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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#101

Post by swatcoder »

peter422 wrote: post #59

I know everybody is going nuts about this, but just from my personal perspective I’ve worked at a variety of companies with “important” CEOs, and in every single one of those cases had the CEO left I would not have cared at all. The CEO always gets way too much credit externally for what the company is doing, it does not mean the CEO is that important. OpenAI might be different, I don’t have any personal experience,…

A deal-making CEO who can carry rapport with the right people, make clever deals, and earn public trust can genuinely make a huge difference to a profit-seeking product company's trajectory.

But when your profit-seeking company is owned by a non-profit with a public mission, that trajectory might end up pointed the wrong way. The Dev Day announcements, and especially the marketplace, can be seen as suggesting that's exactly what was happening at OpenAI.

I don't think everyone there wants them to be selling cool LLM toys, especially not on a "make fast and break things" approach and with an ecosystem of startup hackers operationalizing it. (Wisely or not) I think they want to be shepherding responsible AGI before someone else does so irresponsibly.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#102

Post by cmrdporcupine »

esafak wrote: post #53
gustavus wrote: post #7

Here's the thing. I've always been kind of cold on OpeanAI claiming to be "Open" when it was clearly a for profit thing and I was concerned about the increasing move to the commercialization of AI that Sam was taking. But I am much more concerned to be honest those who feel they need to control the development of AI to ensure it is "aligns with their principles", after all principles can change, and to quote Lewis "O…

I think "don't extinguish humanity or leave most of them unemployed" is a principle everyone can get and stay behind.

You seem to have far more faith in others' ethical compass than I think is justified by historical evidence.

It's amazing what people will do when the size of their paycheque (or ego) are tied to it.

I don't trust anybody at OpenAI with the keys to the car, but democratic choice apparently doesn't play into it, so here we are.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#103

Post by jjfoooo4 »

nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

OpenAI’s biggest issue is that it has no moat. The product is a simple interface to a powerful model, and it seems likely that any lead they have in the power of the model can be quickly overcome should they decrease R&D.

The model is extremely simple to integrate and access - unlike something like Uber, where tons of complexity and logistics is hidden behind a simple interface, an easy interface to OpenAI’s model can truly be built in an afternoon.

The safety posturing is a red herring to try and get the government to build a moat for them, but with or without Altman it isn’t going to work. The tech is too powerful, and too easy to open source.

My guess is that in the long run the best generative AI models are built by government or academia entities, and commercialization happens via open sourcing.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#104

Post by layer8 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #65

In the past, many on HN complained that OpenAI had abandoned its public good mission and had morphed into a psuedo-private for-profit. If that was your feeling before, what do you think now? Are you relieved or excited? Are you the dog who caught the car? At this point, on day 2, I am heartened that their mission was most important, even at the heart of the most important technology maybe ever or since nuclear power…

Much of the criticism was that they are not open enough. I see no indication that this will be changing, given the AI safety concerns of the remaining board.

Nevertheless, I agree that the firing was probably in line with their stated mission.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#105

Post by naveen99 »

swatcoder wrote: post #45
andy99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the board was really serious about doing good over making profit (if this is indeed what the whole thing is about) they'd open source gpt-4/5 with a gpl-style license

That’s not the sense of open they’ve organized around. In fact, it’s antithetical to it. Theirs is a technocratic sense of open, where select credentialed experts collaborate on a rational good without a concentration of control by specific capitalists or nations.

Yeah, not open in the open source or rms way. it’s “for the benefit for all” with the “benefits” decided by the openai board, a la communism, with central planning by “the party”.

Surprisingly capitalism actually leads to more benefits for all, because of the decentralization and competition.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#107

Post by iamnotafish2 »

tempsy wrote: post #97
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that a money-fuelled war for AI talent is all the more likely to lead to unsafe AI. If OpenAI had remained the dominant leader, it could have very well set the standards for safety. But now if new competitors with equally good funding emerge, they won’t have the luxury of sitting on any breakthrough models.

I’m still wondering what unsafe AI even looks like in practical terms The only things I can think of is generated pornographic images of minors and revenge images (ex-partners, people you know). That kind of thing. More out there might be an AI based religion/cult.

Unsafe AI might compromise cybersecurity, or cause economic harm by exploiting markets as agents, or personally exploit people, etc. Honestly none of the harm seems worse than the incredible benefits. I trust humanity can reign it back if we need to. We are very far from AI being so powerful that it cannot be recovered from safely.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#108

Post by [deleted] »

jjfoooo4 wrote: post #103
nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

OpenAI’s biggest issue is that it has no moat. The product is a simple interface to a powerful model, and it seems likely that any lead they have in the power of the model can be quickly overcome should they decrease R&D. The model is extremely simple to integrate and access - unlike something like Uber, where tons of complexity and logistics is hidden behind a simple interface, an easy interface to OpenAI’s model ca…

[deleted]

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#109

Post by pixl97 »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #30

I just hope the "AI safety" people don't end up taking LLMs out of the hands of the general public because they read too many Isaac Asimov stories...

Asimov AI is just humanlike behavior mostly, if you want a more realistic concern think Bostrom and instrumental goals.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#110

Post by 0xDEF »

superhumanuser wrote: post #50
fullshark wrote: post #17

Man this still seems crazy to me. The idea that this tension between commercial/non-commercial aspirations got so bad they felt the nuclear option of a surprise firing of Altman was the only move available doesn't seem plausible to me. I believe this decision was ego and vanity driven with this post-hoc rationalization that it was because of the mission of "benefiting humanity."

I wonder if the "benefiting humanity" bit is code for anti mil-tech. What if Sam wasn't being honest about a relationship with a consumer that weaponized OpenAI products against humans?

Ilya has Israeli citizenship and has toured Israel and given talks at Israeli universities including one talk with Sam Altman.

He is not anti mil-tech.

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