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Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

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Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#441

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

g42gregory wrote: post #432
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "unwilling to divulge company secrets" is the best explanation here. We know that OpenAI does a staged release for their models with pre-release red-teaming. Helen says the key issue was the board struggling to "effectively supervise the company": https://nitter.net/hlntnr/status/1730034017435586920#m Here's Nathan Labenz on how sketchy the red-teaming process for GPT4 was. Nathan states that OpenAI shut him…

So what is Nathan Labenz saying? That GPT-4 is dangerous somehow? It will get many people out of jobs? MS Office got all the typists out of jobs. OCR and Medical Software got all the medical transcriptionists out of jobs. And they created a lot more jobs in the process. GPT-4 is a very powerful tool. It has not a whiff of AGI in it. The whole AGI "scare" seems to be extremely political.

Nathan says the initial version of GPT-4 he red-teamed was "totally amoral" and it was happy to plan assassinations for him: https://nitter.net/labenz/status/1727327464328954121#m

Reducing the cost of medical transcription to ~$0 is one thing. Reducing the cost of assassination to ~$0 is quite another.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#442

Post by bdd8f1df777b »

fatbird wrote: post #436
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #149

Earlier 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 combined will of the employees is much less meaningful when they're saying "DO IT OR WE'LL TAKE AN ATTRACTIVE OFFER THAT'S ON THE TABLE." I'd have been more impressed by their unity if it would have meant actually losing their jobs.

Why are you only impressed if the power of employees comes with high cost to their career? When employers exercise their power capriciously, they often do so without any material consequences. I'm more impressed with employees doing the same, i.e., exercising power with impunity.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#445

Post by az226 »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #352
cpncrunch wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no indication that Ilya has left the company, just the board. He seems happy with Sam’s return. https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1727434066411286557

The sentence about Ilya's continued "work relationship" with the company sounds like corpspeak for Ilya is out.

His career at OpenAI is nerfed at best. Trust is broken beyond repair.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#446

Post by MVissers »

mikeg8 wrote: post #331
tsunamifury wrote: post #228

I have an insanely hard time believing that a CEO that copies his customers and competes directly with them with his own consumer product will be “doubling down” to help customers. Sam has shown he has no good will towards anyone but himself.

Building products on top of their platform and then getting mad that they continue to add and improve said platform with additional functionality (without knowing their product roadmap in advance) seems petty. If they’re able to eat their customers lunch so quickly, it’s because the customers are building very thin and weak businesses with no actual innovation.

I mean, basically no-one can compete with OpenAI right now.

They have a monopoly. They can start copying any business that relies on them tomorrow.

And it’s not easy to build a better model. Do that’s not an option.

So you basically use them to deliver a tangential product woth the risk of them copying you, or refuse to play in AI.

You can’t innovate with OpenAI tech without risking that they’ll just copy you

It’s the amazon playbook: become the store and copy the best selling products.

I love gpt-4, just hate the direction of openAI. Sam knows he can take over the world with OpenAI, so he’s just doing it.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#447

Post by intended »

moralestapia wrote: post #192
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #149

Earlier 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".…

Yeah, and that just means that the board is useless de facto . Nice story on a company, maybe, but really bad thing on a "non-profit".

It means the board was out of alignment with their employees and their decision was unusually unpopular.

If the board had communicated better (no 2 or different reasons) or had hard evidence (the claim was deceptive behavior) - it would have been different.

I expect everyone who reads HN accepts that execution is 70% of the battle.

It’s very unsurprising for employees to have made the choices they did, given the handling of the situation.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#448

Post by UberFly »

solardev wrote: post #177
bedobi wrote: post #35

i'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…

I think it's wild that with all the 700+ employees involved, there haven't been more details leaked.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#449

Post by LMYahooTFY »

Waterluvian wrote: post #421
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #149

Earlier 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".…

Because Microsoft offered them all jobs.

As if they couldn't easily get a job almost anywhere?

Also don't they all have equity in OpenAI?

Seems like a pretty shallow take.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#450

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

upwardbound wrote: post #284
sanderjd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their big mistake was being unwilling to be clear and explicit about this, but as I read it, the board's problem with him was that he wasn't actually acting as the executive of the non-profit that he was meant to be the executive of, but rather was acting entirely in the interests of a for-profit subsidiary of it (and in his own interests), which were in conflict with the non-profit's charter. I think where the…

Regardless of the board's failure to make their case, recent news suggests that the SEC is going to investigate whether it is true that Altman acted in the manner you describe, which would be a violation of fiduciary duty. I agree that it seems like an open & shut case. Typical SEC timelines mean that this will go public in about 18 months from now. An anonymous person has already filed an SEC whistleblower complaint…

"Asset-backed securities" doesn't sound like corporate equity to me.
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