Microsoft will be on the new board as a non-voting observer... Microsoft doesn't get to vote even though they own 49%? What's up with that?
Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
251–260 of 787 posts
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#252i'm still not clear what the accusation against Altman was... something about being cavalier about safety? if that was the claim and it has merit, i don't understand why it wasn't right to oust him, and why the employees are clamoring for him back
They apparently refused to tell even their CEO, Shear. I don't think anyone other than the board knows.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. But Helen Toner has been tweeting a little "To be clear: our decision was about the board's ability to effectively supervise the company, which was our role and responsibility. Though there has been speculation, we were not motivated by a desire to slow down OpenAI’s work." https://twitter.com/hlntnr/status/1730034020140912901
> Though there has been speculation, we were not motivated by a desire to slow down OpenAI’s work. Strange when their choice of interim-CEO was someone who explicitly stated he wants to see the pace of AI development go from a 10 to a 2 [1] and she regularly speaks at EA conferences where that's a major theme. This is probably double speak for she want's to not "slow down OpenAI's work" on AI safety but probably woul…
They didn’t want to slow work, just the work on the stuff they didn’t like
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Though there has been speculation, we were not motivated by a desire to slow down OpenAI’s work. Strange when their choice of interim-CEO was someone who explicitly stated he wants to see the pace of AI development go from a 10 to a 2 [1] and she regularly speaks at EA conferences where that's a major theme. This is probably double speak for she want's to not "slow down OpenAI's work" on AI safety but probably woul…
They didn’t want to slow work, just the work on the stuff they didn’t like
Yes exactly.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just so strange. This is such a clearly justifiable reason that the fact that they didn't argue it... or argue.. anything, makes me very suspicious that it is correct.
They were either scared of being sued for defamation or unwilling to divulge existential company secrets. Or both.
Doesn't really make sense to be unwilling to divulge company secrets if you're willing to gut the company for this hill.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#256> The fact that we did not lose a single customer will drive us to work even harder for you, and we are all excited to get back to work. I'm not a big customer, but I am starting the process of moving away from OpenAI in response to these events
Why? If the product is useful (it is to me), then why do you care so much as to the internal politics? If it ceases to be useful or something better comes along, sure. But this strikes me as being serially online and involved in drama
It’s a bit like buying a Tesla.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then we'd witness the market decide whether the company value was provided by its board or its employees
It's a non-profit. It should have no value aside from the mission. The only reason the employees mobilized in their whining and support of a person, whose only skills seems to be raising money and cult of personality, seems to be so that Altman can complete the Trojan horse of the non-profit by getting rid of it now that it has completed the side quest of attracting investors and customers.
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Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#258i'm still not clear what the accusation against Altman was... something about being cavalier about safety? if that was the claim and it has merit, i don't understand why it wasn't right to oust him, and why the employees are clamoring for him back
Even if -- and that's a big if -- it really was just a dispute over alignment (nonprofit vs for-profit, safety, etc.), the board executed it really poorly and completely misjudged their employees' response. They saw the limits of their power / persuasiveness compared to [Altman/the allure of profit/the simple stability and clarity of day-to-day work without a secretive activist board/etc] Or maybe they already knew t…
Let's also keep in mind that if the AI doomers are right and spicy autocomplete is just a few more layers away from taking over the world, OpenAI has completely failed at building anything that could keep it under control. Because they can't even keep Sam Altman under control.
...actually, now that I think of it...
Any creative work - even a computer program - tends to be a reflection of the organizational hierarchies and people who made it. If OpenAI is a bunch of mad scientists with a thin veneer of "safety" coating, then so is ChatGPT.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason the CEO could oust the board like that was that after the board fired the CEO, 720 of the 770 employees of the company got together and signed a pledge that they will all leave unless the CEO is reinstated and the board fired. This was the purest example of labor democracy and self-organization in action in the United States I have ever seen, my takeaway is rather the opposite of "they are all expendable".…
The board should have called their bluff and let them walk.
I wonder if they ACTUALLY would have landed at Microsoft. And then, would they actually have their TC post tender met there? And would they continue working on AI for some time, independent of reorgs, etc? All of them? A place like MSFT has a TON of process and red tape, the board could have called their bluff and kept at least 40%.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how many of the OpenAI employees are part of the "Effective Accelerationism" movement (often styled e/acc on X/Twitter). These people seem to think safety concerns get in the way of progress toward a utopian AGI future.
The employees earn when OpenAI has more profit. No matter how idealistic you are, you won't be happy when your compensation is reduced from 600k to 200k.
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