Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#571

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #551

tsimionescu wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll start by saying that these particular claims seem to mean absolutely nothing per everything I've heard. It seems to be a mentally ill person accusing someone of something that may very well have never happened. Innocent until proven guilty though is the standard for legal punishment, not for public outrage. It's a standard meant to constrain the use of violence against an individual, not to prevent others from a…

> Innocent until proven guilty though is the standard for legal punishment, not for public outrage. It's still a useful barometer to calibrate one's own, individual participation in said public outrage. For our own mental health, for our relationships with people around us, and to avoid being manipulated by dishonest people, it would behoove each and every one of us to adopt "innocent until proven guilty" regardless…

> Our required burden of proof can be lower than a court's but it should be higher than "unsubstantiated accusation by mentally ill family member that is uniformly denied by the rest of the family".

Very much agreed with this.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#572

Post by gumballindie » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #18

As of 10am PT, 700 of 770 employees have signed the call for board resignation. [1] [1] https://twitter.com/joannejang/status/1726667504133808242

Cant openai just use chatgpt instead of workers? I am hearing ai is intelligent and can take over the world, replace workers, cure disease. Why doesn't the board buy a subscription and make it work for them?

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#573

Post by westcort » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

Maybe he will learn to capitalize words at the beginning of sentences. In all seriousness, I find the habit of “higher ups” to answer emails like teenagers texting on a T9 phone worthy of a sociology paper. Perhaps it is the written equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodies. I found his return to office ideas early on in COVID sickening.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#574

Post by _yb2s » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

ar_lan wrote: post #126

Arson9416 wrote: post #61

The fact that these people aren't currently willing to "rewind the clock" about a week shows the dangers of human ego. Nothing permanent has been done that can't be undone fairly simply, if all parties agree to undo it. What we're watching now is the effect of ego momentum on decision making. Try it. It's not a crazy idea. Put everything back the way it was a week ago and then agree to move forward. It will be like h…

In general this can't work. People are notoriously ruthless to people who admit their mistakes. For example, if you are in an argument and you lose (whether through poor debate or your argument is plain wrong), and you *admit it*, people don't look back at it as a point of humility - they look at it as a reason to dog pile on you and make sure everyone knows you were wrong. In this case, it's not internet points - it…

It’s not that simple… it depends on how you admit the mistake. If done with strength, leadership, etc., and a clear plan to fix the issue it can make you look really good. If done with groveling, shame, and approval seeking, what you are saying will happen.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#575

Post by tedmiston » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #554

tedmiston wrote: post #463

Boosting this deeply nested interesting comment from @alephnerd to the top level: > As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-pro…

> Boosting this deeply nested interesting comment from @alephnerd to the top level Please don't do this - for many reasons, including that it makes merging the comments a pain. If you or anyone notices a comment that deserves to be at the top level (and doesn't lose context if moved), let us know at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll move it.

Thanks for the quick fix, Dan!

So do you have the ability to pin deeply nested comments or do you have to remove it from the existing thread for this to work?

Someone else proposed this first but didn't think pinning worked on nested comments.

Edit: The original author asked not to be pinned in a subcomment, so I don't know now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#576

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #566

jacquesm wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To check them does not overlap with 'to destroy them at the first opportunity'. There is no way that this board decision - which now is only supported by three of the original nine board members - is going to survive absent a very clear and unambiguous reason that shows that their only remedy was to fire the CEO. This sort of thing you don't do by your gut feeling, you go by the book.

> no way that this board decision...is going to survive absent a very clear and unambiguous reason that shows that their only remedy was to fire the CEO The simplest explanation is Altman said he wasn't going to do something and then did it. At that point, even a corporate board would have cause for termination. Of course, the devil is in the details, and I doubt we'll have any of them this week. But more incredulous…

True, but then the board would have been able to get rid of the controversy on the spot by spelling out their reasoning. Nobody would fault them. But that didn't happen, and even one of the people that voted for Altmans' removal has backtracked. So this is all extremely murky and suspicious.

If they had a valid reason they should spell it out. But my guess is that reason, assuming it exists, will just open them up to more liability and that is why it isn't given.

> But more incredulous than the board's decision is the claim that it owes any duty to its for-profit subsidiary's employees, who aren't even shareholders, but some profit-sharing paper's holders.

Technically they took over the second they fired Altman so they have no way to pretend they have no responsibility. Shareholders and employees of the for-profit were all directly affected by this decision, the insulating properties of a non-profit are not such that you can just do whatever you want and get away with it.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#577

Post by robertwt7 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

Wait what is happening with Ilya? I thought he agreed to kick Sam out but he tweeted that he regretted it? I don’t understand what is going on

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#578

Post by coliveira » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #342

alephnerd wrote: post #84

As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-profit called Open Philanthropy, which was a early proponent of a form of Effective Alt…

A "conflict" or false opposition can also be used in a theater like play. Maybe this was setup to get Microsoft to take on the costs/liability and more. Three board members left in 2023 that allowed this to happen. The idea of boards might even be an anti-pattern going forward, they can be played and used in essentially rug pull scenarios for full control of all the work of entire organizations. Maybe boards are past…

This has been the case as long as companies existed. Even with all this, companies still have boards because they represent the interests of several people.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#579

Post by jdthedisciple » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

westcort wrote: post #573

Maybe he will learn to capitalize words at the beginning of sentences. In all seriousness, I find the habit of “higher ups” to answer emails like teenagers texting on a T9 phone worthy of a sociology paper. Perhaps it is the written equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodies. I found his return to office ideas early on in COVID sickening.

> Maybe he will learn to capitalize words at the beginning of sentences.

I think you may be confusing him with Greg Brockmann.

Re: Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

#580

Post by thrwwy_dm231120 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #84

As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-profit called Open Philanthropy, which was a early proponent of a form of Effective Alt…

I heard directly from Dustin that he was surprised as anyone by the board’s actions. He is not some hidden mastermind behind the scenes, he has just been personally invested in AI and AI safety for a long time and therefore has many connections to other key players in the space.