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Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO

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

#811
post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thing a sad, understated ongoing is that so many people are throwing vitriol at Ilya right now. If the speculation here is true, then he just chased by a mob over pure nonsense (well, at least purer than the nonsense premise beforehand). Gotta love seeing effective altruists take another one on the chin this year though.

Does this whole thing remind anyone else of the tech community’s version of celebrity gossip?

Finally, drama for people who think ~~we~~they're above celebrity drama.

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

#812
post #244

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…

It has come to the point that hearing the expression "Effective Altruism" sends shivers down my spline.

One more thing SBF and crew ruined.

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

#813
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has come to the point that hearing the expression "Effective Altruism" sends shivers down my spline.

Obviously we should all want our altruism to be effective. What is the other side of it? Wanting one's altruism to not really accomplish much? But with everything that has gone on, I cannot imagine wanting to be an Effective Altruist! The movement by that name seems to do and think some really weird stuff.

It’s obnoxious because of that exact implication, that pre-existing altruism wasn’t concerned with efficacy. And that’s just not true.

There has been a community of professional practice around measuring impact and directing funds accordingly for decades. Does it always generate perfect results? No, far from it!! Is there room to improve? Absolutely, lots and lots of room!

But it’s hard not to notice that the people who call themselves Effective Altruists have no better a track record (actually, I would say far worse) than the so-called bloated NGOs and international organizations when it comes to efficacy.

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

#814
post #15

So, is the pressure of 700/770 employees enough to crack the board? What a wild timeline.

at what point do all the employees have a right to sue Adam D'Angelo (the owner of Poe, some wannabe GPT competitor) if he doesn't resign? if he really plays hardball and burns openAI to the ground as he promised, would we as customers have leverage against them? Forget about poe, Isn't ChatGPT a potential killer of Quora and stackoverflow and Google ? How On earth did a representative of one of these three make it t…

Do people really not understand how non-profit boards work?

The employees don't have a right to sue any of the board members over loss of profit, since the board is not concerned with profit. Adam would have a conflict of interest if his ownership of poe lead him to make decisions that went against the OpenAI mission, and since being a competitor doesn't I don't see how anybody could find him at fault.

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

#815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this is a big part of it. But everyone I know at OpenAI (and outside) is a huge Sam fan.

> everyone I know at OpenAI (and outside) is a huge Sam fan Everyone you know is a huge Sam fan? What?

I was going to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if I am one of only a handful of the people whom I know who even know who sama is.

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

#816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I should rephrase that as if they did it because they perceived that Altman was maneuvering to be untouchable within the company and moving against the interests of the nonprofit, they did the right thing. Just, again, way too late because it seems he was already untouchable.

According to the letter they consistently refused to go on the record why they did it and that would be as good a reason as any so then they should make it public. I'm leaning towards there not being a good reason that doesn't expose the board to immediate liability. And that's why they're keeping mum.

I'm leaning toward the reason being that Sam did something that created a massive legal risk to the company, and that giving more details would cause the risk to materialize.

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

#817
post #38

Given that Ilya switched sides now, it leaves with 3 BOD members that are at the helm. The one that is really overlooked in this case is the CEO of Quora, Adam D'Angelo, who has a competing interest with Poe and Quora that he sunk his own money into it which ChatGPT and GPTs makes his platform irrelevant. So why isn't anyone here talking about the conflict of interest with Adam D'Angelo as one of the board members wh…

Because that would be a conflict of interest between the for-profit OpenAI corporation and Adam. How does that conflict impact his ability to make decisions on behalf of the non-profit corporation? Basically what about his ownership of poe constitutes a conflict of interest with the non-profit corporation OpenAI?

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

#818
post #716

I wish we could all just admit that this is a capital run, rather than some moralistic crusade. The employees want to get their big payday, so will follow Altman wherever he goes. Which is the smart thing to do anyway as he runs half the valley. The public discourse in which Sam is the hero is further cemented by the tech ecosystem, which nowadays is circling around AI. Those in the "OpenAI wrapper" game. Nobody has…

You're absolutely wrong here. We have precedent to see what happened with internet search, advertising, and data collection. Everything turned out fine.

For the sake of Poe's law, is this sarcasm? I genuinely don't know, none of those things brought down humankind or anything but you could write a library about the issues with these.

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

#819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaand there you have it: cargo culting in full swing.

I don't think you mean cargo culting. Cult of personality?

Cargo cult of personality?

Little care packages of seemingly magical AI-adjacent tech washes into our browsers and terminals and suddenly a large and irrational following springs up to worship some otherwise largely unfamiliar personage.

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

#820
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget some might be on holiday, medical leave, or parental leave.

On a digital-detox trip to Patagonia. Return to this in 5 days

Wow, a 5-day trip?

Their selection of tech-guy jackets is more diverse than I'd thought

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