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OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

bloomberg.com

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

#201

Post by nostrademons »

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.

The Bloomberg article about Altman seeking funding for a conflicting venture seems like a plant by the other side:

https://archive.is/3LaJF

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

#202

Post by jprete »

Solvency wrote: post #185
g42gregory wrote: post #182

From the article: "...but Microsoft hasn’t decided whether it wants board representation..." This is not a good sign. Microsoft the largest $10Bn investor, who is in the middle of pushing through the restructuring of the company, hasn't decided if they want board representation? The only reason you would do that if they want to keep their options open, in the future, to hit OpenAI hard (legally and/or to raid the per…

Microsoft is looking amateur. Even I the layman can take one look at OpenAI's ridiculously convoluted structure and it's laughably threadbare and ill-equipped board members and know something is wrong. Microsoft should have looked at this and forced them to clean up their act before getting in bed with them. Now they're embroiled in the bush league shenanigans.

Microsoft wanted to flip a non-profit explicitly founded for the good of humanity into a for-profit implicitly for the good of Microsoft. That’s already a lot of shenanigans.

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

#203

Post by lucubratory »

mannerheim wrote: post #142
jug wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Microsoft has certain rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property so if their relationship were to break down, Microsoft would still be able to run OpenAI’s current models on its servers. https://archive.is/jUJEH

And in exchange for those rights, OpenAI has certain rights to compute credits. Microsoft doesn't get to break contract and keep what they got out of the deal while ceasing to supply what provided as part of the deal. That's called theft.

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

#204

Post by richardw »

The main question at this point should be whether Sam's model or Ilya's model is more likely to succeed in the primary goal of the teams, which is (and should be): how do we stay on the leading edge long enough to figure out safety. All the adults in the room want safety [1], it's just how to really get it.

There are very wealthy competitors out there, any of which could end up beating OpenAI if they get half an edge. If you don't beat them, you don't get to figure out safety.

If Sam starts another company, you know deep in your soul he'll have all the backing he could ever dream of. Everyone who can sign a check is dying to get in on this. All the smart talent in the world would love to be employee number 1 through 1000. He's figured that you need the money if you want to stay in the game and he's world-class at making that happen. If OpenAI has all the purity of conviction and never gets another dollar because it all flows to SamCo...do they still win and figure out safety?

(Plus get some profits, attract staff who want to make bank, get full control of the board anyway, etc)

[1] We're nowhere near GPT controlling nukes, elections or the bond market, or desiring to. We need at least a couple massive algo changes before things take off. So some speed at this point isn't thaaat dangerous.

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

#205

Post by dwaltrip »

CSMastermind wrote: post #83
appplication wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Interesting, where did you hear that?

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

#206

Post by Davidzheng »

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…

So you think Ilya will stay while getting none of what he wanted because he still wants to have a job at openai? Do you think he did it with no real grievances?

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

#208

Post by belter »

Davidzheng wrote: post #200
jasonhansel wrote: post #173

This is why, when you claim to be running a non-profit to "benefit humankind," you shouldn't put all your resources into a for-profit subsidiary. Eventually, the for-profit arm, and its investors, will find its nonprofit parent a hindrance, and an insular board of directors won't stand a chance against corporate titans.

Worst part is their own employees don't care about the non profits value

Because they were promised shares for a future IPO?

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

#209

Post by frabcus »

jart wrote: post #184
ioulaum wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Desp…

Is this the kind of alignment we can expect from superintelligence? Gossiping, surprise trials, and purges?

Worse. Which is exactly why superintelligence is scary - it'll make the humans around it go wild for power, and then it will be impossible (by definition) to predict.

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

#210

Post by belter »

ioulaum wrote: post #127
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.

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. Desp…

Sounds clear what he was not candid about to the Board: The promises to Microsoft...
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