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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

arstechnica.com

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#221

Post by FireBeyond »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #178
fourside wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors are not gonna like when the business guy who was pushing for productizing, profitability and growth get ousted. We don’t know all the details about what exactly caused the board to fire Sam. The part about lying to the board is notable. It’s possible Sam betrayed their trust and actually committed a fireable offense. But even if the rest of the board was right, the way they’ve handled it so far doesn’t insp…

Again, they didn't state that he lied. They stated that he wasn't candid. A lot of people here have been reading specifics into a generalized term. It is even possible to not be candid without even using lies of omission. For a CEO this could be as simple as just moving fast and not taking the time to report on major initiatives to the board.

> Again, they didn't state that he lied. They stated that he wasn't candid. A lot of people here have been reading specifics into a generalized term.

OED:

candour - the quality of being open and honest in expression.

"They didn't state he lied ... without even using lies of omission ... they said he wasn't [word defined as honest and open]"

Candour encapsulates exactly those things. Being open (i.e. not omitting things and disclosing all you know) and honest (being truthful).

On the contrary, "not consistently candid", while you call it a "generalized term", is actually a quite specific term that was expressly chosen, and says, "we have had multiple instances where he has not been open with us, or not been honest with us, or both".

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#222

Post by vanrysss »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #199
beachy wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they want to be shepherding responsible AGI before someone else does so irresponsibly. Is this a thing? This would be like Switzerland in WWII doing nuclear weapons research to try and get there before the Nazis. Would that make any difference whatsoever to the Nazis timeframe? No. I fail to see how the presence of "ethical" AI researchers would slow down in the slightest the bad actors who are certainly ou…

America did nuclear weapons research to get there before the Nazis and Japan and we were able to use them to stop Japan

So the first AGI is going to be used to kill other AGIs in the cradle ?

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#223

Post by FireBeyond »

Draiken wrote: post #86
peter422 wrote: post #59

I know everybody is going nuts about this, but just from my personal perspective I’ve worked at a variety of companies with “important” CEOs, and in every single one of those cases had the CEO left I would not have cared at all. The CEO always gets way too much credit externally for what the company is doing, it does not mean the CEO is that important. OpenAI might be different, I don’t have any personal experience,…

Yeah this cult of CEOs is weird. It's such a small cohort that when someone doesn't completely blow it, they're immediately deemed as geniuses. Give someone billions of dollars and hundreds of brilliant engineers, researchers and many will make it work. But only a few ever get the chance, so this happens. They don't do any of the work. They just take the credit.

> It's such a small cohort that when someone doesn't completely blow it, they're immediately deemed as geniuses.

And many times even when they do blow it, it's handwaved away as being something outside of their control, so let's give them another shot.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#224

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

0xDEF wrote: post #138
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #40

This was a very personal firing in my opinion. Unless other, really damaging behaviors emerge, no responsible board fires their CEO with such a lack of care for the corporate reputation and their partners unless the firing is a personal grievance connected to an internal power play. This should be embarrassing to everyone involved, and sama has a real grievance here. Likely legal repercussions. Of course if they real…

>responsible board The board was irresponsible and incompetent by design. There is one OpenAI board member who has an art degree and is part of some kind of cultish "singularity" spiritual/neo-religious thing. That individual has also never had a real job and is on the board of several other non-profits.

> There is one OpenAI board member who has an art degree

Oh no! Everyone knows that progress is only achieved by people with computer science degrees.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#226

Post by eightysixfour »

rafaelero wrote: post #187
chancancode wrote: post #71

Jeremy Howard (of fast.ai): https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1725712220955586899 He is not exactly an insider, but seems broadly aligned/sympathetic/well-connected with the Ilya/researchers faction, his tweet/perspective was a useful proxy into what that split may have felt like internally.

Such a bad take. Developers (me included) loved Dev Day.

Yeah - I think this is the schism. Sam is clearly a product person, these are AI people. Dev day didn’t meaningfully move the needle on AI, but for people building products it sure did.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#227

Post by croes »

g42gregory wrote: post #182

My feeling is the the commercial side of the OpenAI brand is gone. How could OpenAI customers depend on the company, when the non-profit board goes against their interests (by slowing down the development and giving them inferior product)? On the other hand, the AGI side of the OpenAI brand is just fine. They will continue the responsible AGI development, spearheaded by Ilya Sutskever. My best wishes for them to succ…

It's a bad idea to make yourself dependent on a new service from the outset.

They could have gone bankrupt, been sued into the ground, taken over by Microsoft...

Just look at the just because they fired their CEO.

Was the success based on GPT or the CEO?

The former is still their and didn't get inferior.

Slower growth doesn't mean shrinking

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#228

Post by macintux »

vanrysss wrote: post #222
FormerBandmate wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America did nuclear weapons research to get there before the Nazis and Japan and we were able to use them to stop Japan

So the first AGI is going to be used to kill other AGIs in the cradle ?

Which reminds me, I really need to finish Person of Interest someday.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#229

Post by ThinkBeat »

I have spent time thinking about who would become the next CEO and even without mushrooms my brain came up with a totally out of context idea:

Bill Gates.

Microsoft is after all invested in OpenAI, and Bill Gates has become "loved by all" (who dont remember evil Gates of the yesteryears.

I am not saying it will happen, 99,999% it wont but still he is well known and may be a good face to splash on top of OpenAI.

After all he is one of the biggest charity guys now right?

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#230

Post by anonymouskimmer »

FireBeyond wrote: post #221
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, they didn't state that he lied. They stated that he wasn't candid. A lot of people here have been reading specifics into a generalized term. It is even possible to not be candid without even using lies of omission. For a CEO this could be as simple as just moving fast and not taking the time to report on major initiatives to the board.

> Again, they didn't state that he lied. They stated that he wasn't candid. A lot of people here have been reading specifics into a generalized term. OED: candour - the quality of being open and honest in expression. "They didn't state he lied ... without even using lies of omission ... they said he wasn't [word defined as honest and open]" Candour encapsulates exactly those things. Being open (i.e. not omitting thin…

Yes? I agree, and don't see how what you've written either extends or contradicts what I wrote.
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