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Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

nytimes.com

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Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#151

Post by sackfield »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #42
PepperdineG wrote: post #3

>Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that mission would be fulfilled. Now we know where that came from

It's pretty heavily implied by OpenAI's charter: https://openai.com/charter It's weird to me that Helen is getting so much crap for upholding the charter. No one objected to the charter at the time it was published. The charter was always available for employees, investors, and customers to read. Did everyone expect it to be ignored when push came to shove? There's a lot of pressure on Helen right now from people who…

This charter doesn't have a sole interpretation, and shame on Helen for strong arming her view and ruining the lives of so many people.

If there is something completely clear, its that OpenAI cannot uphold its charter without labour. She has ruined that, and thus failed in upholding the charter. There were many different paths to take, she took the worst one.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#152

Post by jacquesm »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #145
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did this improve society? I only see negatives. Other entities with less of a brake on their ethics are gaining ground. Microsoft of all parties is strengthening their position and has full access to the core tech.

>Other entities with less of a brake on their ethics are gaining ground. Did OpenAI actually have a meaningful brake though? Like, if all the employees apparently think that the success of the company is more important than the charter, can we be sure that OpenAI actually had a meaningful brake?

Good question, probably not, in hindsight, but that was always my view anyway only for different reasons.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#153

Post by nicce »

dchftcs wrote: post #130
nicce wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, you create more pressure for solving the problem by publishing acknowledged paper, if your voice is not usually heard

She's a board member. Who had approximately 1/4 of the power to fire Sam, and she did eventually exert it. Why do you rather assume her voice was not heard?

You should assume that most of this happened before the firings.

Then it was 1/6 about the voting.

But voting is totally different thing than speaking about concerns and then getting actually them into the list, which will we voted further if they decide to do something about it.

In theory that is 1/6 * 1/6 power if you are alone with it for the decision to happen.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#154

Post by winenbug »

jacquesm wrote: post #50
foobarqux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her mandate is specifically to do what is good for society not to do what is good for OpenAI.

And how did this improve society? I only see negatives. Other entities with less of a brake on their ethics are gaining ground. Microsoft of all parties is strengthening their position and has full access to the core tech.

Let's say you have a time machine and 20 years later OpenAI destroyed humanity b/c of how fast they were pushing AI advancement.

Would the destruction of OpenAI in 2023 be seen as bad or good with that hindsight?

It seems bad now but if you believe the board was operating with that future in mind (whether or not you agree with that future) it's completely reasonable imo.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#155

Post by foobarqux »

maxlamb wrote: post #120
NoboruWataya wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO is generally accountable to the board. A CEO trying to silence criticism and oust critical board members may be typical behaviour in the world of megalomaniacal tech startup CEOs, but it is not generally considered good corporate governance. (And usually the megalomaniacal tech startup CEOs have equity to back it up.)

He said he wished she communicated her concerns to him beforehand. How can disagreements be delt with if never communicated directly? So the CEO has to first learn of a disagreement with a fellow board member through a NY Times article?

The "disagreement" was never dealt with as far as I can tell --- OpenAI's safety approach hasn't become more conservative --- which means that the only effect of bringing it to the CEO beforehand was to try to have it suppressed.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#156

Post by jacquesm »

JCM9 wrote: post #136
CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

The challenge of all this is that while everything going on looks totally bonkers from any normal sense of business, it’s hard to argue that the board isn’t following their charter. IMHO the mistake was setting up the structure the way it is and expecting that to go well. Even with MSFT they are obviously annoyed but also they have shareholders too and one reasonable question here is what the heck was Microsoft’s lea…

When Microsoft came on board the charter effectively went out the window. It's like Idefix thinking he's leading Obelix around on a leash.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#157

Post by paulddraper »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #95
greyface- wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This charter is doomed to be interpreted in radically different ways by people with differing AI-eschatological beliefs. It's no wonder it's led to so much conflict.

Sam wanted to restrict Helen's free expression on the topic of beneficial AI in order to boost OpenAI's position. That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter.

No, Sam wanted to be the first recipient of Helen's expression.

So -- if appropriate -- he could make changes.

Or he could not change, and she publishes anyway.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#158

Post by danenania »

letmevoteplease wrote: post #21
CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

According to the paper, Anthropic's superior safety approach was deliberately delaying release in order to avoid “advanc[ing] the rate of AI capabilities progress." OpenAI is criticized for kicking off a race for AI progress by releasing ChatGPT to the public. [1] https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding...

It's important to remember that part of OpenAI's mission, apart from developing safe AGI, is to "avoid undue concentration of power".

This is crucial, because safety is a convenient pretext for people whose real motivations are elitist. It's not that they want to slow down AI development; it's that they want to keep it restricted to a tight inner circle.

We have at least as much to fear from elites who think only megacorps and governments are responsible enough to be given access as we do from AI itself. The failures of our elite class have been demonstrated again and again in recent decades--from the Iraq War to Covid. These people cannot be trusted as stewards, and we can't afford to see such potentially transformative technology employed to further ossify and insulate the existing power structure.

OpenAI had the right idea. Keep the source closed if you must, and invest heavily on safety, but make the benefits available to all. The last thing we need is an AI priesthood that will inevitably turn corrupt.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#159

Post by jacquesm »

winenbug wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did this improve society? I only see negatives. Other entities with less of a brake on their ethics are gaining ground. Microsoft of all parties is strengthening their position and has full access to the core tech.

Let's say you have a time machine and 20 years later OpenAI destroyed humanity b/c of how fast they were pushing AI advancement. Would the destruction of OpenAI in 2023 be seen as bad or good with that hindsight? It seems bad now but if you believe the board was operating with that future in mind (whether or not you agree with that future) it's completely reasonable imo.

I don't have a time machine.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#160

Post by hindsightbias »

CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

Not that I think there are many examples of technical people making great board members, we've entered an era where if I don't get my way on the inside I'll just tweet about it and damn any wider consequences.

Management and stockholders beware.

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