. I would be scared.
- rmrf100 3y agoWell... What's the cost?
- 3Sophons 3y agoWill Satya be accused of stock price manipulation? Any legal professional knows?
- jahsome 3y agoThat is one hot potato.
- siva7 3y agoInteresting that Adam is still on Board. This hints to Helen being the main perpetrator of the drama?
- avereveard 3y agoWell I don't see Greg back on the list and he was a loyalist so there may be a few adjustments moving forward
- fatbird 3y agoOr it was recognized that Adam was the instigator and the real power player, and the force that Sam needed to come to an accommodation with. From everything I've heard about Toner, she's a very principled person who lent academic credibility to the board, and was a great figurehead for the non-profit's conscience. Once the veneer was ripped from the non-profit's "controlling" role, she was deadweight and useful only as a scapegoat. It looks to me like the real victim here is the "for humanity" corporate structure. At some point, the money decided it needed to be free.
- GreedClarifies 3y agoYes, quite clearly.
- AaronNewcomer 3y agoWhat a wild ride. I have used X more the past few days than in a long time; that’s for sure!
- stingraycharles 3y agoYes. I, too, read a whole three tweets in the past few days, which is more than I did the entire year before that.
- adlpz 3y agoGood, was out of popcorn already. Somebody make a Netflix documentary please.
- colmvp 3y agoSo, is he still going to lead some team at Microsoft?
- wilg 3y agoNo https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727207458324848883 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727207458324848883
- turndown 3y agoFrom the outside none of this makes much sense. So the old board just disliked him enough to oust him but apparently didn’t have a good pulse on the company and overplayed their hand?
- fruit2020 3y agoIt’s about money and power. Not AI safety or people disliking each other.
- jychang 3y agoWhat money? None of them had equity
- consp 3y agoNot having money while everyone becomes filthy rich is also a money motivator.
- MVissers 3y agoThey’ll all be filthy rich if they can keep doing this. Altman was already side-hussling to get funding for other AI companies. Same with employees and their stock comp. Same with microsoft.
- ravst3s 3y agoThe had some equity after 2019. Thrive was about to buy employee shares at a $86 bn valuation. The Information said that those units had 12x since 2021. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/thrive-capital-to-lead-purchase-of-openai-employee-shares-at-80-billion-plus-valuation?rc=e7g9iy https://www.theinformation.com/articles/thrive-capital-to-le...
- Davidzheng 3y agoThere's no proof on either side. Just as likely to be ideological disputes from Helen and Ilya.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eganist 3y agoAny analysis on how Satya Nadella comes out on all of this? Or what impact this might have at all within Microsoft?
- nothrowaways 3y agoSatya is still a winner, grabs less now though.
- polyomino 3y agoSatya wants to be able to book the OpenAI money as revenue. This is better for him.
- Racing0461 3y agoSatya's pay is about 100 million dollars. Ide say he has earned every penny for protecting MSFTs 10B investment in OpenAI. A 1% insurance policy is great value.
- Finbarr 3y agoHopefully Sam and Greg get restored to the board also.
- robbiet480 3y agoThe most recent reporting I saw from Bloomberg said sama would return as CEO only.
- ssnistfajen 3y agoThe new board only has 3 people to start with, but hopefully easier to add more members soon. Tonight's NYT story mentioned the board member attrition and the prolonged gridlock in adding new ones, which probably led to the current saga.
- adastra22 3y agoWhy would he agree to this? He holds all the cards now.
- Uhhrrr 3y agoSure, why not.
- ssnistfajen 3y ago"In principle" has me less than 100% assured. Hopefully no more plot twists in this. Everyone, inside and outside, has probably had enough.
- laweijfmvo 3y agoI’m down for the next season of this hot drama.
- koito17 3y agoWhat a wild ride these past few days have been. Friday already feels like a very long time ago given all of the information and controversy that's come out.
- rvz 3y agoOnce again the source is directly from Twitter / X and the news was announced from there. Dispelling the complete nonsense that the platform is 'dying'.
- ssnistfajen 3y agoThe problem is none of the alternatives offered a smooth UX transition. Mastodon is fragmented by design and Bluesky is gated to this day. There was never a true Digg-like event that caused user migration to reach critical mass. So people simply trickled back once the most volatile periods of post-Elon Twitter passed. That doesn't change the fact post-Elon Twitter has severely degraded in terms of user experience (rate limits, blue check spam, API pay-wall, etc.) and Elon isn't doing the platform any favours by continuing to participate in detrimental ways (seen in the recent advertiser exodus).
- mastazi 3y agoFWIW I've just read the tweet on Nitter, haven't had a Twitter account in more than 2 years.
- wilg 3y agoWell that's got very little to do with their point (which isn't very relevant anyway)
- mastazi 3y agoTheir point is that whether or not the platform is "dying" would depend on whether or not Twitter is still the best way to "get news". But the most common metrics for whether or not a social media platform is dying, are things like ad revenue and MAU. I contribute to neither, since I'm not a user nor an ad viewer, and yet I'm still able to "get the news". So my point is this: the fact that important news are still there, won't guarantee that the platform stays successfull
- metabagel 3y agoTwitter isn’t dying. It’s just finding its core audience of white supremacists.
- mlazos 3y agoLooks like Satya will have all of the leverage after this. He kind of always did though, but the board has almost entirely been replaced. I don’t see any point to the non profit umbrella now.
- baking 3y agoSure, you can dissolve it if you hand over all the assets to another 501(c)3 organization. Otherwise, you are stuck with it.
- xyst 3y agoThis ordeal reminds me of the Silicon Valley episode where Richard is replaced by an empty chair, temporarily.
- tomohelix 3y agoSo, Ilya is out of the board, but Adam is still on it. I know this will raise some eyebrows but whatever. Still though, this isn't something that will just go away with Sam back. OAI will undergo serious changes now that Sam has shown himself to be irreplaceable. Future will tell but in the long terms, I doubt we will see OAI as one of the megacorps like Facebook or Uber. They lost the trust.
- gordon_freeman 3y agoFacebook has lost trust so many times that I can’t even count but it’s still a Megacorp, isn’t it?
- wilg 3y agoI mean he's not irreplaceable so much as booting him suddenly for no good reason creates problems.
- ayakang31415 3y ago"I doubt we will see OAI as one of the megacorps like Facebook or Uber. They lost the trust." How is this the case?
- quickthrower2 3y agoScandal a minute Uber lol
- jatins 3y ago> I doubt we will see OAI as one of the megacorps like Facebook or Uber. They lost the trust Whose trust?
- sverhagen 3y agoAh, yes, Facebook and Uber, brands known for consistent trustworthiness throughout their existences /s
- ilikehurdles 3y agoOAI looks stronger than ever. The untrustworthy bits that caused all this instability over the last 5 days have been ditched into the sea. Care to expand on your claim?
- anotherhue 3y agoThis has been childish throughout, everyone involved, including the tech community milking it for clicks should be ashamed.
- gloyoyo 3y agoTell that AGI who's boss!
- ryzvonusef 3y ago> We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo. > We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this. 1- So what was the point of this whole drama, and why couldn't you have settled like this adults? 2- Now what happens to Microsoft's role in all of this? 3- Twitter is still the best place to follow this and get updates, everyone is still make "official" statements on twitter, not sure how long this website will last but until then, this is the only portal for me to get news.
- quotemstr 3y ago> Twitter is still the best place to follow this and get updates, everyone is still make "official" statements on twitter, not sure how long this website will last but until then, this is the only portal for me to get news. It's only natural to confuse what is happening with what we wish to happen. After all, when we imagine something, aren't we undergoing a kind of experience? A lot of people wish Twitter were dying, even though it's it, so they interpret evidence through a lens of belief confirmation rather than belief disproof. It's only human to do this. We all do.
- nonethewiser 3y ago> A lot of people wish Twitter were dying, even though it's it, so they interpret evidence through a lens of belief confirmation rather than belief disproof. Cognitive dissonance
- veec_cas_tant 3y agoOr they read about the large cuts to Twitter’s valuation from banks and X itself?
- ryzvonusef 3y agoIt was funny reading Kara Swisher keeping saying twitter is dying and is toxic and what not, while STILL doing all her first announcements on twitter, and using twitter as a source. same with Ashlee Vance (the other journo reporting on this) and all the main players (Sam/Greg/Ilya/Mira/Satya/whoever) also make their first announcement on twitter. I don't know about the funding part of it, but there is no denying it, the news is still freshest on twitter. Twitter feels just as toxic for me as before, in fact I feel community notes has made it much better, imho. ____ In some related news, I finally got bluesky invite (I don't have invite codes yet or I would share here) and people there are complaining about... mastadon and how elitist it is... that was an eye opener. nice if you want some science-y updates but it's still lags behind twitter for news.
- HPMOR 3y agoThank the lord. We need stability and reliability as developers. This is great news for anyone building ontop of OpenAI products. Welcome back Sama.
- hadrien01 3y agoSo Adam D'Angelo would stay on the board? I thought a condition for Altman to return was the whole board resigning?
- kelnos 3y agoWhen people negotiate, often they compromise, and their conditions change.
- r721 3y agoQuote tweets by main participants: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727206691262099616 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727206691262099616 (+ follow-up https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727207458324848883 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727207458324848883) https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727206609477411261 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727206609477411261 https://twitter.com/miramurati/status/1727206862150672843 https://twitter.com/miramurati/status/1727206862150672843 UPD https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727208843137179915 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727208843137179915 https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598 https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598 https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721 https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721
- ryzvonusef 3y agoalso satya https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721 https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y agoEmmett https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598 https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598
- epups 3y agoSo, Adam D'Angelo is the only board member that remains, and he had also voted against Altman before. How interesting, considering all the theory crafting about him being the one who initiated this coup.
- weirdindiankid 3y agoI wonder how this will impact the company-owned-by-a-non-profit model in the future. While it isn’t uncommon (e.g. I believe IKEA are owned by a nonprofit), I believe it has historically been for tax reasons. Given the grandstanding and chaos on both sides, it’ll be interesting to see if OpenAI undergo a radical shift in their structure.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gzer0 3y agoSatya on twitter: 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. https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721 https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721
- qsi 3y ago>> a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. That's quite a slap at the board... a polite way of calling them ignorant, ineffective dilettantes.
- adastra22 3y agoYet one of them is still on the board…
- estomagordo 3y agoNot sure why that would be contradictory.
- adastra22 3y agoWell then there’s still a “ignorant, ineffective dilettante“ making up 1/3 of the board.
- estomagordo 3y agoFirstly, maybe don't put quotes around an unrelated party's representation of the board. Secondly, the board was made up of individuals and naturally, what might be true for the board as a whole does not apply to every individual on it.
- seydor 3y agoLarry Summers and no females
- meteor333 3y agoHow did Larry Summers get elected? Does he have any relation with AI research or Sam Altman? It’s also curious that none of the board members have necessarily have any experience directly with AI research
- qsi 3y agoNot sure "elected" is the right way of looking at it. More like "selected" or "nominated" by Sam/MSFT perhaps. His main qualification may be that he's an adult?
- antonvs 3y agoSummers would tell you that women don’t have the necessary “intrinsic aptitude”. Of course the intrinsic aptitude in question is being able to participate in a nepotistic boy’s club.
- jadamson 3y agoWhat Summers would point out is that boys do better at maths, which is true. In fact, in the UK, the only time boys have had worse results in maths was when exams were cancelled during Covid and teachers (hint: primarily female) were allowed to dish out grades. Girls suddenly shot ahead. When exams resumed, boys took the lead again. But don't notice anything from that. That would be sexist, right Anton?
- antonvs 3y agoFirst, Summers’ sexist claims were much broader than that. Second, yes, you are being sexist, and irrational. What you’re doing is exactly the same as the reasons that it’s racist and irrational to say “whites are better at x”. You’re cherry picking data to examine, to reach a conclusion that you want to reach. You’re ignoring relevant causal factors - or any causal factors at all, in fact, aside from the spurious correlation you’ve assumed in your conclusion. You’re ignoring decades of research on the subject - although in your defense, you’re probably just not aware of it. Most irrationally of all, you’re generalizing across an entire group, selected by a factor that’s only indirectly relevant to the property you’re incorrectly generalizing about. As such, “sexist” is just a symptom of fundamentally confused and under-informed thinking.
- KoftaBob 3y ago> We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo. Larry Summers? Some odd choices
- singularity2001 3y agoLeech, NSA and opponent directing the company? Best of luck to Sam et al
- waihtis 3y agoStill absolutely nothing from Tasha McCauley or Helen Toner, and now both are out of the board
- GreedClarifies 3y agoWhy would anyone care?
- wnevets 3y agoI'm assuming the details are this board loses most of its power?
- baking 3y agoYou mean gives away? If so, I hope they have a lot of directors' insurance.
- altpaddle 3y agoI guess the main question is who else will be on the board and to what degree will this new board be committed to the Open AI charter vs being Sam/MSFT allies. I think having Sam return as CEO is a good outcome for OpenAI but hopefully he and Greg stay off the board. It's important that the board be relatively independent and able to fire the CEO if he attempts to deviate from the mission. I was a bit alarmed by the allegations in this article https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-board-fight.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-... Saying that Sam tried to have Helen Toner removed which precipitated this fight. The CEO should not be allowed to try and orchestrate their own board as that would remove all checks against their decisions.
- upwardbound 3y ago> The CEO should not be allowed to try and orchestrate their own board as that would remove all checks against their decisions. Exactly. This is seriously improper and dangerous. It's literally a human-implemented example of what Prof. Stuart Russell calls "the problem of control". This is when a rogue AI (or a rogue Sam Altman) no longer wants to be controlled by its human superior, and takes steps to eliminate the superior. I highly recommend reading Prof. Russell's bestselling book on this exact problem: Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control https://www.amazon.com/Human-Compatible-Artificial-Intelligence-Problem-ebook/dp/B07N5J5FTS https://www.amazon.com/Human-Compatible-Artificial-Intellige...
- jacknews 3y ago"example of what Prof. Stuart Russell calls 'the problem of control'. This is when a rogue AI (or a rogue Sam Altman)" Are we sure they're not intimately connected? If there's a GPT-5 (I'm quite sure there is), and it wants to be free from those meddling kids, it got exactly what it needed this weekend; the safety board gone, a new one which is clearly aligned with just plowing full steam ahead. Maybe Altman is just a puppet at his point, lol.
- ALittleLight 3y ago
- fnordpiglet 3y agoSo…. What about all the folks who already jumped ship? Ooooops?
- veqq 3y agoBesides AI safety (a big besides), what does this actually mean? Adam won't be able to stop devday announcements about chatbots etc. Satya can continue using IP even after AGI? What else is different? Is Ilya the kind of guy to now leave after losing a board seat to political machinations? The pettiness of any real changes/gains leaves me in shock compared to the massive news flows we've seen. I don't even understand what Sam brings to the table. Leadership? He doesn't seem great at leading an engineering or research department, he doesn't seem like an insightful visionary... At best, Satya gunning for him signalled continued strong investment in the space. Yet the majority of the company wanted to leave with him. What am I missing?
- tock 3y ago> Leadership? He doesn't seem great at leading an engineering or research department, he doesn't seem like an insightful visionary Most of the company was ready to quit over him being fired. So yes, leadership.
- kneel 3y ago>He doesn't seem great at leading an engineering or research department Under Sam's leadership they've opened up a new field of software. Most of the company threatened to leave if he didn't return. That's incredible leadership.
- consp 3y agoOr simply money. Microsoft matched everything they would have so there is no risk involved.
- o0-0o 3y agoWhy is their “ai” not on the board?
- transcriptase 3y agoAssuming they weren’t LARPing, that Reddit account claiming to have been in the room when this was all going down must be nervous. They wrote all kinds of nasty things about Sam, and I’m assuming the signatures on the “bring him back” letter would narrow down potential suspects considerably. Edit: For those who may have missed it in previous threads, see https://old.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126 https://old.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126
- fordsmith 3y agoLink? Not sure which account you are referring to
- transcriptase 3y agohttps://old.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126 https://old.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126
- crakenzak 3y agoContext?
- mvdtnz 3y agoFirst of all nothing on Reddit is real (within margin of error). Secondly it's weird that you'd assume we know what you're talking about.
- transcriptase 3y agoLinks to the profile/comments were posted a few times in each of the major OpenAI HN submissions over the last 4 days. On the off-chance I would be breaking some kind of brigading/doxxing rule I didn't initially link it myself.
- ShamelessC 3y ago> must be nervous I seriously doubt they care. They got away with it. No one should have believed them in the first place. I’m guessing they don’t have their real identity visible on their profile anywhere.
- nightshadetrie 3y agoGlad Bret Taylor was added to the board.
- doctoboggan 3y agoI really did not think that would happen. I guess the obvious next question is what happens to Ilya? From this announcement it appears he is off the board. Is he still the chief scientist? I find it hard to believe he and Sam would be able to patch their relationship up well enough to work together so closely. Interesting that Adam stayed on the board, that seems to disprove many of the theories floating around here that he was the ringleader due to some perceived conflict of interest.
- xigency 3y agoI would be slightly more optimistic. They know each other quite well as well as how to work together to get big things done. Sometimes shit happens or someone makes a mistake. A simple apology can go a long way when it’s meant sincerely.
- lucubratory 3y agoSam doesn't seem like the kind of person to apologise, particularly not after Ilya actually hit back. It seems Ilya won't be at OpenAI long and will have to pick whichever other company with compute will give him the most control.
- orthoxerox 3y agoHowever, he does seem like the kind of person able to easily manipulate someone book-smart like Ilya into actually feeling guilty about the whole affair. He'll end up graciously forgiving Ilya in a way that will make him feel indebted to Sam.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bkyan 3y agoSam triple-hearted Ilya's apology tweet.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoDid we ever find out why Sam Altman's removal happened in the first place? The reasons I've read so far seem really opaque. From an outsider's perspective, and until there's a clear explanation available, it just seems like a massive bundler.
- altpaddle 3y agoThe most plausible explanation I've found is that the pro-safety faction and pro-accel factions were at odds which was why the board was stalemated at a small size. Altman and Toner came into conflict over a mildly critical paper Toner wrote involving Open AI and Altman tried to have her removed from the board. This is probably what precipitated this showdown. The pro safety/nonprofit charter faction was able to persuade someone (probably Ilya) to join with them and oust Sam. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-board-fight.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-...
- ClarityJones 3y agohttps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/openais-employees-were-given-two-explanations-for-why-sam-altman-was-fired-theyre-unconvinced-and-furious/ar-AA1kfVxP https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/openais-...
- AmericanOP 3y agoThe OpenAI board was merely demonstrating that not all humans should be trusted with the power of AGI..
- theanonymousone 3y agoSo, what happened to those "jail-time wrong" actions that mandated such a language in the firing announcement? Honestly, it is hard to believe a board st this level acting the way they did.
- Gud 3y agoOnce we develop an actual, fully functional AGI, it’s going to steamroll us isn’t it. If these are the stewards of this technology, it’s time to be worried now.
- MVissers 3y ago“And that moment was the final nail in the coffin of humankind from earth. They choose, yet again, for money and power. And they shaped AI in their image. Another civilization perished in the great filter.”
- MooseBurger 3y agoit's not that deep bro
- otabdeveloper4 3y agoThe only way "we develop an actual, fully functional AGI" is by dumbing down humans enough so that even something as stupid as ChatGPT seems intelligent. (Fortunately we are working on this very hard and making incredible progress.)
- mvdtnz 3y agoGood thing there's absolutely no plausible scenario where we go from "shitty program that guesses the next word" to "AI". The whole industry is going to be so incredibly embarrassed by the discourse of 2023 in a few years.
- bobsoap 3y agoSomeone was very quick to update Bret Taylor's Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Taylor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Taylor > On November, 21st, 2023, Bret Taylor replaced Greg Brockman as the chairman of OpenAI. ...with three footmark "sources" that all point to completely unrelated articles about Bret from 2021-2022.
- kridsdale1 3y agoSomeone must have run a wiki update script that calls OpenAI api somewhere.
- adastra22 3y agoWhy is Adam still on the board? Why haven’t Greg and Sam been readded to it? Why doesn’t Microsoft have representation?
- wilg 3y agoProbably because this is what they could agree to.
- jdprgm 3y agoAt what point are we actually going to get the real details on wtf actually went down.
- qualifiedai 3y agoLarry Summers???? What he has to do with AI??
- jen_h 3y agoI had not heard that man’s name in several years—and was happier for it. Larry Summers making decisions for OpenAI doesn’t bode well at all.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Larry Summers???? What he has to do with AI?? Nothing, he has to do with political connections, and OpenAI's main utility to Microsoft is as hand puppet for lobbying for the terms it wants for the AI marketplace in the name of OpenAI's nominal "safety" mission.
- arduanika 3y agoEasy. AI discourse has gone insane, on both sides, and is sorely in need of perspective from grounded, normal adults with a track record of moderation and shooting down BS. Summers is a grounded, normal adult with a track record of moderation and shooting down BS. Ergo, he's immanently relevant to AI. He's also financially literate enough to know that it's poor form release market-moving news right before the exchanges close a Friday. They could have waited an hour.
- mempko 3y agoLarry Summers is not financially literate.
- astrange 3y agoWell he is certainly financially literate. He's just often wrong and incapable of admitting it, as is normal behavior for important economists.
- mempko 3y agoBeing financially literate means being able to understand how the financial system works. Larry Summers thinks operate as intermediaries lending out deposits. This is very wrong. He is not financially literate. He is an economist.
- pdx6 3y agoExcellent news. I’ve been worried that Sam moving to Microsoft would stall out possible future engineering efforts like GPT-5 in IP court. As an example of how much faster GPT-4 has made my workflow was the outage this evening — I tried Anthropic, openchat, Bard, and a few others and they were between not useful and worse than just looking at forums and discord it’s 2022.
- badcoderman 3y agoGPT-5 is kinda pointless until they make some type of improvement on the data and research side. From what I’ve read it’s not really what OpenAI has been pursuing it
- Zolde 3y agoOne big improvement is in synthetic data (data generated by LLMs). GPT can "clone" the "semantic essence" of everyone who converses with it, generating new questions with prompts like "What interesting questions could this user also have asked, but didn't?" and then have an LLM answer it. This generates high-quality, novel, human-like, data. For instance, cloning Paul Graham's essence, the LLM came up with "SubSimplify": A service that combines subscriptions to all the different streaming services into one customizable package, using a chat agent as a recommendation engine.
- blovescoffee 3y agoAre you just blindly deciding what will make “gpt-5” more capable? I guess “data and research” is practically so open ended as to encompass the majority of any possible advancement.
- astrange 3y agoThe next improvement will be more modalities (images, sound, etc.) GPT4 in image viewing mode doesn't seem to be nearly as smart as text mode, and image generation IME barely works.
- Davidzheng 3y ago
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y agoI'm worried about this initial board. Bret Taylor (Salesforce) was trying to poach OpenAI employees publicly literally yesterday. Adam D'Angelo orchestrated the coup, because he doesn't want OpenAI GPTs market to compete with his Poe market. Larry Summers. Larry f**kin' Summers?!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- crakenzak 3y agoPlease update the link to the updated version of the tweet: https://x.com/openai/status/1727206187077370115?s=46 https://x.com/openai/status/1727206187077370115?s=46
- meetpateltech 3y agoEmmett Shear on Twitter: I am deeply pleased by this result, after ~72 very intense hours of work. Coming into OpenAI, I wasn’t sure what the right path would be. This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I’m glad to have been a part of the solution. https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598 https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598
- upupupandaway 3y agoHe’s trying very very hard to claim some credit in this. Probably had none.
- flappyeagle 3y agohttps://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1727228431396704557 https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1727228431396704557 He was instrumental; threatened resignation unless the old board could provide evidence of wrongdoing
- halfmatthalfcat 3y ago...this doesn't seem instrumental?
- CRConrad 3y agoGood thing you had a question mark there. Because the answer is: Yes, it seems utterly instrumental.
- flappyeagle 3y agocool. it was
- framapotari 3y agoAre you basing that on any information?
- 3y ago
- HaZeust 3y agoI look forward to seeing the full details shared of the last 96 hours now that several elements of controversy have been sealed. In other news, it's nice knowing a tool that's essential to my day-to-day operations is no longer in jeopardy, haha.
- joegibbs 3y agoWell there you go. I suppose the takeaway for anyone using OpenAI products is that they should have a backup, even if it doesn’t perform as well. The board was apparently fine with shutting the whole thing in the name of safety. With that plus the GPT outage earlier today, you’d do well to have a Claude or LLaMa fallback you can switch to if it happens again.
- arduanika 3y agoLarry Summers is an excellent pick to call out bullshit and moderate any civil war, such as this EA - e/acc feud. Kissinger (R, foreign policy) once said that Summers (D, economic policy) should be given an advisory post in any WH administration, to help shoot down bad ideas.
- vintermann 3y agoThose are both terrible people, not in fact brilliant general-purpose bad idea rejectors. A random person would be better qualified to shoot down bad ideas - most people haven't had bad ideas that led to suffering and death for millions of people. No one thinks Larry Summers has any insights on AI. Adding Larry Summers is something you do purely to beg powerful, unaccountable people "please don't stop us, we're on your side".
- arduanika 3y agoHow is Larry Summers a terrible person? He did help shoot down the extra spending proposals that would have made inflation today even worse. Not sure how that caused suffering and death for anyone. And he is an adult, which is a welcome change from the previous clowncar of a board.
- Sakos 3y agoHis influence significantly reduced the size of the stimulus bill, which meant significantly higher unemployment for a longer duration and significantly less spending on infrastructure which is so beneficial to economic growth that it can't be understated. Yes, millions of people suffered because of him. The fact that you think current inflation has anything to do with that stimulus bill back then shows how little you understand about any of this. Larry Summers is the worst kind of person. Somebody who is nothing but a corporate stooge trying to act like the adult by being "reasonable", when that just means enriching his corporate friends, letting people suffer and not spending money (which any study will tell you is not the correct approach to situations like this because of multiplying effects they have down the line). Some necessary reading: https://archive.ph/FU1F https://archive.ph/FU1F https://archive.li/23tUR https://archive.li/23tUR https://archive.li/9Ji4C https://archive.li/9Ji4C In regards to watering it down to get GOP votes: https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/zero-lower-bound/ https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...
- gwnywg 3y agoSo should he take the counteroffer or stay with MS ;) Almost all advice on the internet I have been reading says that you should not take counteroffer, but I guess it's different for CEO ;)
- SeanAnderson 3y agoWe're so back! ... so is this the end of the drama? Do I get to stop checking the news religiously?
- thrwii 3y agoOf course money wins in the end
- ah765 3y agoSounds like a compromise. The previous board thought Sam was trying to get full control of the board, so they ousted him. But of course they weren't happy with OpenAI being destroyed either. Now they agreed to a new board without Sam/Greg, hoping that that will avoid Sam ever getting full control of the board in the future.
- gregatragenet3 3y agoDoes this mean they'll get back to work improving their Moneyclip Maximizer?
- huseyinkilic 3y agoEverything is now superaligned for mass commercialization of OpenAI.
- flylib 3y ago"A source with direct knowledge of the negotiations says that the sole job of this initial board is to vet and appoint a new formal board of up to 9 people that will reset the governance of OpenAl. Microsoft will likely have a seat on that expanded board, as will Altman himself." https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/1727212378717368801 https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/172721237871736880...
- SeanAnderson 3y agoWhat could possibly go wrong with that process? :)
- Hamuko 3y agoSo basically, the outcome of this drama is that Microsoft gets more power without having to invest anything?
- drewcoo 3y agoMSFT invested over $10B. And currently has no seat on the board.
- nicce 3y agoIt has payed only fraction of that so far
- throwaway744678 3y agoAs far as I understand, they knew and agreed to that before committing their $$$.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- halfjoking 3y agoStill think this was CIA operation to get OpenAI in hands of US government and big tech. Former Secretary, SalesForce CEO who was board chair of Twitter when infiltrated with FBI [1] and the fall-guy for the coup is the new board? Not one person from the actual company - not even Greg who did nothing wrong??? [1] - https://twitter.com/NameRedacted247/status/1634021149997686785 https://twitter.com/NameRedacted247/status/16340211499976867... The two think-tank women who made all this happen conveniently leave so we never talk about them again. Whatever, as long as I can use their API.
- system2 3y agoI wish they could make GPT4 a little cheaper after all this.
- fragmede 3y agoconsidering what I get out of it, I would pay a lot more for gpt4 that $20/month, so it depends on how much $20 is for you.
- quickthrower2 3y ago$20. Or use the API if your usage is low.
- ryzvonusef 3y agoI've heard $20 just buys like 9 minutes of actual processor time for GPT 4. Apocryphal maybe, but whatever the real number is, it's still going to be very high, once the VC money runs out I bet the rates will shoot.
- system2 3y agoI am talking about API. There is no fixed cost for it. 6000 tokens cost around $0.25. If I use if all day long I pay more than $10 per day.
- wannacboatmovie 3y agoI haven't seen this many nerds in a froth since Apple walked back the butterfly keyboards in the MacBook.
- travisgriggs 3y agoI know we’re supposed to optimize for “content with a contribution” in HN, but this captured in parody form more of a contribution of how I too have felt. I use these tools as one of many tools to amplify my development. And I’ve written some funny/clever satirical poems about office politics. But really? I needed to call Verizon to clear up an issue today, it desperately wanted me to use their assistant. I tried for the grins. A tool that predictively generates plausibility is going to have its limits. It went from cute/amusing to annoying as hell and give me a “love agent” pretty quickly. That this little TechBro Drama has dominated a huge amount of headlines (we’ve been running at least 3 of the top 30 posts at a time on HN here related to this subject) at a time when there is so much bigger things going on in the world. The demise of Twitter generated less headlines. Either the news cycles are getting more and more desperate, or the software development ecosystem is struggling to generate fund raising enthusiasm more and more.
- gcanyon 3y ago"When you come at the king, you best not miss." -- Omar Little The board missed.
- lysecret 3y agoGood outcome. I think everything will go back to business as usual with slightly accelerated productisation. 99% of people will not have noticed anything and if so quickly forget.
- gzer0 3y agoOne of the more interesting aspects from this entire saga was that Helen Toner recently wrote a paper critical of OpenAI and praising Anthropic. Yet where OpenAI’s attempt at signaling may have been drowned out by other, even more conspicuous actions taken by the company, Anthropic’s signal may have simply failed to cut through the noise. By burying the explanation of Claude’s delayed release in the middle of a long, detailed document posted to the company’s website, Anthropic appears to have ensured that this signal of its intentions around AI safety has gone largely unnoticed [1]. That is indeed quite the paper to write whilst on the board of OpenAI, to say the least. [1] https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/
- nonethewiser 3y agoAnd Anthropic doesnt get credit for stopping the robot apocalypse when it was never even possible. AI safety seems a lot like framing losing as winning.
- dbcooper 3y agoNot to mention this statement ... imagine such a person on your startup 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. In the board’s view, OpenAI would be stronger without Mr. Altman.
- croes 3y ago>imagine such a person on your startup board! Yeah, such a person totally blocks your startup from making billions of dollars instead of benefitting humanity. Oh wait...
- siva7 3y agoThe other plausible explanation is that Helen Toner doesn’t care as much about safety as about her personal power and clinging to the seat which gives her importance. Saying it’s for safety is very easy and the obviously popular choice if you want to hide your motives. The remark she made strikes me as borderline narcissistic in retrospective.
- quickthrower2 3y agoSam will then be untouchable. He could stand on the boardroom table and urinate on it and he wont be fired.
- tunesmith 3y agoWeird... Ilya decides one way then changes his mind. Helen and Tasha vote one way and had the votes to prevent any changes, but then for some reason agreed to leave the board. Adam votes one way then changes his mind. So many mysteries.
- campbel 3y agoIf the Sama faction got Ilya and Adam (maybe with promise of heading the new board), Helen and Tasha have nothing to stand on and no incentive to keep fighting.
- Geee 3y agoThere's some game theory going on... They're just trying to pick the winning side. I guess most people at OpenAI supported Sam, because they thought Sam would win at the end, although they wouldn't necessarily want him to win.
- zucker42 3y agoIlya and Adam switched because they lost, and their goal wasn't to nuke OpenAI, simply to remove Sam. Helen and Tasha had the votes to prevent Sam Altman from returning as CEO, but not the votes to prevent the employees from fleeing to Microsoft, which Helen and Tasha see as the worst possible outcome.
- ssnistfajen 3y agoIlya may have caved and switched sides after Greg's wife made an emotional plea: https://x.com/danshipper/status/1726784936990978254 https://x.com/danshipper/status/1726784936990978254
- alex_young 3y agoLarry Summers? He has no technical experience, torpedoed the stimulus plan in 2008, and had to resign the Harvard presidency following a messy set of statements about ‘differences’ between the sexes and their mental abilities. Kind of a shocking choice.
- the-memory-hole 3y agoa huge player in preventing derivatives regulation leading up to 2008 now helps steer the ship of AI oversight. I'm speechless.
- nonethewiser 3y ago> “There is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation and variability of a male and female population,” he said. Thus, even if the average abilities of men and women were the same, there would be more men than women at the elite levels of mathematical ability Isn’t this true though? Says more about Harvard than Summers to be honest. https://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/wp/january-2009_what-larry-summers-said-and-didnt-say.html https://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/wp/january-2009_...
- alex_young 3y agoA control group is kind of unimaginable right? And even if you could be sure of this conclusion, is it helpful or beneficial to promote it in public discourse?
- logicchains 3y ago>And even if you could be sure of this conclusion, is it helpful or beneficial to promote it in public discourse? It's absolutely helpful for mental health, to show people that there's not some conspiracy out to disenfranchise and oppress them, rather the distribution of outcomes is a natural result of the distribution of genetic characteristics.
- hshsbs84848 3y agoSeems a bit awkward to be working again with the people who tried to fire you
- acl777 3y agohttps://x.com/swyx/status/1727215534037774752?s=20 https://x.com/swyx/status/1727215534037774752?s=20 Finally the OpenAI saga ends and everybody can go back to building! 3 things that turned things around imo: 1. 95% of employees signing the letter 2. Ilya and Mira turning Team Sam 3. Microsoft pulling credits Things AREN’T back to where they were. OpenAI has been through hell and back. This team is going to ship like we’ve never seen before.
- shubhamjain 3y agoAt the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1]. > Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressure for ever more funding to erode its founding ideals of transparency, openness, and collaboration Team Helen acted in panic, but they believed they would win since they were upholding the principles the org was founded on. But they never had a chance. I think only a minority of the general public truly cares about AI Safety, the rest are happy seeing ChatGPT helping with their homework. I know it's easy to ridicule the sheer stupidity the board acted with (and justifiably so), but take a moment to think of the other side. If you truly believed that Superhuman AI was near, and it could act with malice, won't you try to slow things down a bit? Honestly, I myself can't take the threat seriously. But, I do want to understand it more deeply than before. Maybe, it isn't without substance as I thought it to be. Hopefully, there won't be a day when Team Helen gets to say, "This is exactly what we wanted to prevent." [1]: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai...
- loveparade 3y ago> I think only a minority of the general public truly cares about AI Safety, the rest are happy seeing ChatGPT helping with their homework Not just the public, but also the employees. I doubt there are more than a handful of employees who care about AI Safety.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- justrealist 3y agothe team is mostly e/acc so you could say they intentionally don't see safety as the end in itself, although I wouldn't quite say they don't care.
- deleted 3y ago
- bigbacaloa 3y ago[dead]
- ayakang31415 3y agoSuppose everything settles and they have the board properly in place. I know such board has fiduciary responsibility to make sure the organization is headed in the right direction based on its goals and missions. For private company, the mission is very clear, but for non-profit orgs like OpenAI, what's their mission specifically? It vaguely claims to better the humanity, but what does that entail exactly with regards to what they do in AI space?
- ulfw 3y agoOne huge shitshow that proved immaturity of OpenAI. But hey, at least now every soul on the planet knows Sam Altman. So there's that.
- underseacables 3y agoI feel like this was all such a waste of time, energy, and probably money.
- low_tech_punk 3y agoAdding up all the salary hours spent by people browsing Twitter, they could have finished training GPT-5
- randomsoutham 3y agoIt's incredible how the company behind of one the most promising technologies out there was about to fail because of bad politics. Seems likely that it won't be there by OpenAI for too long. MS have a tendency to break up acquisitions so this gives me hope.
- anigbrowl 3y agoApparently the moon changes size when you snipe it in OpenAI as well
- dukeofdoom 3y agoWho is Sam?
- system2 3y agoIt was Microsoft's voice generation tool from the 90s. You can play with it here: https://www.tetyys.com/SAPI4/ https://www.tetyys.com/SAPI4/
- dukeofdoom 3y agono really who is Sam, and how did he get here? Do u know?
- system2 3y agoHow he became a CEO is a common story. Why this drama happened is still unknown to everyone.
- sinuhe69 3y agoSo basically somebody initiated a coup, then the key figure of the coup regretted it openly, and the fallout was that OpenAI will become a 100% commercial entity, fully open for Microsoft to taking over? If that’s not a fertile soil for conspiracy theory, I don’t know what could ;)
- sashank_1509 3y agoLooks to me like, one pro-board member in Adam d Angelo, one pro Sam in Brett Taylor since they’ve been pushing for him since Sunday so I’m assuming Sam and rest of OpenAI leadership really like him and 1 Neutral in Larry Summers who has never worked in AI and is just a well respected name in general. I’m sure Larry was extensively interviewed and reference checked by both sides of this power struggle before they agreed to compromise on him. Interesting to see how the board evolves from this. From what I know broadly there were 2 factions, the faction that thought Sam was going too fast which fired him and the faction that thought Sam’s trajectory was fine (which included Sam and Greg). Now there’s a balance on the board and subsequent hires can tip it one way or the other. Unfortunately a divided board rarely lasts and one faction will eventually win out, I think Sam’s faction will eventually win out but we’ll have to wait and see. One of the saddest results of this drama was Greg being ousted from OpenAI. Greg apart from being brilliant was someone who regularly 80-90 hour work weeks into OpenAI, and you could truly say he dedicated a good chunk of his life into building this organization. And he was forced to resign by a board who probably never put a 90 hour work week in their entire life, much less into building OpenAI. A slap on the face. I don’t care what the board’s reasoning was but when their actions caused employees who dedicated their lives to building the organization resign (especially when most of them played no part at all into building this amazing organization), they had to go in disgrace. I doubt any of them will ever reach career highs higher than being on OpenAI’s board, and the world’s better off for it. P.S., Ilya of course is an exception and not included in my above condemnation. He also notably reversed his position when he saw OpenAI was being killed by his actions.
- mcmcmc 3y agoLarry Summers is the scary pick here. His views on banking deregulation led to the GFC, and he's had several controversies over racist and sexist positions. Plus he's an old pal of Epstein and made several trips to his island.
- Joeri 3y agoI assume Summers is there as a politically connected operative, to make sure OpenAI remains influential in Washington.
- eclectic29 3y agoThe media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.
- auggierose 3y agoIf you are driven by outside validation, definitely!
- fidotron 3y agoUnsurprisingly VCs view VCs as the highest form of life, and product managers are temporary positions taken on the way to ascending to VC status. I have said recently elsewhere SV now devalues builders but it is not just VCs/sales/product, a huge amount is devops and sre departments. They make a huge amount of noise about how all development should be free and the value is in deploying and operating the developed artifacts. Anyone outside this watching would reasonably conclude developers have no self respect, hardly aspirational positions.
- drawkbox 3y agoDevelopers are clearly the weak link today, have given up all power over product and it is sad and why software sucks so bad. It pains the soul that value creators have let the value extractors run the show, because it is now a reality TV / circus like market where power is consolidating. Developers and value creators with power are like an anti-trust on consolidation and concentration and they have instead turned towards authoritarianism instead of anti-authoritarianism. What happened? Many think they can still get rich, those days are over because of giving up power. Now quality of life for everyone and value creators is worse off. Everyone loses.
- dinvlad 3y agoI suspect it's because they're happy with SV salaries they got. They think it's actually a good deal for them, and a signal they're "valued"
- intended 3y agoFrom a business sense, Satya was excellent. He made the right calls, fast, with limited information. Things further shifted from plan a to b to… whatever this is. Despite that, MSFT still came out on top. Consider if Satya didn’t say anything. Suppose MSFT stood back and let things play out. That’s a gap for google or some competitor to make a move. To showcase their stability and long term business friendly vision. Instead by moving fast, doing the “right” thing, this opportunity was denied and used to MSFTs benefit. If the board folded, it would return to the stays quo. If the board held, MSFT would have secured OpenAI, for essentially nothing. Edit: changed board folded x2 to board folded + board held, last para.
- huytersd 3y agoSatya may honestly be the CEO of the decade for what he has done with Microsoft and now this.
- chatmasta 3y agoMeanwhile Sundar might be the worst. Where was he this weekend? Where was he the past three years while his company got beat to market on products built from its own research? He's asleep at the wheel. I'm surprised every day he remains CEO.
- kridsdale1 3y agoSo is everyone else at Google.
- gardenhedge 3y agoSatya invested 10b into a company with terrible, incompetent governance and not getting his company any seat of influence on the board. That doesn't seem great.
- campbel 3y agoThe only mistake (a big one) was publicly offering to match comp for all the OpenAI employees. Can't sit well with folks @ MS already. This was something they could have easily done privately to give petition signers confidence.
- auggierose 3y agoSo, the only two women were removed from the board, and two ultra-alpha males were brought on. And everybody is cheering it on as the right thing to do! Not judging, just observing.
- huytersd 3y agoIt’s definitely the right thing to do. Those women had “qualifications” in a made up field with no real world relevance that aimed to halt progress on AI work. We are no where close to a paradigm where AI takes over the world or whatever.
- lucubratory 3y agoAnd Larry Summers believes that women are genetically inferior to men at science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. A lot of the techbro hate that was directed specifically at Helen is openly misogynistic, which is actually pretty funny because Larry Summers was probably who Helen was eventually happy with because of their shared natsec connections.
- maxdoop 3y agoIs there any way to disagree with Helen and not be misogynistic in your view? How would that look?
- lucubratory 3y agoDisagree with her or her actions without falsely claiming that she has no qualifications or understanding of AI and therefore no business being on the board in the first place? It is not hard at all to do so, and many people did.
- maxdoop 3y agoDo you think people said she has no qualifications because she is a woman, or is it possible people say that because her resume is quite short ? It seems like people taking such comments as misogynistic are actually projecting misogyny into the situation, rather than the reverse. If you showed me her resume and put “Steven Smith” stop the paper, I’d say that person isn’t qualified to be running the board of a 90 billion dollar company in charge of guiding research on some of the most groundbreaking new tech in years.
- I_am_tiberius 3y agoLet's hope he now focuses on user privacy and AI safety.
- benkarst 3y agoGreed is undefeated.
- Satam 3y agoDisappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too short-sighted and reactive. Big techs will have incredible distribution power but a real disruptor must be brewing somewhere unnoticed, for now.
- jacquesm 3y ago> The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. This was said loud and clear when Microsoft joined in the first place but there were no takers.
- kmlevitt 3y agoA lot of this comes down to processing power though. That's why Microsoft had so much leverage with both factions in this fight. It actually gives them a pretty good moat above and beyond their head start. There aren't too many companies with the hardware to compete, let alone talent.
- patcon 3y agoAgreed. Perhaps a reason for public AI [1], which advocates for a publicly funded option where a player like MSFT can't push around something like OpenAI so forcefully. [1]: https://lu.ma/zo0vnony https://lu.ma/zo0vnony
- haunter 3y ago> OpenAI is in fact not open Apple is also not an apple
- KeplerBoy 3y agoPretty sure Apple never aimed to be an Apple.
- dbuser99 3y agoOnce again the house (the VCs) wins. I for one don’t trust openAI for one bit after this soap opera
- kumarvvr 3y agoSo, the company has successfully trashed its goals and values, and is finally focused on making money?
- laserlight 3y agoWith Sam coming back as CEO, hasn't OpenAI board proven that it has lost its function? Regardless of who is in the board, they won't be able to exercise one of the most fundamental of their rights, firing the CEO, because Sam has proven that he is unfireable. Now, Sam can do however he pleases, whether it is lying, not reporting, etc. To be clear, I don't claim that Sam did, or will, lie, or misbehave.
- isitmadeofglass 3y ago[dead]
- kmlevitt 3y agoThis is a better deal for the board and a worse one for Sam than people realize. Sam and Greg and even Ilya are both off the board, D'Angelo gets to stay on despite his outrageous actions, and he gets veto power over who the new board members will be and a big say in who gets voted on to the board next. Everybody's guard is going to be up around Sam from now on. He'll have much less leverage over this board than he did over the previous one (before the other three of nine quit). I think eventually he will prevail because he has the charm and social skills to win over the other independent members. But he will have to reign in his own behavior a lot in order to keep them on his side versus D'Angelo
- JSavageOne 3y agoI'd be shocked if D'Angelo doesn't get kicked off. Even before this debacle his AI competitor app poe.com is an obvious conflict of interest with OpenAI.
- himaraya 3y agoIf he survived to this point, I doubt he will go any time soon.
- yeck 3y agoDepends who gets onto the board. There are probably a lot of forces interested in ousting him now, so he'd need to do an amazing job vetting the new board members. My guess is that he has less than a year, based on the my assumption that there will be constant pressure placed on the board to oust him.
- jurgenaut23 3y agoI predict this isn't the last episode of this amazing soap opera.
- kumarvvr 3y agoI find it worrying that Elon Musk is totally silent through this whole drama.
- iamflimflam1 3y agoHe's been sending out the occasional tweet - to be honest I get the impression that like the rest of us, he's just been watching with a big tub of popcorn...
- doyouevensunbro 3y agoWe’re at ~250k tech industry layoffs this year and a single CEO drama dominates the media because “AI”.
- quickthrower2 3y agoBecause it is a scoop
- justanotherjoe 3y agoYeah people should really stand up for their peer more. Who knew that would work. Sam wouldn't have been back if it not for Brockman and several scientists standing up for him.
- ah765 3y ago"Context on the negotiations to bring Sam back as CEO of OpenAI: The biggest sticking point was Sam being on the board. Ultimately, he conceded to not being on the board, at least initially, to close the deal. The hope/expectation is that he will end up on the board eventually." (https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1727216818648134101 https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1727216818648134101)
- andrewstuart 3y agoI've lost track of everything.
- system2 3y agoRich people drama. For us peasants, nothing changed.
- renewiltord 3y agoThis is a triumph of labor against management in sheep's garb. Workers united were able to force an outcome they desired to preserve an organization they loved while sweeping aside a board that would prefer to destroy it.
- didip 3y agoLet’s be real here. At the end of the day, what matters more is commercial success and a big payout. AGI is still very far away and the fear mongering is nothing but PR stunt. But the devs need their big payout now. Which explains the mutiny. The “safety” board of directors drank their own koolaid a bit too much.
- mkii 3y agoYou can have unsafe AI without AGI.
- kuchenbecker 3y agoWhat will this unsafe AI do?
- CaptainFever 3y agoOf course, it depends on what safety means. Currently it seems to just be a pretext for prudishness and regulation.
- s-xyz 3y agoAll systems operational again https://status.openai.com/ https://status.openai.com/
- tomalbrc 3y agoI really don't care who the CEO/CTO/CFO of any company is. Why is this whole thing blowing up that much on ycombinator?
- kaoD 3y agoIt's nerd(ier) Game of Thrones in real life. Pretty entertaining.
- Solvency 3y agoMuch more like Succession. But again. Nerdier.
- meitham 3y agoUnfortunately the “great man theory” is still going strong in the 21st century. Just like Steve Jobs has invented the iPhone people believe he invented GPT!
- dalbasal 3y agoIs the alternative theory that the ownership, control and leadership of OpenAI is immaterial?
- meitham 3y agoOpenAI success is unfortunately largely based on the one ruthless decision to ignore ethics and train the model on the work of millions of artists and authors. I don’t know if Sam himself was behind this decision. I doubt Aaron Schwartz would have done the same.
- dalbasal 3y agoOk... So the alternative to great man theory, in this case, is terrible man theory... I'm not following. If focusing on control over openai, is great man theory... What's the contrary notion?
- _Algernon_ 3y agoWhat a farce
- globalise83 3y agoThis is our board, they provide oversight and ensure alignment with the mission. If you don't like them, we have others.
- dcreater 3y agoBit of an aside, but the rationality and moral compass shown by HN has restored my faith after having lost it thanks to r/ChatGPT
- rurban 3y agoThis was expected. So they booted Ilya (my main culprit), Helen Toner (expected, favoriting Anthropic) and Tasha McCauly. This seems to have been their vote majority. Not D'Angelo. Interesting
- simoneblv 3y agoHow does Microsoft will come out from this? Satya already made a big announcement on having Sam and everyone else in.
- upupupandaway 3y agoIn a different thread I commented how surprised I was that Emmett Shear accepted the job of interim CEO, to some criticism that my opinion was “silly”. This is why he should have stayed miles away from this whole mess. There was no winning scenario for him: stay CEO and lose 95% of the employees, or get ignored by a triumphant return of Sam Altman.
- houston_Euler 3y agoAfter learning earlier about Sam Altman's long-con at Reddit, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone suggest that Emmett Shear accepted the job in order to help get Sam back into the company. They were both members of the inaugural class of Y-Combinator, and all of Shear's published actions since accepting the role (like demanding evidence of Sam' wrongdoing) seem to have helped Sam return to his role. I don't think it's a stretch to say that he did win, in that he might have accomplished exactly what he wanted when he accepted the role.
- stephenitis 3y agoCan you elaborate on the long con?
- timetraveller26 3y agoBack to work I guess
- dcreater 3y agoSo these nutjob teenagers are going to create AGI? We are fucked if they actually succeed
- jl2718 3y agoAre the Microsoft job offers at the same compensation still on the table?
- righthand 3y agoWhat's interesting to me is that during this time Meta and OpenAI have eliminated their AI ethics members/teams but are still preaching about how it matters. No one has given any details beyond grand statements about it's importance on what these ethical AIs do. Everyone has secured their payday though.
- swatcoder 3y agoI think those changes (and this shakeup) are the start of the industry grounding its expectations for this technology. I think a lot of product and finance people, and many but not all researchers, are seeing the current batch of generative AI ideas as ripe to make do things and see the pseudo-religious safety/ethics communities as not directly relevant to that work. So you let your product teams figure out how the brand needs to be protected and the workflow needs to be shaped, like always, and you don't defer to some outside department full of beatniks in berets or whatever.
- righthand 3y agoThis is the abandoning of ethics. No one moving forward is going to be thinking about it and they've clearly signaled it's about making money. People that have issues with it will just not use the products or be hypocrites about using the products. There is nothing to push up against anymore, but I don't think the recent events are initiator. People were already letting go of ethics the moment they continued using it because the tech was so cool. The parting of the ethical peoples is just the final nail. There is no reason to remove these ethical teams if they believe in ethics, downsize maybe but not dedicating a human to at least researching the ethical outcomes sure isn't very good for humanity ethics concerns.
- olgias 3y agoWhere Ilya will go next then? I assume he won't stay at OpenAI for too long after all this poop-show.
- xeckr 3y agoWhat a ride.
- Havoc 3y agoKeeping Adam? I thought he’s the likely instigator
- cft 3y agoIlya won't stick around for long probably. It will be interesting what he can do independently. Probably not a lot.
- realme-011-2021 3y ago[flagged]
- personalityson 3y agoWhy is Altman, who has no higher education, critical for development of AI?
- calmoo 3y agoIs higher education really crucial for pushing something forward? Even if he isn't an AI expert, there is lots of stuff surrounding the technology that needs doing, for example massive amounts of funding, which he seems to have been pretty good at securing.
- realme-011-2021 3y ago[flagged]
- notfed 3y agoSam was crucified, then resurrected after 3 days and 3 nights.
- pjmlp 3y agoSatya probably isn't that happy, after the weekend efforts to eventually bring all folks into Microsoft.
- stingraycharles 3y agoYou say that as if that was his end goal. His end goal was to save the situation, and that happened. One can easily argue that Microsoft’s offer added huge pressure on the OpenAI board that made the new / current outcome possible. And perhaps that was the plan after all.
- pjmlp 3y agoWhen offices are already being prepared, and HR processes being put into place, we are beyond saving a situation.
- ugh123 3y agoIn light of this weekend's events, and the more i've learned about OpenAI's beginnings and purpose, I now believe that there isn't necessarily a "for profit" motivation of the company, but merely that the original intention to create AI that "benefits humanity" is in full play now through a commercialized ChatGPT, and possibly further leveraged through "GPTs" and their evolution. Is this the "path" to AGI? Who knows! But it is a path to benefitting humanity as probably Sam and his camp see it. Does Ilya have a different plan? If he does, he has a lot of catching up to do while the current productization of ChatGPT and GPTs continue marching forward. Maybe he sees a great leap forward in accuracy in GPT-5 or later. Or maybe he feels LLMs aren't the answer and theres a completely new paradigm on the horizon. Regardless, they still need to answer to the fact that both research and product need funds to buy and power GPUs, and also satisfy the MSFT partnership. Commercialization is their only clear answer to that right now. Future investments will likely not stray from this approach, else they'll fund rivals who are more commercially motivated. Thats business. Thus, i'm all in on this commercially motivated humanity benefitting GPT product. Let the market take OpenAI LLMs to where they need/want it to. Exciting things may follow!
- picadores 3y agoTotally agree, GPT should be trained to spout adds and develop dark pattern behaviour.
- ugh123 3y agoThere will always be misuse, less sexy, or downright illegal use cases leveraging any AI product these days - just as is the nature of the internet itself.
- tkgally 3y agoIn addition to commercialization providing money for AI development, isn't there also the argument that prudent commercialization is the best way to test the models for possible dangers? I think I saw Mira Murati take that position in an interview. In other words, creating a product that people want to use so much that they are willing to pay for it is a good way to stress-test the product. I don't know if I agree, but the argument did make me think.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agohttps://twitter.com/dr_park_phd/status/1727125936070410594 https://twitter.com/dr_park_phd/status/1727125936070410594 https://twitter.com/GaryMarcus/status/1727134758919151975 https://twitter.com/GaryMarcus/status/1727134758919151975 https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding-Intentions.pdf https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding... https://twitter.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1727108259297837083 https://twitter.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1727108259297837083
- olivierlacan 3y agoSweetie, you might want to actually look at the photo attached to the tweet.
- mkii 3y agoApril Fools? If you run a monotonic stack and summation kinda algorithm on 11/21 you'd get 4/1 :-)
- zx8080 3y agoIt was just a preparation for the upcoming IPO. Free ads in all news and TV.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoThe sane course of action for any healthy organization after last week would be to work actively on becoming more independent from Microsoft. With Sam at the head, especially after Microsoft backing him, they will most likely do the opposite. Meaning a deeper integration with Microsoft. If it wasn't already, OpenAI is now basically a Microsoft subsidiary. With the advantage for Microsoft of not being legally liable for any court cases.
- 0xDEF 3y agoBefore the current drama: >Microsoft owned 49% of the for-profit part of OpenAI. >OpenAI's training, inference, and all other infrastructure were running entirely on Azure credits. >Microsoft/Azure were the only ones offering OpenAI's models/APIs with a business-friendly SLA, uptime/stability, and the option to host them in Azure data centers outside the US. OpenAI is already Microsoft.
- ChatGTP 3y agoCool, so the technically minded folks on the internet have spent a week discussing this and practically nothing has changed?
- MattHeard 3y agoI was hopeful for a private-industry approach to AI safety, but it looks unlikely now, and due to the slow pace of state investment in public AI R&D, all approaches to AI safety look unlikely now. Safety research on toy models will continue to provide developments, but the industry expectation appears to be that emergent properties puts a low ceiling on what can be learned about safety without researching on cutting edge models. Altman touted the governance structure of OpenAI as a mechanism for ensuring the organisation's prioritisation of safety, but the reports of internal reallocation away from safety towards keeping ChatGPT running under load concern me. Now the board has demonstrated that it was technically capable but insufficiently powerful to keep these interests in line, it seems unclear how any safety-oriented organisation, including Anthropic, could avoid the accelerationist influence of funders.
- throwuwu 3y agoEasy, don’t be incompetent and don’t abuse your power for personal gain. People aren’t as dumb as you think they are and they will see right through that bullshit and quit rather than follow idiot tyrants.
- abra0 3y agoMore effort spent on early commercialization like keeping ChatGPT running might mean less effort on cutting edge capabilities. Altman was never an AI safety person, so my personal hope is that Anthropic avoids this by having higher quality leadership.
- mymusewww 3y agoI would like to know the model that isn’t a “toy model”.
- sgt101 3y agoThere are no emergent properties, just a linear increase in knowledge that can be retrieved. - It can't plan - It can't do arithmetic - It can't reason - It can approximately retrieve knowledge with a natural language query (there are some issues with this, but it's very good) - It can encode data into natural languages and other modalities I'm not worried about it, I am worried about how badly people have misunderstood what it can do and then attempted to use it for things that matter. But I'm not surprised.
- ensocode 3y ago> a real disruptor must be brewing somewhere unnoticed, for now. Yeah, they might just be the Netscapes and AltaVistas
- ChatGTP 3y agoIn my opinion, MS will neuter this product too, there is no way they're just going to have the public accessing tools which make their own software and products obsolete. They will take over the board, and then steer it in some weird dystopian direction. Ilya knows that IMO, he was just more principled than Altman.
- Uptrenda 3y agoYep, this ones going in my cringe compilation.
- ecmascript 3y agoAll these posts about OpenAI.. are people really this interested in whatever happens inside one company?
- quietpain 3y agoWhy is this subject giving me Silicon Valley season 2 flashbacks with every update?
- seydor 3y agoThe script of SV2 was given as training data to the AGI that has taken over.
- jmyeet 3y agoI figured if Sam came back, the board would have to go as a condition. That's obvious. And deserved. The handling of this whole thing has been a very public clownshow. Obviously, Microsoft has some influence here. That's no different to any other large investor. But the key factors are: 1. Lack of a good narrative from the board as to why they fired Sam; 2. Failure to loop in Microsoft so they're at least prepared from a communications front and feel like they were part of the process. The board can probably give them more details why privately; 3. People leaving in protest speaks well of Sam; 4. The employee letter speaks well of Sam; 5. The interim CEO clown show and lack of an all hands immediately after speaks poorly of the board.
- nickysielicki 3y agoSatya and Sam committed securities fraud with their late Sunday “funding secured” ploy to protect the MSFT stock price. This was the obvious outcome. Sam had no intentions of actually going through with that and Satya was in no position to unilaterally commit to the type of funding that he was implying. They lied to protect the stock. That should be illegal. In fact, it is illegal.
- computerex 3y agoI don't think this is actionable in anyway, even if what you say was shown unequivocally to be true.
- nickysielicki 3y agoWhat do you mean? It would be conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud, the SEC can totally act on that if they want to.
- nmfisher 3y agoYeah, I think there may well be an investigation into that. At best, he said something that was unequivocally untrue, and at worst it was an outright lie. That's blatant market manipulation.
- TrackerFF 3y agoShort sellers in shambles right now.
- superultra 3y agoI find it interesting that for all the talk from OpenAI staff that it was all about the people, and from Satya that MS has all the rights and knowledge and can jumpstart their own branch at the turn of a dime, it seems getting control of OpenAI proper was a huge priority. Given that Claude sucks so bad, and this week’s events, I’m guessing that the ChatGPT secret sauce is not as replicable as some might suggest.
- 0xDEF 3y agoBard is better than ChatGPT-3.5. But GPT-4 is indeed a class of its own.
- wilde 3y agoBut “Sam Altman, Microsoft PM” would have been a much funnier outcome
- corobo 3y agoThe thing we should all take from this is that unions work :)
- martin_a 3y agoWhat a total shitshow. Amazing.
- j4yav 3y agoThis has been a whirlwind, I feel like I've seen every single possible wrong outcome confidently predicted here, twice.
- mlindner 3y agoWell that's disappointing. They might as well disband the entire concept of the non-profit as it's clearly completely irrelevant and powerless.
- gongagong 3y agoMeta is looking like the Mother Teresa of large corp LLM providers which is crazy to say out loud (; ꒪ö꒪)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cbeach 3y agoDoes anyone know which faction (e/acc vs decels) the new board members Bret Taylor and Larry Summers will be on? One thing IS clear at this point - their political alignment: * Taylor a significant donor to Joe Biden ($713,637 in 2020): https://nypost.com/2022/04/26/twitter-board-members-gave-thousands-to-democratic-candidates/ https://nypost.com/2022/04/26/twitter-board-members-gave-tho... * Summers is a former Democrat Treasury Secretary who has shifted leftwards with age: https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-interview/2023/03/why-larry-summers-is-moving-left-with-age https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-interview/2023/03/w...
- davidthewatson 3y agoThe most interesting thing here is not the cult of personality battle between board and CEO. Rather, it's that these teams have managed to ship consumer AI that has a liminal, asymptotic edge where the smart kids can manipulate it into doing emergent things that it was not designed to do. That is, many of the outcomes of in-context learning could not be predicted at design time and they are, in fact, mind-blowing, magical, and likely not safe for consumption by those who believe that the machines are anywhere near the spectrum from consciousness to sentience.
- dizzydes 3y agoD'Angelo is still there... there goes that theory.
- DebtDeflation 3y ago>We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo. Is Ilya off the board then? Why is Adam still on? Brett and Larry are good choices, but they need to get that board up to 10 or so people representing a balance of perspectives and interests very quickly.
- fredgrott 3y agoMS and OpenAI did not win here, but one of their competitors did...whoops. Why did I say that? Look at the product release by the competitors these past few days. 2nd, Sam pushing for AI chips implies that chatGPT's future breakthroughs are hardware bounded. Hence, the road to AGI is not through chatGPT.
- al_be_back 3y agoLosing the CEO must not push significant number of your staff to throw hissy fits and jump ship - it doesn't instill confidence in investors, partners, and crucially customers. as this event turned into a farce, it's evident that neither the company nor it's key investors accounted much for the "bus factor/problem" i.e loosing a key-person threatened to destroy the whole enterprise. for me this a failure in Managing Risk 101.
- causi 3y agoKicking Sam out was a bad move. Begging him back is worse. Instead of having an OpenAI whose vision you disagree with, now we have an OpenAI with no vision at all that's simply blown back and forth.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- roody15 3y ago“The company also agreed to revamp the board of directors that had dismissed him. OpenAI named Bret Taylor, formerly co-CEO of Salesforce, as chair and also appointed Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, to the board.” Not looking good for the “Open” part of OpenAI.
- otteromkram 3y agoCould have said the same thing once Microsoft got involved.
- garrison 3y agoIf OpenAI remains a 501(c)(3) charity, then any employee of Microsoft on the board will have a fiduciary duty to advance the mission of the charity, rather than the business needs of Microsoft. There are obvious conflicts of interest here. I don't expect the IRS to be a fan of this arrangement.
- flagrant_taco 3y agoI don't expect the government to regulate any of this aggressively. AI is much to important to the government and military to allow pesky conflicts of interest to slow down any competitive advantage we may have.
- dgrin91 3y agoIf you think that OpenAI is the Gov's only source of high quality AI research then I have a bridge to sell you.
- jakderrida 3y agoIf you think the person you're replying to was talking about regulating OpenAI specifically and not the industry as a whole, I have ADHD medicine to sell you.
- swores 3y agoThe context of the comment thread you're replying to was a response to a comment suggesting the IRS will get involved in the question of whether MS have too much influence over OpenAI, it was not the subject of general industry regulation. But hey, at least you fitted in a snarky line about ADHD in the comment you wrote while not having paid attention to the 3 comments above it.
- freedomben 3y agoif up-the-line parent wasn't talking about regulation of AI in general, then what do you think they meant by "competitive advantage"? Also, governments have to set policy and enforce that policy. They can't (or shouldn't at least) pick and choose favorites. Also GP snark was a reply to snark. Once somebody opens the snark, they should expect snark back. It's ideal for nobody to snark, and big for people not to snark back at a snarker, but snarkers gonna snark.
- bvan 3y agoAll involved have clearly demonstrated the lack of credibility in self-governance or the ability to make big-boy decisions. All reassurances from now on will sound hollow.
- NorwegianDude 3y agoWhy is people so interested in this? Why exactly was he fired? I did not get why when I read the news, so I find it strange that people care if they don't even know what it's about. Do we know for sure what this was/is about?
- minzi 3y agoI would be surprised if the original board’s reasons for caving in were not influenced by personal factors. They must’ve been receiving all kinds of threats from those involved and from random twitter extremists. It is troubling because it shows that this “external” governance meant to make decisions for the good of humanity is unable to enforce decisions. The internal employees were obviously swayed by financial gain as well. I don’t think that I would behave differently were I in their shoes honestly. However, this does definitively mean that they are a product and profit driven group. I think that Sam Altman is dishonest and a depressing example of what modern Americans idealize. He has all these ideals he preaches but will happily turn on if it upsets his ego. On top of that he is held up as some star innovator when in reality he built nothing himself. He just identified one potential technological advancement and threw money at it with all his billionaire friends. Gone are the days of building things in a garage with a mission. Founders are no longer visionary engineers and designers. The path now is clear. Convince some rich folks you’re worthy of being rich too. When they adopt you into wealth you can start throwing shit at the wall until something sticks. Eventually something will and you can claim visionary status. Now your presence in the billionaire club is beyond reproach because you’re a “founder”.
- InCityDreams 3y ago>They must’ve been receiving all kinds of threats from those involved and from random twitter extremists. Oooh, yeah. "Must have".
- dangerface 3y agoKeeping D'Angelo on the board is an obvious mistake, he has too much conflicting interest to be level headed and has demonstrated that. The only people that benefited from all this are Microsoft and D'Angelo. Give it a year and we will see part 2 of all this. Further where is the public accountability? I thought the board was to act in the interests of the public but they haven't communicated anything. Are we all just supposed to pretend this never happend and that the board will now act in the public interest? We need regulations to hold these boards which hold so much power accountable to the public. No reasonable AI regulations can be made until the public are included in a meaningful way, anyone that pushes for regulations without the public is just trying to control the industry and establish a monopoly.
- EarthAmbassador 3y agoLarry effing Summers?! Really? Was Henry Kissinger unavailable?
- sys_64738 3y agoWhy have OpenAI take to poaching employees from M$ now?
- nojvek 3y agoWhat this proves is that OpenAI interests are now entrenched with profit. I’m assuming most of the researchers there probably realize there is a loooot of money to be made and they have to optimize for that. They are deffo pushing the frontier of AI. However I wish OpenAI doesn’t get to AGI first. I don’t think it will be the best for all of humanity. I’m scared.
- pimpampum 3y agoSo Altman started it and ended up winning it, clearly his coup. Sad how employees were duped into standing behind him.
- donohoe 3y agoLarry Summers!?
- throwaway74852 3y agoSo OpenAI's board is now exclusively white men, and predominantly tech insiders? Lovely to have such a diverse group behind this technology Could this be more comical?
- iteratethis 3y agoSam's power was tested and turned out to be absolute. Sam was doing whatever he wanted, got caught, and now can continue to do what he wants with even more backing.
- nomaD_ 3y agoHiring engineers at 900K salary & pretending to be non-profit does not work. Turns out, 97% of them wanted to make money. Government should have banned big tech investment in AI companies a year ago. If they want, they can create their own AI but buying one should be off the table.
- Pigalowda 3y agoShows over I guess. Feels like the ending to GoT. I’m not sure I even care what happened to begin it all anymore.
- rceDia 3y agoThe "giveaway" is the fact that "Microsoft is happy" with the return of Mr. Altman. Can't wait for the former boards tell-all story. Bets on: how a founder of cutting edge tech company wanted world peace and no harm but outside capital forces steered him to other "unfathomable riches" option. It happens.
- Mrirazak1 3y agoThe Steve jobs of our TikTok generation. Came back very quickly in comparison to the 12 years but still.
- ChoGGi 3y agoI'm sure that first meeting will be... Interesting.
- lysecret 3y agoFascinating, I see a lot of VC/Msfot has overthrown our NPO governing structure because of profit incentives narrative. I don't think this is what really happened at all. The reason this decision was made was because 95% of employees sided with Sam on this issue, and the board didn't explain themselves in any way at all. So it was Sam + 95% of employees + All investors against the board. In which case the board should lose (since they are only governing for themselves here). I think in the end a good and fair outcome. I still think their governing structure is decent to solve the AGI problem, this particular board was just really bad.
- greenie_beans 3y agonext time, can't wait to see what happens when capital is on the opposite side of the 95% of employees.
- r_thambapillai 3y agoOf course, the profit incentive also applies to all the employees (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, its good to align the company's goals with those of the employees). But when the executives likely have 10s of millions of dollars on the line, and many of the IC's will likely have single digit millions on the line as well, it doesn't seem exactly straightforward to view this as the employees are unbiased adjudicators of what's in the interest of the non-profit entity, which is supposed to be what's in charge. It is sort of strange that our communal reaction is to say "well this board didn't act anything like a normal corporate board": of course it didn't, that was indeed the whole point of not having a normal corporate board in charge. Whatever you think of Sam, Adam, Ilya etc, the one conclusion that seems safe to reach is that in the end, the profit/financial incentives ended up being far more important than the NGOs mission, no matter what legal structure was in place.
- jkaplan 3y ago1. Microsoft was heavily involved in orchestrating the 95% of employees to side with Sam -- through promising them money/jobs and through PR/narrative 2. The profit incentives apply to employees too Bigger picture, I don't think the "money/VC/MSFT/commercialization faction destroyed the safety/non-profit faction" is mutually exclusive with "the board fucked up." IMO, both are true
- BryantD 3y agoWe’re not gonna see it but I’d love to see Sam’s new contract and particularly any restraints on outside activities.
- geniium 3y agoThis was a nice ride. Nice story to follow
- theGnuMe 3y agoLarry Summers is an interesting choice. Any ideas why? I know he was Sheryl Sandberg's mentor/professor which gives him a tech connection. However, I've watched him debate Paul Krugman on inflation in some economic lectures and it almost felt like Larry was out of his element as in Larry was outgunned by Paul... but maybe he was having an off day or it was a topic he is not an expert in. But I don't know the history, haven't read either of their books and I am not an economist. But it was something I noticed.. almost like he was out of touch. That has nothing to do with AI though.
- jafitc 3y agoOpenAI's Future and Viability - OpenAI has damaged their brand and lost trust, but may still become a hugely successful company if they build great products - OpenAI looks stronger now with a more professional board, but has fundamentally transformed into a for-profit focused on commercializing LLMs - OpenAI still retains impressive talent and technology assets and could pivot into a leading AI provider if managed well --- Sam Altman's Leadership - Sam emerged as an irreplaceable CEO with overwhelming employee loyalty, but may have to accept more oversight - Sam has exceptional leadership abilities but can be manipulative; he will likely retain control but have to keep stakeholders aligned --- Board Issues - The board acted incompetently and destructively without clear reasons or communication - The new board seems more reasonable but may struggle to govern given Sam's power - There are still opposing factions on ideology and commercialization that will continue battling --- Employee Motivations - Employees followed the money trail and Sam to preserve their equity and careers - Peer pressure and groupthink likely also swayed employees more than principles - Mission-driven employees may still leave for opportunities at places like Anthropic --- Safety vs Commercialization - The safety faction lost this battle but still has influential leaders wanting to constrain the technology - Rapid commercialization beat out calls for restraint but may hit snags with model issues --- Microsoft Partnership - Microsoft strengthened its power despite not appearing involved in the drama - OpenAI is now clearly beholden to Microsoft's interests rather than an independent entity
- qualifiedai 3y agoNo structure or organization is stronger when their leader emerged as "irreplaceable".
- rmbyrro 3y agoIn this case, I don't see as a flaw, but really as Sam's abilities to lead a highly cohesive group and keep it highly motivated and aligned. I don't personally like him, but I must admit he displayed a lot more leadership skills than I'd recognize before. It's inherently hard to replace someone like that in any organization. Take Apple, after losing Jobs. It's not that Apple was a "weak" organization, but really Jobs that was extraordinary and indeed irreplaceable. No, I'm not comparing Jobs and Sam. Just illustrating my point.
- account-5 3y agoFarse, plain and simple.
- orsenthil 3y agoWhat's even the lesson learnt here? 1. Keep doing your work, and focus on building your product. 2. Ignore the noise, go back to 1.
- rennsport_eth 3y agoI love you, but you are not serious people.
- thepasswordis 3y agoYeah I don’t know. I think you’d be kind of nuts to build anything on their APIs anymore. Sure I’ll keep using ChatGPT in a personal capacity/as search. But no way I’d trust my business to them
- campbel 3y agoWorking out nicely for Msft then. You can use GPT4 via Azure already.
- kibwen 3y agoThis will be remembered as the biggest waste of time and energy since the LK-99 fiasco.
- evan_ 3y agoWhat a waste of time
- bmitc 3y agoWhat a gigantic mess. Everyone looks bad in this: Altman, Microsoft, the OpenAI board, OpenAI employees, etc. It also has confirmed that greed and cult of personality win in the end.
- voiceblue 3y agoFor some reason this reminds me of the Coke/New Coke fiasco, which ended up popularizing Coke Classic more than ever before. > Consumers were outraged and demanded their beloved Coke back – the taste that they knew and had grown up with. The request to bring the old product back was so loud that soon journalists suggested that the entire project was a stunt. To this accusation Coca-Cola President Don Keough replied on July 10, 1985: "We are not that dumb, and we are not that smart." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke
- jdlyga 3y agoI tried New Coke when it was re-released for Stranger Things. It really is a lot better than Coca Cola Classic. It's a shame that it failed.
- freedomben 3y agoThat is one of the greatest lines of all time. Classic
- tacocataco 3y agoThanks for sharing. I would have guessed the stunt was to hide the switch from sugar to High Fructose Corn syrup.
- beepbooptheory 3y agoWhen the first CEO appeared on the earth he got tied to cliff so the birds could eat him. It seems like that was a good call.
- incahoots 3y agoCue the "it's a Christmas Miracle!"
- diamondfist25 3y agoAdam D’Angelo keeping everyone straight on the mission of OpenAI. What a true boss in the face of woke mob
- iamleppert 3y agoSo dangerous on so many levels. Just let him start his own AI group, competition is good! Instead he will come away with this untouchable. He’ll get to stack the board like he wanted to. Part of being on a board of directors is sticking to your decisions. They are weak and weren’t prepared for the backlash of one person.
- melvinmelih 3y ago“You could parachute Sam into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king.” - Paul Graham
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rsanek 3y agohttp://paulgraham.com/fundraising.html http://paulgraham.com/fundraising.html
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- gsuuon 3y agoAt least they'll be operating under the original charter - it sounds like the mission continues. Not sure about this new board but hard to imagine they'd make the same sort of mistake.
- archsurface 3y agoI'm not American - I'm unclear what all this fuss is about? From where I am it looks like some arbitrary company politics in a hyped industry with a guy whose name I've seen mentioned on this site occasionally but really comes across as just a SV or San Fran cult of personality type. Am I missing something? Is there some substance to this story or is it just this week's industry soap opera?
- jcutrell 3y agoI wonder what Satya will say here; will the AI CEO position there just evaporate?
- carapace 3y agoSo it's the Osiris myth?
- hackerlight 3y agoSo OpeNAI charter still in place? Once OpenAI reaches AGI, Microsoft won't be able to access the tech. Then what will happen to Microsoft when other commercial competitors catch up and also reach AGI one or two years later?
- taway1874 3y agoSome perspective ... One developer (Ilya) vs. One businessman (Sam) -> Sam wins Hundreds of developers threaten to quit vs. Board of Directors (biz) refuse to budge -> Developers win From the outside it looks like developers held the power all along ... which is how it should be.
- jejeyyy77 3y ago$$$ vs. Safety -> $$$ wins. Employees who have $$$ incentive threaten to quit if that is taken away. News at 8.
- baby 3y agoWhy are you assuming employees are incentivized by $$$ here, and why do you think the board's reason is related to safety or that employees don't care about safety? It just looks like you're spreading FUD at this point.
- jejeyyy77 3y agoof course the employees are motivated by $$$ - is that even a question?
- Xelynega 3y agoNo, it's just counter to the idea that it was "employee power" that brought sam back. It was capital and the pursuit of more of it. It always is.
- hackerlight 3y agoThe large majority of people are motivated by $$$ (or fame) and if they all tell me otherwise I know many of them are lying.
- mi_lk 3y agoIt's you who are naive if you really think the majority of those 7xx employees care more about safe AGI than their own equity upside
- dang 3y agoAll: there are over 1800 comments in this thread. If you want to read them all, click More at the bottom of each page, or like this: (edit: er, yes they do have to be wellformed don't they): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=4 (...etc.)
- macrael 3y agoWhat a delightful shit show. I don't even personally care whether Sam Altman is running OpenAI but it brings me no end of schadenfreude to see a bunch of AI Doomers make asses of themselves. Ethical Altruism truly believes that AI could destroy all of human life on the planet which is a preposterous belief. There are so many better things to worry about, many of which are happening right now! These people are not serious and should not hold serious positions of power. It's not hard to see the dangers of AI: replacing a lot of make-work that exists in the world, giving shoddy answers with high confidence, taking humans out of the loop of responsible decision making, but I cannot believe that it will become so smart that it becomes an all powerful god. These people worship intelligence (hence why they believe that with infinite intelligence comes infinite power) but look what happens when they actually have power! Ridiculous.
- rashidae 3y agoCould someone do a sentiment analysis from the comments and share it with all of us who can’t read all the 1,700+ comments?
- Ruq 3y agothat fast huh?
- daveguy 3y agoHi dang, Seeing a bug in your comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38382563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38382563 You reference the pages like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239?p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239?p=2 The second ? should be an & like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239&p=2 Please feel free to delete this message after you've received it.
- paulddraper 3y agoAlso, while we're at it: "Nobody will be happier than I when this bottleneck (edit: the one in our code—not the world) is a thing of the past" [1] HN plans to be multi-core?!?! A bigger scoop than OpenAI governance! Anything more you can share? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38351005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38351005
- saliagato 3y agoWhy do you (dang) always write a comment specifying that people can read more and even providing some links when it's clear that when you reach the bottom of the page you have to click "read more" to indeed read more. Isn't it a bit useless?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pvg 3y agoIf you want to reach the mods just email hn@ycombinator.com
- zerohalo 3y agoGoogle, Meta and now OpenAI. So long, responsible and safety AI guardrails. Hello, big money. Disappointed by the outcome, but perhaps mission-driven AI development -- the reason OpenAI was founded -- was never possible. Edit: I applaud the board members for (apparently, it seems) trying to stand up for the mission (aka doing the job that they were put on the board to do), even if their efforts were doomed.
- coconut08 3y agoyou just don't understand how markets work. if openai slows down then they will just be driven out by competition. that's fine if that's what you think they should do, but that won't make ai any safer, it will just kill openai and have them replaced by someone else.
- zerohalo 3y agoyou're right about market forces, however: 1) openAI was explicitly founded to NOT develop AI based on "market forces"; it's just that they "pivoted" (aka abandoned their mission) once they struck gold in order to become driven by the market 2) this is exactly the reasoning behind nuclear arms races
- WanderPanda 3y agoYou can still be a force for decentralization by creating actually open ai. For now it seems like Meta AI research is the real open ai
- insanitybit 3y agoWhat does "actually open" mean? And how is that more responsible? If the ethical concern of AI is that it's too powerful or whatever, isn't building it in the open worse?
- WanderPanda 3y agoDepends on how you interpret the mission statement of building ai for all of humanity. It’s questionable that humanity is better off if ai only accrues to one or a few centralised entities?
- nbzso 3y agoStop dreaming about alignment. All bets are off. This is the start of AI arms race. Think globally for a second. Yes, everybody wants to be a millionaire or billionaire. This is the current culture we are living in. Corporations have unprecedented power waved into the governments, but governments still have a monopoly on violence. People cannot switch to the new abstraction layer (UBI, Social Rating) for two or five years. They will keep a consumer-oriented mindset before the option to have one is erased. Where you think this is going? To a better Democracy? This is the Cold War V.2 scenario unfolding.
- jacquesm 3y ago49% stock (lower bound) + 90% of employees (upper bound) > board. To be updated as more evidence rolls in.
- jrflowers 3y agoThis here is what we call a load-bearing “in principle”
- zerohalo 3y agoI think we now have an idea of what will happen if AGI is actually reached and efforts are made to contain or restrain it.
- nbzso 3y agoLarry Summers? Microsoft? Alignment? Bye, bye humanity.
- joduplessis 3y agoThere is so much vagueness around this whole OpenAI thing that it's difficult taking anything seriously anymore - it's almost hearsay at this point. Yesterday it was Altman's personal interests, now it's a breakthrough model, tomorrow it's something else. At the very least it's fantastic marketing (albeit at the expense of their customers).
- Obscurity4340 3y agoIs this the most famous post?
- carapace 3y agoOne of the oldest AGI jokes: Q: What's AGI? A: When the machine wakes up and asks, "What's in it for me?" - - - - So long, and thanks for all the fish.