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OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

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Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#121

Post by chucke1992 »

alecco wrote: post #88
nostrademons wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also its likely that a large number of the news stories coming out right now are PR "plants" by one side or the other to make the firing seem justified or the return a fait accompli. In a coup one of the first tasks is to get public opinion on your side and build momentum for the outcome you want to see. I'm curious where the rank & file OpenAI employees stand on this, as it seems to me like they will be the ultimate…

I've only seen support for Altman from the press. (guess who spends ads on the press and has more political connections) The board was naive, to say the least.

Well, he is basically the face of OpenAI and ChatGPT and the whole AI push. And at the same time he is not unlikable either.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#122

Post by jug »

moralestapia wrote: post #14
cedws wrote: post #5

The only power MS has is soft power as a backer. Will that win over the board's actual power? If MS pulls investment it will be a catastrophic blow.

Yeah, MS leaving is the absolute end of OpenAI (and for all practical purposes the end of Ilya's career). It's Satya's call now, he's not happy and wants @sama back. Next week is going to be interesting!

MS leaving would also be a disaster for subsequent development of Bing, Windows Copilot, Office Copilot, Teams AI, various strategically important Azure service like Semantic Search etc. They’ve gone all in on OpenAI LLM’s, support nothing else and have coupled all their AI to them.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#123

Post by thepasswordis »

mrtksn wrote: post #98
breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.

>Ego

I can absolutely empathize with Ilya here, though. As far as I know the tech making openai function is largely his life’s work. It would be extremely frustrating to have Sam be the face of it, and be given the credit for it.

Sam is clearly a very accomplished businessman and networker. Those people are super important, I wish I had a person like him on my team.

I’ve had the experience of other people tacitly taking credit for my work. Giving talks about it, receiving praise for their vision. It’s incredibly demoralizing.

I’m not necessarily saying Sam did this, since I don’t know any of these people. Just speculating on how it might feel to ge Ilya watching Sam go on a world tour meeting heads of state to talk about what is largely Ilya’s work.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#124

Post by medler »

alecco wrote: post #93
layer8 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s lucky that apparently many OpenAI employees support him, as otherwise there would be less leverage over the board. Investors can threaten the board, but where would they go if the brainpower stays with OpenAI?

> I think he’s lucky that apparently many OpenAI employees support him This claim on the press had zero substance. It could well be, but there were no wide resignations or anything. Just 4 execs. OTOH, Altman going for the high score could bump employee TCO 10x. So who knows. Passion vs greed.

I’m old enough to remember when all the employees who supported him were going to resign at 5 pm Saturday

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#125

Post by bugglebeetle »

thepasswordis wrote: post #123
mrtksn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.

>Ego I can absolutely empathize with Ilya here, though. As far as I know the tech making openai function is largely his life’s work. It would be extremely frustrating to have Sam be the face of it, and be given the credit for it. Sam is clearly a very accomplished businessman and networker. Those people are super important, I wish I had a person like him on my team. I’ve had the experience of other people tacitly tak…

…and yet a very familiar story in the industry.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#126

Post by Davidzheng »

dontupvoteme wrote: post #63
skwirl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It indeed did seem like something Ilya would post himself, or at least someone cosplaying as him. Based on what we’ve seen on Twitter from employees it looks like a significant chunk supports Sam.

They're dreaming of being the next version of early googlers, i guess that is inevitable once people start doing math equations that include eleven digit numbers in them

All this talk of talent, they just end up with a company full of people driven only by monetary pursuits. How could it ever have worked with the non profit mission

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#127

Post by ioulaum »

mrtksn wrote: post #98
breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.

Given that nothing criminal happened, canning Sam with no chance for discussion was just overkill.

It's probably more of an intellectual / philosophical position, given that they just did not think through the real impact on the business (and thus the mission itself)

I'm inclined to assume that something stupid was done. It happens. They should resolve it, fix the rules for how the board can behave, and move on.

Despite the bungling, Ilya is probably still a good voice to have on the board. His key responsibility (super-alignment), is a key part of OpenAI's mission.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#128

Post by gizmo »

ioulaum wrote: post #119
breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

I think Sam could "potentially" be the bigger man in this. Ilya may still be someone who should be on the board... Especially given his role as head of alignment research. He deserves a say on key issues related to OpenAI. People get excited. Stupid things happen. Especially in startups. ChatGPT having become so successful doesn't change the fact that the company as a whole, is fairly immature still. They should seri…

I agree. As long as Sam has total control over the board it's fine if Iiya doesn't approve of everything Sam does. Not worth losing a top AI researcher over this.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#129

Post by [deleted] »

breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#130

Post by mcmcmc »

trashtester wrote: post #79
breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

A rough guess is that Elon will pick up Ilya, with a promise to really aim for safe AGI.

Ah yes, Elon who famously keeps all his promises without needing a court order.
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