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?
Microsoft has 49% in the child company, not the parent org. This is about the board of the parent org.
Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
481–490 of 787 posts
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I think this was "700 out of 730 employees signed a letter saying they'd quit, over a holiday weekend". OpenAI with no employees is not worth a whole lot.
This episode taught us the very obvious lesson that if you hire people incentivized by equity growth, it is not possible to take steps that detrimentally impact equity growth, without losing all those people. The board had already lost the moment it allowed hundreds of fat compensation packages to be signed.
> lost the moment it allowed hundreds of fat compensation packages to be signed.
There will be no OpenAI to begin with had that not been the case.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#483This pushed our small team to try Azure instance of GPT3.5 - wow 20 times faster. API does not fail to respond to server requests as we found oh so often on the OpenAI API. We now have something fast enough and stable enough to actually use. Pricing is higher, but my goodness, it actually works.
As much as I'm sure people on OpenAI are good, they're focused on the research and math of the thing, but lack in Ops experience
(though to be honest I think Azure API was flaky yesterday)
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#484This pushed our small team to try Azure instance of GPT3.5 - wow 20 times faster. API does not fail to respond to server requests as we found oh so often on the OpenAI API. We now have something fast enough and stable enough to actually use. Pricing is higher, but my goodness, it actually works.
Pricing higher is funny because OpenAI fully runs on Azure.
It's a bit different to have an instance always prepared for your use and to use a shared infrastructure. The latter could pretty much always expect at least a few percent use, which would reduce price.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#485Who is driving the company (companies)? Certainly not the board, when it can be ousted on the whim of one person. Might as well just get rid of the board (all boards in this organization) as any decision made can be overthrown by a bit of publicity and ego. Perhaps it about getting rich at the expense of any ethics? Those who work for this company should bear this in mind, they are all expendable!
I've always like the metaphor that companies, especially large ones, are like an autonomous AI that has revenue generation as it's value function and operates in that interest and not in the interest of the individuals that make up the company.
Ah if only it were that simple, truth is a company, especially old ones, have a value function that is in flux, and this may include revenue generation but more often than not this is completed or replaced by replaced by some variation of political clout acquisition: it makes them unkillable even with a negative balance sheet.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#486I think this is the beginning of the downfall or end of OpenAI…well, the downfall had already started. It may not be apparent, but the company structure and the grip of the (now returned) CEO doesn’t sound like a good recipe for “open” or ethical AI. The company will probably make money. Microsoft would still be a partner/investor until it can wring the maximum value before extinguishing OpenAI completely. Same holds…
> There doesn’t seem to be anything in this entire drama and the secrecy around it that indicates that things are good or healthy within the company.
The drama reflects well on OpenAI’s in-dev technology (be it Q* or GPT5 or something else). Apparently many actors believe that the stakes are high.
We can also see that the employees are aligned regarding the path they want the company to take.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does feel like an employee that did really well out of the gate and is starting to coast I their laurels.
I've thought one of the funnier end states for AGI would be if it was created but this ended up making it vastly less productive than when it was just a tool. So the AI of the future was more like Bender or other robots from Futurama that display all the same flaws as people.
If it is really agi that will be the result. Nobody likes to be asked the same question a hundred times.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would that have accomplished? The old board members would still be in charge of the same thing they are today: absolutely nothing. They overplayed their position. That's all there is to it.
>> They overplayed their position. That's all there is to it. They tried to enforce the non-profit's charter, as is their duty. I would hardly frame that as overplaying their hand.
I wouldn't say overplayed as much as badly played because they underestimated
how much their CEO's had fortified his position. I find the situation pretty dire: we need more checks and watchmen on billionaire tech entrepreneurs, not less.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a doomer/EA perspective, publicly saying that GPT5 is AGI or such would likely inspire & accelerate labs around the world to catch up. Thus it was more "Altruistic" / aligned with humanity's fate to stay mum and leave the situation cloudy.
No, it would not; they are already trying to catch up.
Having an existing example showing that something difficult is possible causes everyone else to replicate it much faster, like how a bunch of people started running sub-4-minute miles after the first guy did it.
Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board
#490Earlier 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.
> value aside from the mission.
And you believe they could’ve achieved their mission with almost zero employees and presumably the board (well… who else?) having to do all the work themselves?
> non-profit by getting rid of it
So the solution of the board was to get rid of both the non-profit and for profit parts of the company?