Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by Freedom2 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #433

visarga wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200k MS employees can't do what 500 from OAI can, the more you pile on the problem, the worse the outcome. The problem with Microsoft is that, like Google, Amazon and IBM, they are not a good medium for radical innovation, are old, ossified companies. Apple used to be nimble when Steve was alive, but went to coasting mode since then. Having large revenue from old business is an obstacle in the new world, maybe Apple…

> Apple used to be nimble when Steve was alive, but went to coasting mode since then Give me a break. Apple Watch and Air pods are far and away leaders in their category, Apple's silicon is a huge leap forward, there is innovation in displays, CarPlay is the standard auto interface for millions of people, while I may question the utility the Vision Pro is a technological marvel, iPhone is still a juggernaut (and the…

> Apple Watch and Air pods are far and away leaders in their category,

By what metric? I prefer open hardware and modifiable software - these products are in no way leaders for me. Not to mention all the bluetooth issues my family and friends have had when trying to use them.

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

#472

Post by apstls » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #340

dougmwne wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did they win exactly? This is far from the only effort to develop AI models. They were a leader for a time, but seem unlikely to continue in that position.

Even so it buys some time to do safety work

I don’t really understand what safety work is or entails here, given OpenAI will surely not be the only group to achieve AGI (assuming any group does.) What stops other companies from offering similar models with no (or just less) regard for safety/alignment, which may even be seen as a sort of competitive edge against other providers? Would the “safety work” being done or thought about somehow affect other eventual players in the market? Even regulation has the same challenges, but with nations instead of companies, and AFAIK that was more Sam’s domain than Ilya’s. It almost seems like acceleration for the sake of establishing a monopolistic presence in the market to prevent other players from viability, and then working in safety afterwards, would give a better chance of safety long-term… but that of course also seems very unrealistic. I think more broadly, if we’re concerned with the safety of humanity as a species we can’t think about the safety problem on the timescale of individual companies or people, or even governments. I do wonder how Ilya and team are thinking about this.

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

#473

Post by asdkl234890 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #108

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…

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…

And as if researches in other nations like China will sit on their hands and do nothing. They are busy catching up but without any ethics boards.

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

#474

Post by borissk » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

sdwvit wrote: post #177

bufferoverflow wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's not the actual reason. It looks like a hostile takeover. The "king" of, arguably, the most important company in the world, got kicked out with very little effort. It's pretty extraordinary, and the power shift is extraordinary too.

Maybe someone from higher up called the board?

ChatGPT-5?

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

#475

Post by 15457345234 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

djvdq wrote: post #412

ethbr1 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How childish are employees to publicly get involved with this on Twitter? If the CEO of my company got shitcanned and then he/she and the board were feuding? ... I'd talk to my colleagues and friends privately, and not go anywhere near the dumpster fire publicly. If I felt strongly, hell, turn in my resignation. But 100% "no comment" in public.

> You should find a better place to work. Work is work. If you start being emotional about it, it's a bad, not good, thing.

Nah, it's fine to be passionate about your work and relationships with your colleagues.

You just need to temper that before you start swearing oaths of fealty on twitter; because that's giving real Jim Jones vibes which isn't a good thing.

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

#476

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #392

hipadev23 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone worth a shit will leave and go work with Sam. OpenAI will be left with a bunch of below average grifters.

In a dispute between people willing to sacrifice profit for values and those chasing the profit, why on earth would you put grifters on team values over profit?

[deleted]

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

#477

Post by behringer » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

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.

If you're looking for money you probably chose wrong going with a non-profit.

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

#478

Post by alsodumb » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #397

slkdjfalzkdfj wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adam was appointed to the OpenAI board in April 2018, long before ChatGPT and Poe. He's always been somewhat interested/involved in AI/ML so the appointment broadly makes sense to me. Also keep in mind that a year earlier in Spring 2017 Sam Altman led Quora's Series D, after YC previously joined in on Quora's Series C in 2014. So the two of them clearly had some pre-existing relationship. I don't think OpenAI and Quo…

I thought Poe was a partnership with Anthropic?

Nope, Poe was always building on OpenAI API and their GPTs. In fact Poe was one of the first companies to get access to GPT-4-32k context length a few months ago and they were the first to make it accessible to their users.

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

#479

Post by Palmik » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #94

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…

> No idea what the future holds for any of the players here. Reality truly is stranger than fiction. Is it though? "No outcome where [OpenAI] is one of the big five technology companies. My hope is that we can do a lot more good for the world than just become another corporation that gets that big." -Adam D'Angelo

I guess he would prefer is the existing incumbents got even larger, or if his competitor to ChatGPT (Poe) could capture significant fraction of the market.

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

#480

Post by lyu07282 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

snovv_crash wrote: post #366

tdubhro1 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But if you really cared about that why would you be so opaque on everything. Usually people with strong conviction try to convince other people of that conviction. For a non profit that is supposedly acting in the interests of all mankind, they aren't actually telling us shit. Transparency is pretty much the first thing everybody does who actually cares about ethics and social responsibilities.