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OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#171

Post by baking »

RetpolineDrama wrote: post #158
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pretty clearly won. There's not much to it. A huge chunk of the company went into open revolt and he got a competing offer that threatened to recruit all of them. There's nothing really underhanded or sneaky about it: the board drastically overplayed their hand, and all Altman and Brockman had to do was say "I call". To use the parlance of this community of people: people's priors here all seem to be that somethin…

>He pretty clearly won. There's not much to it. A huge chunk of the company went into open revolt and he got a competing offer that threatened to recruit all of them. Yep, talk about an absolute power flex. You don't have to like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

He went from controlling three seats on a six-member board to having one seat "as CEO" of a seven-member board looking to add even more independent members. Also, he can't pull the "the board can fire me at any time" card with a straight face anymore. He kept his job, but he didn't win by any stretch. There is a good chance he will move on to another role.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#172

Post by [deleted] »

aedon wrote: post #145
Jensson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did nothing Sam Altman would have won, since their job is to reign in Sam Altman when he goes out of bounds of the original mission.

Exactly. MSFT is who won here. I highly recommend you all watch OpenAI section of the new ALL-IN Podcast. Sam and OpenAI is in a very bad situation if Elon gets heard by a fair judge.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#173

Post by reducesuffering »

tptacek wrote: post #170
reducesuffering wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never taken any of that stuff seriously Sam, Ilya, Mira, Elon, and the rest of the founding team do. > Look, the board could have held the line, and then died when every one of their employees jumped ship. Wouldn't contribute towards the mission, again. > But nobody can say OpenAI's labor owed anything to the mission. Sure, they could leave, they're not slaves. But that's the entire problem here, and why the…

We're at a point where I'd just be repeating the same point over and over again, so I just refer you back to the previous comment.

I believe I addressed your points. You want employees to purely care about their own interests. It’s ok for the company to try to align employees to the company’s interest. I’m sure you wouldn’t care for Fly.io employees secretly self-dealing in ways that gets them promoted and more $, at the expense of your company and customers. “Real easy to say that someone else should take a pay cut to serve a mission you [Fly.io] care about.” when they could be purely doing things that make them look good and puff their resume, instead of what actually helps Fly.io and it’s customers (your mission)

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#174

Post by vitiral »

apantel wrote: post #156
Jensson wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s human nature to feel this feeling, if that’s what we want to call “greed”. Yes, greed is human nature, just like lust etc. We value when people suppress such feelings, but we know everyone has them.

It’s not that clear-cut. “Greed” as defined this way is one of the main drives making people do things. They go out into the world and exert themselves in order to acquire wealth, power, and renown. It’s a core part of what has produced civilization from out of the darkness of total animal-like ignorance. The inventors, makers, statesmen, pioneers, explorers of history… what do you think was motivating them? What do…

The unfulfillable desires for greed and power are what destroys people and civilizations. Lust likely a close second. The ancient Stoics taught on this very point and it is just as true today. We've created some clever tricks of seemingly infinite growth, but all things that grow also die.

Restraint and being satisfied with what you already have are the keys to stability.

Life is not overwhelming hardship my friend. It is bliss. At the end is the tiger eating your insides saying what bliss is your life, please become part of me. With words we deceive ourselves, convinced that we are separate from the living world we came out of.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#175

Post by capybara_2020 »

flatline wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pretty clearly won. There's not much to it. A huge chunk of the company went into open revolt and he got a competing offer that threatened to recruit all of them. There's nothing really underhanded or sneaky about it: the board drastically overplayed their hand, and all Altman and Brockman had to do was say "I call". To use the parlance of this community of people: people's priors here all seem to be that somethin…

Or the more cynical take that this is the natural course all parties take when they discover themselves atop a large pile of money. The board was just outmaneuvered.

It will be curious to see how this pans out. Will it be like be like the boeing and mcdonnell douglas merger where the engineering dominated culture died and it became all about money or will it be like Steve Jobs returning to Apple to lead it to new heights.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#176

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pdonis wrote: post #141
geodel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what is supposed to be good in this situation and to whom?

Considering all the talk about AI risks, talk which has been put out by Altman and the others involved in this as much as anyone, I would say "good" would mean people who can be trusted to be responsible stewards of such a potentially risky technology. At the very least, that would mean people who (a) can act like mature adults, and (b) have a healthy amount of humility. I don't see either of those characteristics in…

There exist literally zero organizations on the planet that I would fully trust to build anything approaching AGI on behalf of humanity

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#177

Post by AndrewKemendo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #83
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pretty clearly won. There's not much to it. A huge chunk of the company went into open revolt and he got a competing offer that threatened to recruit all of them. There's nothing really underhanded or sneaky about it: the board drastically overplayed their hand, and all Altman and Brockman had to do was say "I call". To use the parlance of this community of people: people's priors here all seem to be that somethin…

> but the strat the board took here was so obviously doomed that they should probably be looking for hypos about the board being shady. Is it possible the interests of the employees align more with the interests of Altman and that they diverged from the rest of the Board (which the Board did not expect)?

I think this is precisely what happened. Altman did genius level strategy and stacked the company with loyal followers, so that when he went to take over it as a coup it would go smoothly, because all of the financial interest aligned with Altman.

He’s a next level psychopath

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#178

Post by baking »

changoplatanero wrote: post #77
drexlspivey wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him Who elects the board in a non-profit? Who did sama go to to get them removed?

There were six people on the board and it was 3 vs 3 for along time. Sam was trying to get one of the other 3 to flip to his side to get a majority but then the other side brought in Ilya and they had a majority and removed Sam.

He was trying to convince one of the independent directors to resign, leaving him with a 3-2 majority on the board which would be illegal under California non-profit law.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#179

Post by baking »

kmeisthax wrote: post #27
minimaxir wrote: post #14

The conclusion just raises further questions on why the coup happened, other than a "consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust between the prior Board and Mr. Altman".

The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him, which scared the shit out of Microsoft. The prior and new Boards both cannot make the allegation that Altman tried to commit a corporate coup, albeit for different reasons[0], so we're never going to get official confirmation of anything. My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind u…

>While the investigation cleared Altman to reclaim his board seat, he said he “did learn a lot from this experience,” expressing remorse for one incident in particular involving a board member he did not name.

>That appeared to be a reference to former OpenAI director Helen Toner, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown think tank. After she published a research analysis that criticized the speed of OpenAI’s product launch decisions, Altman reportedly tried to remove her from the board. “I think I could have handled that situation with more grace and care—I apologize for that,” he said.

https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-is-reinstated-to-open...

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#180

Post by CamperBob2 »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #101
swatcoder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's not random, it's revealing. You can see them starting to aim towards their first commercial bets beyond search and developer tools while still paying lip service to the safety cult.

I still don’t understand the safety concerns. I see a 0% chance that we can control a superhuman AI. What could ants invent to keep humans aligned with them? Alignment meaning that people would think of ants first instead of whatever their current ranking is. Maybe they’re in the top 10000 priorities

What could ants invent to keep humans aligned with them?

Well, the bees figured it out.

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