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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

#541

Post by choppaface »

systemvoltage wrote: post #483
ansk wrote: post #448

The contrast between the media's depiction of today's events with this outcome demonstrates how much Sam and his aligned interests can influence a narrative. The vast majority of reporting indicated that Sam held all the leverage, the board members were about to be fired, and a new board would be appointed which would be much better aligned with Sam. These accounts took special care to portray the current board as in…

There is one thing that sticks out: Why didn't the board explain itself clearly? There are times when saying anything publicly would be considered defamation and openining themselves to lawsuits, but it seems that they owe it to their own staff in plain words. They didn't explain the situation properly as per leaked internal announcements.

Maybe for a company of 12-50 there would be more candid discussion internally, but over 100 and especially at OpenAI size (and with Microsoft involved) liability control is at the max. Moreover, if the Board thought the decision would help improve retention, then they would comment, but that's clearly not the case.

OpenAI is not a typical LLC or S/C-corp though, so the Board also has to overcome that conceptual hurdle.

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

#542

Post by jay_kyburz »

hooande wrote: post #510
ansk wrote: post #448

The contrast between the media's depiction of today's events with this outcome demonstrates how much Sam and his aligned interests can influence a narrative. The vast majority of reporting indicated that Sam held all the leverage, the board members were about to be fired, and a new board would be appointed which would be much better aligned with Sam. These accounts took special care to portray the current board as in…

If this were true they never would have had talks to bring him back. That's the opposite of steadfast commitment to principles. If Sam wronged them or the company in a significant way they never should have let him back in the building. The board's decisions may or may not turn out to be correct in hindsight. But it's very difficult to say that this was a good example of leadership or decision making.

If I had to guess, they had the talks to bring him back as a favor to somebody, or as a sign of good faith, but neither party had changed their position so there was no compromise to be had.

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

#543

Post by zaptheimpaler »

tempusalaria wrote: post #528
zoogeny wrote: post #358

I’m genuinely surprised that they stuck to their guns. The PR push behind Altman’s return was convincing enough that I had my doubts. Altman will be more than fine, he’ll get a bucket of money and the chance to prove he is the golden boy he’s been sold to the world. He will get to recruit a team that believes in his vision of accelerating AI for commercial use. This will lead to a more diverse market. I hope for the…

The whole situation should make it clear that SV media is beholden to VCs and will print anything they tell them to. Bloomberg, the verge and the information all went to bat for Altman in a big way on this.

You could say the same thing if they were rooting for the board instead..

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

#544

Post by jazzyjackson »

Klonoar wrote: post #523
Palmik wrote: post #319

Emmett is a self-proclaimed AI doomer. Given some of his Tweets from the past, it's likely the board indeed wants someone who will takes things slower: https://archive.is/tuf3s https://archive.is/sNvvs This is probably not something you want to hear as a researcher who is motivated by pushing the frontiers of our capabilities, nor as a researcher who is motivated by pushing their compensation.

Those researchers should be met with restraint. One can ultimately still push the frontiers while also showing restraint - stop acting like it's either-or.

?? I guess you can walk into the frontier a little slower if you don't mind someone else settling it before you.

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

#545

Post by FridgeSeal »

huxflux wrote: post #513

HN! If I had a recorded phone call, emails and chats I thought it would be the better for the public to know about, how would I go ahead and share such in the best and most anonymous way?

I believe most major news orgs have secure anonymous mechanisms for communicating with them. E.g. the guardian etc.

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

#546

Post by MrScruff »

mlyle wrote: post #382
ethbr1 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem with AGI is potential exponential growth. So less like an alien invasion. And more like a pandemic at the speed of light.

That's assuming a big overshoot of human intelligence and goal-seeking. An average human capability counts as "AGI." If lots of the smartest human minds make AGI, and it exceeds a mediocre human-- why assume it can make itself more efficient or bigger? Indeed, even if it's smarter than the collective effort of the scientists that made it, there's no real guarantee that there's lots of low hanging fruit for it to self…

If AI gets to human levels of intelligence (ie. can do novel research in theoretical physics) then at the very least it’s likely that over time it will be able to do this reasoning faster than humans. I think it’s very hard to imagine a scenario where we create an actual AGI and then within a few years at most of that event the AGIs are far more capable than human brains. That would imply there was some arbitrary physical limit to intelligence but even within humans the variance is quite dramatic.

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

#547

Post by alsodumb »

behringer wrote: post #465
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…

Why a researcher would concern him or herself with management politics is beyond me? Particularly with a glorified sales man. Sounds like they aren't spending enough time actually working.

It's not just management politics - it's about money and what they want to work on.

A lot of researchers like to work on cutting edge stuff, that actually ends up in a product. Part of the reason why so many researchers moved from Google to OpenAI was to be able to work on products that get into production.

> Particularly with a glorified sales man > Sounds like they aren't spending enough time actually working. Lmao I love how people come down to personal attacks on people.

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

#549

Post by kolinko »

torginus wrote: post #460

This is wild speculation, but I just noticed whenever I load the ChatGPT page, it will briefly say 'ChatGPT Alpha' before switching to ChatGPT 4. Maybe they created the new model and there's something interesting about it?

I think they were exprimenting with a more advanced 3.5 version for non-paying users - it was showing to some people as an option between gpt-3.5 and gpt4

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

#550

Post by lajawfe »

tempusalaria wrote: post #528
zoogeny wrote: post #358

I’m genuinely surprised that they stuck to their guns. The PR push behind Altman’s return was convincing enough that I had my doubts. Altman will be more than fine, he’ll get a bucket of money and the chance to prove he is the golden boy he’s been sold to the world. He will get to recruit a team that believes in his vision of accelerating AI for commercial use. This will lead to a more diverse market. I hope for the…

The whole situation should make it clear that SV media is beholden to VCs and will print anything they tell them to. Bloomberg, the verge and the information all went to bat for Altman in a big way on this.

Yes, I felt the same. In every piece, there was very little news but a lot of fluff to lead the public with opinions. Probably VCs saw their money burning and wanted Sam back at the helm to protect their asset.
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