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Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

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Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#361

Post by zo1 »

threeseed wrote: post #178
alsodumb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every researcher I know at OpenAI who are on twitter re-tweeted Sam Atlman's heart tweet with their own heart or some other supportive message. I'm sure that's a sign that they are all team Sam - this includes a ton of researchers you see on most papers that came out of OpenAI. That's a good chunk of their research team and that'd be a very big loss. Also there are tons of engineers (and I know a few of t…

Team Sam = Team Money. If you're an employee at OpenAI there is a huge opportunity to leave and get in early with decent equity at potentially the next giant tech company. Pretty sure everyone at OpenAI's HQ in San Francisco remembers how many overnight millionaires Facebook's IPO created.

All this talk of a new venture and more money makes this smell highly fishy to me. Take this with a grain of salt, it's a random thought.

It's created huge noise and hype and controversy, and shaken things up to make people "think" they can be in on the next AI hype train "if only" they join whatever Sam Altman does now. Riding the next wave kind of thing because you have FOMO and didn't get in on the first wave.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#362

Post by maxlin »

ignoramous wrote: post #325
mcpackieh wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "[Artificial General Intelligence] in a very narrow domain ." Which is it?

Read the paper linked above, and if you don't agree that's okay. There are many who don't.

Check it again, I think you might have misread the thing. It categorizes things in a way that clearly separates AlphaGO from even shooting towards "AGI". The "General" part of AGI can't really be skipped or words don't make any sense anymore.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#363

Post by icy_deadposts »

ryanSrich wrote: post #190
chubot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think is funny is how the whole "we're just doing this to make sure AI is safe" meme breaks down, if you have OpenAI, Anthropic, and Altman AI all competing, which seems likely now. Do you really need all 3? Is each one going to claim that they're the only ones who can develop AGI safely? Since Sam left, now OpenAI is unsafe? But I thought they were the safe ones, and he was being reckless. Or is Sam just goin…

Can someone explain to me what they mean by "safe" AGI? I've looked in many places and everyone is extremely vague. Certainly no one is suggesting these systems can become "alive", so what exactly are we trying to remain safe from? Job loss?

[flagged]

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#364

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

voidfunc wrote: post #134

I'm expecting lawsuits in the next day or two from Altman for libel and defamation. I'd be surprised if OpenAI investors don't go to the courts also ASAP.

If they didn't reinstate Sam, Microsoft already threatened to cut off all future funding from OpenAI, (they've only paid 1 out of 10 tranches so far), then sue them, then help Sam poach OpenAI talent at his next venture.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#365

Post by famouswaffles »

esjeon wrote: post #329
ignoramous wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did he really fire Sam over "AI safety" concerns? How is that remotely rational. Not rational iff (and unlike Sustkever, Hinton, Bengio) you are not a "doomer" / "decel". Ilya's very vocal and on record that he suspects there may be "something else" going on with these models. He and DeepMind claim AlphaGo is already AGI (correction: ASI) in a very narrow domain ( https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/2311.02462/ ).…

> AGI in a very narrow domain The definition of AGI always puzzles me, because "G" in AGI is general , and the word certainly don't play well w/ "narrow". AGI is a new buzzword I guess.

Well there's nothing narrow about sota LLMs. The main hinge is just competence.

i think the guy you're replying to misunderstood the article he's alluding to though. They don't claim anything about a narrow agi

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#366

Post by snovv_crash »

tdubhro1 wrote: post #263
valine wrote: post #97

Not a word from Ilya. I can’t wrap my mind around his motivation. Did he really fire Sam over “AI safety” concerns? How is that remotely rational.

If it really was about “safety” then why wouldn’t Ilya have made some statement about opening the details of their model at least to some independent researchers under some tight controls. This is what makes it look like a simple power grab, the board has said absolutely nothing about what actions they would take to move toward a safer model of development.

Because they want to slow down further research which would push AGI closer until the safety/alignment aspect can catch up.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#367

Post by happytiger »

alex_young wrote: post #257
alsodumb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every researcher I know at OpenAI who are on twitter re-tweeted Sam Atlman's heart tweet with their own heart or some other supportive message. I'm sure that's a sign that they are all team Sam - this includes a ton of researchers you see on most papers that came out of OpenAI. That's a good chunk of their research team and that'd be a very big loss. Also there are tons of engineers (and I know a few of t…

The heart tweet rebellion is about as meaningful as adding a hashtag supporting one side of your favorite conflict. Come on. “By 5 pm everyone will quit if you don’t do x”. Response: tens of heart emojis.

I take it you have never made a pledge to someone.

It’s a signal. The only meaning is the circumstances under which the signal is given: Sam made an ask. These were answers.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#368

Post by threatripper »

peanuty1 wrote: post #226
kromem wrote: post #28

Foundational AI companies fracturing is going to be good for the overall market. Just like Anthropic spinning off from OpenAI brought some very cool research (particularly liked the functional introspection vs node based stuff), Altman going into his own venture to compete will help diversify the overall space. And while many seem to be thinking this is going to bode poorly for OpenAI, I think perhaps long term it mi…

I wonder how successful Sam's next AI venture will be without Ilya.

The problems that had been solved remain solved, no need for a genius for those problems. They will also have solutions that the public doesn't know about yet.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#369

Post by extheat »

yeck wrote: post #323
TechnicolorByte wrote: post #57

I still cannot process what’s happened to one of the most prominent and hyped companies of the past year in just one weekend. If it’s true that Altman won’t return to OpenAI (or alternatively: that the current board won’t step down) then where does that leave OpenAI? Microsoft can’t be happy, as evidenced by reporting that Nadella was acting as mediator to bring him back. Does OpenAI survive this? Will be super inter…

Well, despite what Musk did, X (Twitter?) has still been limping along for quite a while now. While more abrupt and surprising, this doesn't seem nearly as bad as that.

This is far worse. OpenAI simply cannot survive without Microsoft and skeleton staff. It's not like a static codebase where you can keep the service up and running indefinitely barring bugs. Why would anyone building with the OpenAI APIs, their customers, have any faith in the company if they openly don't care about business? Working on AI is highly capital intensive, on the scale of many tens of billions of dollars. Where are they going to get that funding? How will they pay their staff? There is no way Microsoft is going to HODL after this embarrassment.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#370

Post by tempsy »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #102
flylib wrote: post #49

Seems like he liked anti sama stuff as well https://x.com/moridinamael/status/1725893666663768321?s=46

Would be pretty weird to step in Sam’s replacement if he was philosophically aligned with him?

Yes, but you rarely see two people who run in the same circles/part of the same OG YC class publicly criticize one or the other.
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