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OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

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Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#541

Post by smcleod »

podnami wrote: post #421
baidifnaoxi wrote: post #405

- Cant be a personal scandal, press release would be worded much more differently - Board is mostly independent and those independent dont have equity - They talk about not being candid - this is legalese for “lying” The only major thing that could warrant something like this is Sam going behind the boards back to make a decision (or make progress on a decision) that is misaligned with the Charter. Thats the only fir…

Doesn’t make any sense. He is ideologically driven - why would he risk a once in a lifetime opportunity for a mere sale? Desperate times calls for desperate measures. This is a swift way for OpenAI to shield the business from something which is a PR disaster, probably something which would make Sam persona non grata in any business context.

I highly doubt he's ideologically driven. He's as much of a VC loving silicon valley tech-bro as the next. The company has been anything but "open".

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#542

Post by givemeethekeys »

romanhn wrote: post #428
baidifnaoxi wrote: post #405

- Cant be a personal scandal, press release would be worded much more differently - Board is mostly independent and those independent dont have equity - They talk about not being candid - this is legalese for “lying” The only major thing that could warrant something like this is Sam going behind the boards back to make a decision (or make progress on a decision) that is misaligned with the Charter. Thats the only fir…

Or rejected a sale without the board knowing.

Are non-profit businesses allowed to sell? Who gets the money?

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#543

Post by andyjohnson0 »

kromem wrote: post #475
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #385

For me, this stood out in the announcement: > In a statement, the board of directors said: “OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission. Why would they include that? Maybe its just filler, but if not then it is possible that there has been more than a simple disagreement about…

Or Sam was the driving force behind increasingly closed research and that went against the board's commitment to "benefit all humanity"? Maybe the closed GPT-4 details were promised by him to be a one time temporary thing at the time and then he has been continuing to stonewall releasing details later on?

Possibly. But that doesnt sound serious enough to constitute "hindering [the board's] ability to exercise its responsibilities".

Maybe its the off-the-books Weapons Division with all those factories in obscure eastern European countries. Or the secret lab with the agi that almost escaped its containment. /s

Money or power. I guess someone will eventually talk, and then we'll know.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#544

Post by chipgap98 »

yokoprime wrote: post #287
nicklevin wrote: post #272

Pure speculation and just trying to connect dots... I wonder if they realized they are losing a lot of money on ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. Sam tweeted about pausing sign-ups just a few days ago: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1724626002595471740 Lots more signups recently + OpenAI losing $X for each user = Accelerating losses the board wasn't aware of ?

Not something you would fire someone on the spot over. This firing is spooking investors and costing them (and partners like MSFT) money

They didn't "fire him on the spot". They did a review that it sounds like was going on before today

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#545

Post by aluminum96 »

Sebb767 wrote: post #537

I'm going to throw the theory out there that Sam leaked/sold the full GPT models to Microsoft (or another competitor). A lot of other theories don't match because the board was in an extreme hurry to get him out (voting him out in the middle of the night, not even waiting for markets to close to announce it), must have proof of serious misconduct and the need to immediately distance themselves from Sam (otherwise the…

This can't be right -- Microsoft must already have GPT-4 weights, because they have an in-house fine tune to power Bing Creative.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#546

Post by thequadehunter »

km3r wrote: post #473
baidifnaoxi wrote: post #405

- Cant be a personal scandal, press release would be worded much more differently - Board is mostly independent and those independent dont have equity - They talk about not being candid - this is legalese for “lying” The only major thing that could warrant something like this is Sam going behind the boards back to make a decision (or make progress on a decision) that is misaligned with the Charter. Thats the only fir…

Tbh surprised some of the personal stuff hasn't come to light. Nothing horrendous, but enough to push him out of any CEO role.

Like what?

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#548

Post by ShamelessC »

Sebb767 wrote: post #537

I'm going to throw the theory out there that Sam leaked/sold the full GPT models to Microsoft (or another competitor). A lot of other theories don't match because the board was in an extreme hurry to get him out (voting him out in the middle of the night, not even waiting for markets to close to announce it), must have proof of serious misconduct and the need to immediately distance themselves from Sam (otherwise the…

Microsoft has had a contractual right to any of OpenAI’s GPT technologies since they first partnered.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#549

Post by bertil »

AnishLaddha wrote: post #439

1) he represented openAI at APEC just yesterday. what happened in 24 hours that would cause such a drastic decision. 2) generally, even when a board fires a CEO, they rarely "call them out" or say what they did wrong. they must have some extremely strong evidence against him. i think it could be any of the following: - something personal, i.e. the controversy w/his sister - a financial issue: chatgpt stopped signups…

What fits best is Sam signing a contract for military use of OpenAI. With secrecy clauses, he couldn’t mention it. He likely could not tell the two foreigners on the exec team.

Eric Schmidt would likely know about it, and defend Sam. Sam would likely think the use is legitimate and not be ashamed of it (like he might with your suggestions).

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#550

Post by mustacheemperor »

ViktorRay wrote: post #451

So Sam Altman was fired around 2 hours ago. I just went to Google Bard and said: “What is going on with the CEO of OpenAI?” Google Bard replied: “On November 17, 2023, the board of directors of OpenAI, Inc. announced that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. Altman has been CEO of OpenAI s…

> A major even happens regarding ChatGPT related issues and the primary competitor of ChatGPT (Google Bard) already can talk to me about it in a couple hours… Meanwhile ChatGPT still thinks it’s 2021 heh

I think your assumption is misinformed. I asked ChatGPT the same question, and it looked up the news online and delivered a sparser, but accurate reply.

The GPT4 knowledge cutoff was recently updated to April 2023, btw.

https://chat.openai.com/share/66e87457-834f-422f-9b16-40902b...

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