Soap opera
At this point we should only post if something happens to the consumer product or API
OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
151–160 of 596 posts
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
A rough guess is that Elon will pick up Ilya, with a promise to really aim for safe AGI.
If Ilya’s problem with Sam was that he was acting out on his own and deviating from founding principles, he’s not going to have a good time under Elon.
Elon Musk has been very critical of OpenAI's switch from a non-profit focused on AI safety to a for-profit competing with Tesla.
It's why he fell out and left OpenAI despite investing $100 million to start it.
I'd say he's well aligned with Ilya's position. Early on I wondered if he was an instigator of the entire board coup.
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#153Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That defeats the purpose of having a board. Which is sometimes the desired outcome, of course, but if I were Microsoft I am not sure I’d want Sam in there with zero checks and balances.
I also wouldn’t want Ilya in there without checks and balances, to be clear. So the challenge is identifying the right adults.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that negotiation to complete successfully in the eyes of all parties by 5 PM today. It’s possible that Ilya will give up on having his requirements satisfied and leave.
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
From everything I can piece together the underlying problem is that Sam defunded Ilya's alignment research because they only have so much compute and they needed all of it to keep up with the demand for ChatGPT and the APIs, especially after dev day. Ilya losing access to the GPUs he needs to do his research so that the company can service a few more customers seemed like a fundamental betrayal to him and a sign that…
> If Elon is able to promise him the resources he needs to do his research then I think it could work out. Who on earth would ever trust an Elon promise at this point? The guy literally can’t open his mouth without making a promise he can’t keep. Unless Ilya is getting something in a bulletproof contract and is willing to spend a decade fighting for it in court, he’s an idiot doing anything with Elon.
Contract wherein Musk pays all legal fees would be pretty trustworthy
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would I not believe that Meta or Google or anyone really come in or replace Microsoft? You don’t think they’re kicking themselves that Microsoft got the deal?
>Why would I not believe that Meta or Google or anyone really come in or replace Microsoft? Because they already do well on their own, Meta is doing exceptionally well actually. It's better business for them if OpenAI just burns into the ground and leaves the cake up for grabs again. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to see that. The only thing that has sent Google into "Code Red" in it's whole history has been Op…
This isn't true, Facebook put google into code red and they wasted years on Google+.
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a wild idea. You actually think of the most esteemed AI researchers will have trouble finding funding after this? Someone somewhere will give him money. We’re in an arms race. Ilya is Otto Hahn.
Are you even following this? >You actually think of the most esteemed AI researchers will have trouble finding funding after this? Plenty of those actually left already ... Ilya is good but is one of many, and by many I mean there's 100s of equally capable researchers, many of those with more flexible morals. Note: I'm being generous to Ilya and taking him at face value on being the self-proclaimed AI messiah that is…
Plenty haven't left. Depending on which article you read it's between 3 and 5. Which is nothing for a company the size of OpenAI
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen people say this but why would Microsoft fund a new Altman startup instead of spending that money on developing their own AI owned by Microsoft?
Like Google did?
Google is at best only partially funding Anthropic, Amazon committed "up to 4 billion" in funding. They have their own competing technology in development.
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
If he wins in this, it’ll mean he’d maneuvered himself into a position of controlling the whole thing—in fact, if not on paper—some time back. The “coup” people’ve been writing about will have been his actions over the last year or so, not the board’s. Big money on the line. Insane, life-changing payouts in the cards. Altman and MS on the side of those, the board on the side of the mission. Money’s likely to win.
If the board has the support of all the staff the board will be absolutely fine. That said, not clear to me that board is supported by the staff. So if Sam goes, and many of the key staff go... will be interesting. And the boards style in all this, if that is the "mission" - is wild. You have partners, staff, businesses - doing a VC round and you blow it all up without it sounds like even talking to your board presid…
I think some of the staff definitely supports Altman, and are down to quit and follow him. Personally I hope that's what happens. Separate the altruistic-mission guys from the big-profit guys and let them go to town in their respective spheres.
Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role
#160Altman is more powerful than I thought.
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?
they've been on a hiring spree, so majority of employees probably joined within the last 1-2 years and more about making sure they get their equity(or profit units) get cashed out than the original mission of OpenAI. I doubt all the enterprise sales reps they've brought in care about AI alignment or making sure the profit from AGI helps humanity