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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

#781

Post by FeepingCreature »

astrange wrote: post #749
FeepingCreature wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This then causes young men to decide they should be in open relationships because it's "more logical" Yes, which is 100% because of "LessWrong" and 0% because groups of young nerds do that every time, so much so that there's actually an XKCD about it ( https://xkcd.com/592/ ). The actual message regarding Bayes' Theorem is that there is a correct way to respond to evidence in the first place. LessWrong does not man…

> The actual message regarding Bayes' Theorem is that there is a correct way to respond to evidence in the first place. No, there isn't a correct way to do anything in the real world, only in logic problems. This would be well known if anyone had read philosophy; it's the failed program of logical positivism. (Also the failed 70s-ish AI programs of GOFAI.) The main reason it doesn't work is that you don't know what a…

> No, there isn't a correct way to do anything in the real world, only in logic problems.

Agree to disagree? If there's one thing physics teaches us, it's that the real world is just math. I mean, re GOFAI, it's not like Transformers and DL are any less "logic problem" than Eurisko or Eliza were. Re counterfactuals, yes, the problem is uncomputable at the limit. That's not "unknown unknowns", that's just the problem of induction. However, it's not like there's any alternative system of knowledge that can do better. The point isn't to be right all the time, the point is to make optimal use of available evidence.

> buying castles

They make the case that the castle was good value for money, and given the insane overhead for renting meeting spaces, I'm inclined to believe them.

> scientific racism is real (though still buying mosquito nets for the people they're racist about)

Honestly, give me scientific racists who buy mosquito nets over antiracists who don't any day.

> getting tripped up reinventing Jainism when they realize drinking water causes infinite harm to microscopic shrimp.

As far as I can tell, that's one guy.

> And of course, they think evil computer gods are going to kill them.

I mean, I do think that, yes. Got any argument against it other than "lol sci-fi"?

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

#782

Post by simseye »

sudosysgen wrote: post #694
simseye wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see many academics indulge in sensationalist doomsaying. That's the real difference here. SETI wouldn't and couldn't seek grants by proposing to contact murderous aliens. I think academics have a general faith in goodwill of intelligence.Benevolence may be a convergent phenomenon. Maybe the mechanisms of reason themselves require empathy and goodness

Huh? There's plenty of AI doomerism amongst academics, see Bengio, Hinton, etc...

Hinton makes cliched statements as if he's not given much thought to safety but feels obliged for whatever reason

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

#783

Post by [deleted] »

JanSt wrote: post #620
bmitc wrote: post #592

Through all of this, no one has cogently explained why Altman leaving is such a big deal. Why would workers immediately quit their job when he has no other company, and does he even know who these workers are? Are these people that desperate to make a buck (or the prospect of big bucks)? It seems like half of the people working at the non-profit were not actually concerned about the mission but rather just waiting ou…

Seems like the board wants to slow down progress which pretty much means sitting there waiting for alignment instead of putting out the work you came for. Sam will let them work to progress I guess, plus a mountain of cash/equity for them.

[deleted]

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

#784

Post by LrnByTeach »

This may be a fair workable solution to all the parties involved.

Context:

---------

1.1/ ILya Sukhar and Board do not agree with Sam Altman vision of a) too fast commercialization of Open AI AND/OR b) too fast progression to GPT-5 level

1.2/ Sam Altman thinks fast iteration and Commercialization is needed in-order to make Open AI financially viable as it is burning too much cash and stay ahead of competition.

1.3/ Microsoft, after investing $10+ Billions do not want this fight enable slow progress of AI Commercialization and fall behind Google AI etc..

a workable solution:

--------------------

2.1/ @sama @gdb form a new AI company, let us call it e/acc Inc.

2.2/ e/acc Inc. raises $3 Billions as SAFE instrument from VCs who believed in Sam Altman's vision.

2.3/ Open AI and e/acc Inc. reach an agreement such that:

a) GPT-4 IP transferred to e/acc Inc., this IP transfer is valued as $8 Billion SAFE instrument investment from Open AI into e/acc Inc.

b) existing Microsoft's 49% share in Open AI is transferred to e/acc Inc., such that Microsoft owns 49% of e/acc Inc.

c) the resulted "Lean and pure non-profit Open AI" with Ilya Sukhar and Board can steer AI progress as they wish, their stake in e/acc Inc. will act as funding source to cover their future Research Costs.

d) employees can join from Open AI to e/acc Inc. as they wish with no antipoaching lawsuits from OpenAI

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

#785

Post by bmitc »

jstummbillig wrote: post #751
bmitc wrote: post #592

Through all of this, no one has cogently explained why Altman leaving is such a big deal. Why would workers immediately quit their job when he has no other company, and does he even know who these workers are? Are these people that desperate to make a buck (or the prospect of big bucks)? It seems like half of the people working at the non-profit were not actually concerned about the mission but rather just waiting ou…

I am so confused by how this question is asked, and the reactions. It's "such a big deal" because he has been leading the company, and apparently some people really like how and they really don't like how it ended. Why would it require any other explanation? Are you asking what leaders do and why an employee would care about what they do...?

Do you understand why he was fired? The company had a charter, one the board is to help uphold. Altman and his crew were leading the company, and seemingly its employees, away from that charter. He was not open about how he was doing that. The board fired him.

This is like a bunch of people joining a basketball team where the coach starts turning it into a soccer team, and then the GM fires the coach for doing this and everyone calls the GM crazy and stupid. If you want to play soccer, go play soccer!

If you want to make a ton of money in a startup moving fast, how about don't setup a non-profit company spouting a bunch of humanitarian shit? It's even worse, because Altman very clearly did all this intentionally by playing the "I care about humanity card" just long enough while riding on the coattails of researchers where he could start up side processes to use his new AI profile to make the big bucks. But now people want to make him a martyr simply because the board called his bluff. It's bewildering.

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

#786

Post by djokkataja »

bmitc wrote: post #757
belugacat wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a big deal because he’s extremely charismatic and well connected and that matters much, much more for a tech company’s success than some programmers like to think.

I have watched him speak, and he doesn't seem charismatic at all. I remember hearing the same things about Sam Bankman-Fried and then going and watching his interviews and feeling the same. There is just a giant gap here where I simply do not get it, and I see no evidence that explains me not getting it is missing some key aspect of all this. This just seems like classic cargo cult, cult of personality, and following…

> I have watched him speak, and he doesn't seem charismatic at all.

Consider the relative charisma of the people around him, though.

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

#788

Post by exizt88 »

chimney wrote: post #540
mfiguiere wrote: post #416

TheInformation: Dozens of Staffers Quit OpenAI After Sutskever Says Altman Won’t Return >Dozens of OpenAI staffers internally announced they were quitting the company Sunday night, said a person with knowledge of the situation, after board director and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever told employees that fired CEO Sam Altman would not return. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dozens-of-staffers-q...

Isn't this expected? Nearly everyone who joined post ChatGPT was primarily financially motivated. What is more interesting is how many of the core research team stays.

How do you know that? Maybe they wanted to ship AI products at an unprecedented speed at the most prestigious AI company in the world.

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

#789

Post by bmitc »

natch wrote: post #721
bmitc wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's a big deal because he has a cult of personality?

I wouldn’t call the entire YC community a cult of personality. And that’s just a subset of his network.

It's not all, but you see plenty of it here.

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

#790

Post by hurryer »

bnralt wrote: post #289
hsrada wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death. The default consequence of AGI's arrival is doom. Aligning a super intelligence with our desires is a problem that no one has solved yet. "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else." ---- Listen to Dwarkesh Podcast with Eliezer or Carl Shulman to know more about this.

> Aligning a super intelligence with our desires is a problem that no one has solved yet. It's a problem that we haven't seen the existence of yet. It's like saying no one has solved the problem of alien invasions.

Survivorship bias.

It's like saying don't worry about global thermonuclear war because we haven't seen it yet.

The Neandethals on the other hand have encountered a super-intelligence.

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