Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 754 posts

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

#191

Post by sangnoir »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #176
sangnoir wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They lead with the fact that it was shocking and irresponsible. I can see where the misalignment (ha!) may be: someone deep in the VC world would reflexively think that "value destruction" of any kind is irresponsible. However, a non-profit board has a primary responsibility to its charter and mission - which doesn't compute for those with fiduciary-duty-instincts. Without getting into the specifics of this case: a…

Just a nitpick. "Fiduciary" doesn't mean "money", it means an entity which is legally bound to the best interests of the other party. Non-profit boards and board members have fiduciary duties.

Thanks for that - indeed, I was using "fiduciary duty" in the context it's most frequently used - maximizing value accrued to stakeholders.

However, to nitpick your nitpick: for non-profits there might be no other party - just the mission. Imagine a non-profit whose mission is to preserve the history and practice of making 17th-century ivory cuff links. It's just the organisation and the mission; sometimes the mission is for the benefit of another party (or all of humanity).

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

#192

Post by te_chris »

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,…

There’s a whole business book about this, good to great, where a key facet of companies that have managed to go from average to excellent over a sustained period of time is servant-leader CEOs

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

#193

Post by stavros »

huytersd wrote: post #146
tempsy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s a very constrained imagination. You could wreak havoc with a truly unconstrained, good enough LLM.

Do feel free to give some examples of a less constrained imagination.

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

#194

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nick222226 wrote: post #188
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you've written here but would add the caveat that it's also rather terrible to be in a position where somehow "shepherding responsible AGI" is falling to these self-appointed arbiters. They strike me as woefully biased and ideological and I do not trust them . While I trust Altman even less, there's nothing I've read about Sutskever that makes me think I want him or the people who think like him aro…

I mean, aren't they self appointed because they got there first?

No. Knew the right people, had the right funds, and said and did and thought the things compatible with getting investment from people with even more influence than them.

Unless you're saying my only option is to pick and choose between different sets of people like that?

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

#195

Post by gedy »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #173
swatcoder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with what you've written here but would add the caveat that it's also rather terrible to be in a position where somehow "shepherding responsible AGI" is falling to these self-appointed arbiters. They strike me as woefully biased and ideological and I do not trust them . While I trust Altman even less, there's nothing I've read about Sutskever that makes me think I want him or the people who think like him aro…

I think what's silly about "shepherding responsible AGI" is this is basically math, it's not some genie that can be kept hidden or behind some Manhattan Project level of effort. Pandora's box is open, and the best we can do is make sure it's not locked up behind some corporation or gov't.

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

#196

Post by anonymouskimmer »

sangnoir wrote: post #191
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a nitpick. "Fiduciary" doesn't mean "money", it means an entity which is legally bound to the best interests of the other party. Non-profit boards and board members have fiduciary duties.

Thanks for that - indeed, I was using "fiduciary duty" in the context it's most frequently used - maximizing value accrued to stakeholders. However, to nitpick your nitpick: for non-profits there might be no other party - just the mission. Imagine a non-profit whose mission is to preserve the history and practice of making 17th-century ivory cuff links. It's just the organisation and the mission; sometimes the missio…

The non-profit, in my use, was the party. I guess at some point these organizations may not involve people, in which case "party" would be the wrong term to use.

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

#197

Post by TylerE »

g42gregory wrote: post #182

My feeling is the the commercial side of the OpenAI brand is gone. How could OpenAI customers depend on the company, when the non-profit board goes against their interests (by slowing down the development and giving them inferior product)? On the other hand, the AGI side of the OpenAI brand is just fine. They will continue the responsible AGI development, spearheaded by Ilya Sutskever. My best wishes for them to succ…

I wonder if this represents a shift away from the LLM being the headline product. Their competitors are rapidly catching up in that space.

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

#198

Post by cmrdporcupine »

gedy wrote: post #195
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you've written here but would add the caveat that it's also rather terrible to be in a position where somehow "shepherding responsible AGI" is falling to these self-appointed arbiters. They strike me as woefully biased and ideological and I do not trust them . While I trust Altman even less, there's nothing I've read about Sutskever that makes me think I want him or the people who think like him aro…

I think what's silly about "shepherding responsible AGI" is this is basically math, it's not some genie that can be kept hidden or behind some Manhattan Project level of effort. Pandora's box is open, and the best we can do is make sure it's not locked up behind some corporation or gov't.

I mean, that's clearly not really true, there's a huge "means of production" aspect to this which comes down to being able to afford the datastructure infrastructure.

The cost of the computing machinery and the energy costs to run it are actually massive.

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

#199

Post by FormerBandmate »

beachy wrote: post #174
swatcoder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I think they want to be shepherding responsible AGI before someone else does so irresponsibly. Is this a thing? This would be like Switzerland in WWII doing nuclear weapons research to try and get there before the Nazis. Would that make any difference whatsoever to the Nazis timeframe? No. I fail to see how the presence of "ethical" AI researchers would slow down in the slightest the bad actors who are certainly ou…

America did nuclear weapons research to get there before the Nazis and Japan and we were able to use them to stop Japan

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

#200

Post by [deleted] »

beachy wrote: post #174
swatcoder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I think they want to be shepherding responsible AGI before someone else does so irresponsibly. Is this a thing? This would be like Switzerland in WWII doing nuclear weapons research to try and get there before the Nazis. Would that make any difference whatsoever to the Nazis timeframe? No. I fail to see how the presence of "ethical" AI researchers would slow down in the slightest the bad actors who are certainly ou…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN