8 ms·

It is not about different set of information, but different stakes/interests. They act firstmost as investors rather than as employees on this.

by dimask 3y ago

siva7 3y ago
A board member, Helen Toner, made a borderline narcissistic remark that it would be consistent with the company mission to destroy the company when the leadership confronted the board that their decisions puts the future of the company in danger. Almost all employees resigned in protest. It's insulting calling the employees under these circumstances investors.
- outsomnia 3y ago
  > Almost all employees resigned in protest. That never happened, right?
  - ldjb 3y ago
    Almost all employees did not resign in protest, but they did _threaten_ to resign. https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23968988/openai-employees-resignation-letter-microsoft-sam-altman https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23968988/openai-employee...
- stingraycharles 3y ago
  Don’t forget she’s heavily invested in a company that is directly competing with OpenAI. So obviously it’s also in her best interest to see OpenAI destroyed.
  - lodovic 3y ago
    She probably wants both companies to be successful. Board members are not super villains.
    - siva7 3y ago
      I agree that we should usually assume good faith. Still, if a member knows she will loose the board seat soon and makes such a implicit statement to the leadership team there is reason to believe that she doesn't want both companies to be successful, at least one of those not.
  - murakamiiq84 3y ago
    Wait what? She invested in a competitor? Do you have a source?
    - otteromkram 3y ago
      One source might be DuckDuckGo. It's a privacy-focused alternative to Google, which is great when researching "unusual" topics.
      - murakamiiq84 3y ago
        I couldn't find any source on her investing in any AI companies. If it's true (and not hidden), I'm really surprised that major news publications aren't covering it.
      - dontupvoteme 3y ago
        >which is great when researching "unusual" topics. Yandex is for Porn. What is DDG for?
      - free652 3y ago
        DDG sells your information to Microsoft, there is no such thing as privacy when $$$ are involved
  - doktrin 3y ago
    > obviously it’s also in her best interest to see OpenAI destroyed Do you feel the same way about Reed Hastings serving on Facebooks BoD, or Eric Schmidt on Apples? How about Larry Ellison at Tesla? These are just the lowest of hanging fruit, i.e literal chief executives and founders. If we extend the criteria for ethical compromise to include every board members investment portfolio I imagine quite a few more “obvious” conflicts will emerge.
    - svnt 3y ago
      How does Netflix compete with Facebook? This is what happened with Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board: he was removed (allowed to resign) for conflicts of interest. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2009/08/03Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Resigns-from-Apples-Board-of-Directors/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2009/08/03Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Res... Oracle is going to get into EVs? You’ve provided two examples that have no conflicts of interest and one where the person was removed when they did.
      - doktrin 3y ago
        > How does Netflix compete with Facebook? By definition the attention economy dictates that time spent one place can’t be spent in another. Do you also feel as though Twitch doesn’t compete with Facebook simply because they’re not identical businesses? That’s not how it works. But you don’t have to just take my word for it : > “Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday he was slow to come around to advertising on the streaming platform because he was too focused on digital competition from Facebook and Google.” https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/30/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on-advertising-turnaround-focused-on-google-facebook.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/30/netflix-ceo-reed-hasting... > This is what happened with Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board Yes, after 3 years. A tenure longer than the OAI board members in question, so frankly the point stands.
        JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
        > > By definition the attention economy dictates that time spent one place can’t be spent in another Using that definition even the local gokart renting place or the local jetski renting place competes with Facebook. If you want to use that definition you might want to also add a criteria for minimum size of the company.
  - Philpax 3y ago
    Uhhh, are you sure about that? She wrote a paper that praised Anthropic’s approach to safety, but as far as I’m aware she’s not invested in them. Are you thinking of the CEO of Quora whose product was eaten alive by the announcement of GPTs?
- ah765 3y ago
  It is a correct statement, not really "borderline narcissistic". The board's mission is to help humanity develop safe beneficial AGI. If the board thinks that the company is hindering this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company. Of course, the employees want the company to continue, and weren't told much at this point so it is understandable that they didn't like the statement.
  - siva7 3y ago
    I can't interpret from the charter that the board has the authorisation to destroy the company under the current circumstances: > We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project That wasn't the case. So it may be not so far fetched to call her actions borderline as it is also very easy to hide personal motives behind altruistic ones.
    - ah765 3y ago
      The more relevant part is probably "OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AGI ... benefits all of humanity". The statement "it would be consistent with the company mission to destroy the company" is correct. The word "would be" rather than "is" implies some condition, it doesn't have to apply to the current circumstances. A hypothesis is that Sam was attempting to gain full control of the board by getting the majority, and therefore the current board would be unable to hold him accountable to follow the mission in the future. Therefore, the board may have considered it necessary to stop him in order to fulfill the mission. There's no hard evidence of that revealed yet though.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company. So instead of having to compromise to some extent but still have a say what happens next you burn the company at best delaying the whole thing by 6-12 months until someone else does it? Well at least your hands are clean, but that's about it...
- LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  The only OpenAI employees who resigned in protest are the employees that were against Sam Altman. That’s how Anthropic appeared.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    And it seems like they were right that the for-profit part of the company had become out of control, in the literal sense that we've seen through this episode that it could not be controlled.
    - cyanydeez 3y ago
      Ands the evidence is now that OpenAI is a business 2 business product and not a attempt to keep AI doing anything but satiating anything Microsoft wants.
karmasimida 3y ago
Tell me how the board's actions could convince the employees they are making the right move? Even if they are genuine in believing firing Sam is to keep OpenAI's founding principles, they can't be doing a better job in convincing everyone they are NOT able to execute it. OpenAI has some of the smartest human beings on this planet, saying they don't think critically just because they don't vote with what you agree is reaching reaching.
- kortilla 3y ago
  > OpenAI has some of the smartest human beings on this planet Being an expert in one particular field (AI) not mean you are good at critical thinking or thinking about strategic corporate politics. Deep experts are some of the easier con targets because they suffer from an internal version of “appealing to false authority”.
  - alsodumb 3y ago
    I hate these comments that potray as if every expert/scientist is just good at one thing and aren't particularly great at critical thinking/corporate politics. Heck, there are 700 of them. All different humans, good at something, bad at some other things. But they are smart. And of course a good chunk of them would be good at corporate politics too.
    - _djo_ 3y ago
      I don't think the argument was that none of them are good at that, just that it's a mistake to assume that just because they're all very smart in this particular field that they're great at another.
      - karmasimida 3y ago
        I don't think critical thinking can be defined as joining the minority party.
        3y ago
Wytwwww 3y ago
> They act firstmost as investors rather than as employees on this. reply That's not at all obvious, the opposite seems to be the case. They chose to risk having to Microsoft and potentially lose most of the equity they had in OpenAI (even if not directly it wouldn't be worth that much at the end with no one to do the actual work).

It is not about different set of information, but different stakes/interests. They act firstmost as investors rather than as employees on this.

by dimask 3y ago

It is not about different set of information, but different stakes/interests. They act firstmost as investors rather than as employees on this.

siva7 3y ago

A board member, Helen Toner, made a borderline narcissistic remark that it would be consistent with the company mission to destroy the company when the leadership confronted the board that their decisions puts the future of the company in danger. Almost all employees resigned in protest. It's insulting calling the employees under these circumstances investors.

outsomnia 3y ago
> Almost all employees resigned in protest. That never happened, right?
- ldjb 3y ago
  Almost all employees did not resign in protest, but they did _threaten_ to resign. https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23968988/openai-employees-resignation-letter-microsoft-sam-altman https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23968988/openai-employee...
stingraycharles 3y ago
Don’t forget she’s heavily invested in a company that is directly competing with OpenAI. So obviously it’s also in her best interest to see OpenAI destroyed.
- lodovic 3y ago
  She probably wants both companies to be successful. Board members are not super villains.
  - siva7 3y ago
    I agree that we should usually assume good faith. Still, if a member knows she will loose the board seat soon and makes such a implicit statement to the leadership team there is reason to believe that she doesn't want both companies to be successful, at least one of those not.
- murakamiiq84 3y ago
  Wait what? She invested in a competitor? Do you have a source?
  - otteromkram 3y ago
    One source might be DuckDuckGo. It's a privacy-focused alternative to Google, which is great when researching "unusual" topics.
    - murakamiiq84 3y ago
      I couldn't find any source on her investing in any AI companies. If it's true (and not hidden), I'm really surprised that major news publications aren't covering it.
    - dontupvoteme 3y ago
      >which is great when researching "unusual" topics. Yandex is for Porn. What is DDG for?
    - free652 3y ago
      DDG sells your information to Microsoft, there is no such thing as privacy when $$$ are involved
- doktrin 3y ago
  > obviously it’s also in her best interest to see OpenAI destroyed Do you feel the same way about Reed Hastings serving on Facebooks BoD, or Eric Schmidt on Apples? How about Larry Ellison at Tesla? These are just the lowest of hanging fruit, i.e literal chief executives and founders. If we extend the criteria for ethical compromise to include every board members investment portfolio I imagine quite a few more “obvious” conflicts will emerge.
  - svnt 3y ago
    How does Netflix compete with Facebook? This is what happened with Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board: he was removed (allowed to resign) for conflicts of interest. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2009/08/03Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Resigns-from-Apples-Board-of-Directors/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2009/08/03Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Res... Oracle is going to get into EVs? You’ve provided two examples that have no conflicts of interest and one where the person was removed when they did.
    - doktrin 3y ago
      > How does Netflix compete with Facebook? By definition the attention economy dictates that time spent one place can’t be spent in another. Do you also feel as though Twitch doesn’t compete with Facebook simply because they’re not identical businesses? That’s not how it works. But you don’t have to just take my word for it : > “Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday he was slow to come around to advertising on the streaming platform because he was too focused on digital competition from Facebook and Google.” https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/30/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on-advertising-turnaround-focused-on-google-facebook.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/30/netflix-ceo-reed-hasting... > This is what happened with Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board Yes, after 3 years. A tenure longer than the OAI board members in question, so frankly the point stands.
      - JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
        > > By definition the attention economy dictates that time spent one place can’t be spent in another Using that definition even the local gokart renting place or the local jetski renting place competes with Facebook. If you want to use that definition you might want to also add a criteria for minimum size of the company.
- Philpax 3y ago
  Uhhh, are you sure about that? She wrote a paper that praised Anthropic’s approach to safety, but as far as I’m aware she’s not invested in them. Are you thinking of the CEO of Quora whose product was eaten alive by the announcement of GPTs?
ah765 3y ago
It is a correct statement, not really "borderline narcissistic". The board's mission is to help humanity develop safe beneficial AGI. If the board thinks that the company is hindering this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company. Of course, the employees want the company to continue, and weren't told much at this point so it is understandable that they didn't like the statement.
- siva7 3y ago
  I can't interpret from the charter that the board has the authorisation to destroy the company under the current circumstances: > We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project That wasn't the case. So it may be not so far fetched to call her actions borderline as it is also very easy to hide personal motives behind altruistic ones.
  - ah765 3y ago
    The more relevant part is probably "OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AGI ... benefits all of humanity". The statement "it would be consistent with the company mission to destroy the company" is correct. The word "would be" rather than "is" implies some condition, it doesn't have to apply to the current circumstances. A hypothesis is that Sam was attempting to gain full control of the board by getting the majority, and therefore the current board would be unable to hold him accountable to follow the mission in the future. Therefore, the board may have considered it necessary to stop him in order to fulfill the mission. There's no hard evidence of that revealed yet though.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company. So instead of having to compromise to some extent but still have a say what happens next you burn the company at best delaying the whole thing by 6-12 months until someone else does it? Well at least your hands are clean, but that's about it...
LudwigNagasena 3y ago
The only OpenAI employees who resigned in protest are the employees that were against Sam Altman. That’s how Anthropic appeared.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  And it seems like they were right that the for-profit part of the company had become out of control, in the literal sense that we've seen through this episode that it could not be controlled.
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    Ands the evidence is now that OpenAI is a business 2 business product and not a attempt to keep AI doing anything but satiating anything Microsoft wants.

karmasimida 3y ago

Tell me how the board's actions could convince the employees they are making the right move? Even if they are genuine in believing firing Sam is to keep OpenAI's founding principles, they can't be doing a better job in convincing everyone they are NOT able to execute it. OpenAI has some of the smartest human beings on this planet, saying they don't think critically just because they don't vote with what you agree is reaching reaching.

kortilla 3y ago
> OpenAI has some of the smartest human beings on this planet Being an expert in one particular field (AI) not mean you are good at critical thinking or thinking about strategic corporate politics. Deep experts are some of the easier con targets because they suffer from an internal version of “appealing to false authority”.
- alsodumb 3y ago
  I hate these comments that potray as if every expert/scientist is just good at one thing and aren't particularly great at critical thinking/corporate politics. Heck, there are 700 of them. All different humans, good at something, bad at some other things. But they are smart. And of course a good chunk of them would be good at corporate politics too.
  - _djo_ 3y ago
    I don't think the argument was that none of them are good at that, just that it's a mistake to assume that just because they're all very smart in this particular field that they're great at another.
    - karmasimida 3y ago
      I don't think critical thinking can be defined as joining the minority party.
      - 3y ago

Wytwwww 3y ago

> They act firstmost as investors rather than as employees on this. reply That's not at all obvious, the opposite seems to be the case. They chose to risk having to Microsoft and potentially lose most of the equity they had in OpenAI (even if not directly it wouldn't be worth that much at the end with no one to do the actual work).