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Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

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Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#211

Post by ffgjgf1 »

jacooper wrote: post #204
robswc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost think its too late at this point, unless they have one hell of an arc. I don't see them being "open" until MS is totally out of the picture. I honestly don't even hate OpenAI in its current state... but sitting on the fence, trying to be both "open" and attached at the hip to MS is just... odd.

MS has no voting shares.

What can you promise any other investors when you’ve already agree to give MS 75% all of your net income pretty much indefinitely and 49% of your shares?

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#212

Post by ffgjgf1 »

beejiu wrote: post #32
speedylight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft gave them billions of dollars and access to lots of high performance compute, why would the board want to jeopardize that now?

"Gave" is the operative term here. It only matters what will Microsoft offer in the future. OpenAI (the board that made this decision) is still ultimately a non-profit, so it's possible that interests might not be aligned.

> so it's possible that interests might not be aligned.

Tough luck, considering all the obligations they have to MS now.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#213

Post by ffgjgf1 »

whoiscroberts wrote: post #19
speedylight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft gave them billions of dollars and access to lots of high performance compute, why would the board want to jeopardize that now?

I’d try to get to the source of the compute, partner with AMD and Nvidia to build out DCs architected from the ground up to train and serve LLM’s. Get rid of Microsoft…

> Get rid of Microsoft…

Which is going to be hard considering they promised MS a 49% stake in OpenAI.

Which is something AMD/Nvidia will have to take in to account before agreeing to any partnership.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#214

Post by ffgjgf1 »

jprd wrote: post #91
samspenc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are now 4 people left in the OpenAI non-profit board, after the ouster of both Sam and Greg today. 3 of the 4 remaining are virtual unknowns, and they control the fate of OpenAI, both the non-profit and the for-profit. Insane.

I think it is a little more insane that there is even a "for-profit" bit here. The whole thing has a fugazi smell to it TBH.

They couldn’t afford anything they are doing now if they had stayed a non profit.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#216

Post by twixfel »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #78
broken_clock wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In journalist speak, that means "credible person I know who would get fired if I said their name." It's probably literally an exec on the OpenAI/Microsoft partnership. The alternative to "a person familiar" is us as readers never get this information at all.

I know what it means and I agree it's probably an exec. The issue is that the premise - "Microsoft Corporation didn't know thing X at point in time Y" - is essentially unverifiable gossip, yet is presented here as fact

Believe it or don't, newspapers report on things which cannot be immediately verified all the time. Get over it.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#217

Post by lucubratory »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #201
beebmam wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually being maybe 5+ years to build out the cloud tech to do so. The reason GPT-4 succeeded is massive RDMA+GPU compute clusters for training the model.

Isn't that tech only one deal with MSFT away?

Microsoft already signed that deal with OpenAI, they can't break contract even if they did want to take an absolutely massive bet that the venture capital CEO and President can rebuild the technical infrastructure and acumen housed at OpenAI. OpenAI can replace Sam Altman and some of his newer hires, they probably can't replace Ilya Sutskever.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#218

Post by BiteCode_dev »

wmf wrote: post #149
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI shouldn't even be making a profit, as it's a 501(c)3 charity. The whole umbrella for-profit corp they formed when they became popular should be illegal, and is clearly immoral.

If OpenAI hadn't restructured they wouldn't have gotten any money from Microsoft and they would have either run out of money or the team would have left and started ClosedAI. There's no scenario where they developed GPT-3/4 while staying nonprofit.

BS, you can still make a deal with microsoft as a non profit, where the deal gives them an exclusive licence to use the result in exchange for financing.

MS doesn't care about how money it cost, they care about the fact it's their ticket back into the fight with google and apple.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#219

Post by dragonwriter »

> Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman

Microsoft, while a large investor (who has already reaped large rewards from that investment) explicitly has no governance role in any of the OpenAI entities, including the one at the very bottom of the stack of four that they are invested in, and this was a decision by the board governs the nonprofit at the top of the stack about personnel matters, so there is no reason to think that Microsoft would be notified in advance.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#220

Post by google234123 »

upwardbound wrote: post #200
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adam D'Angelo is well-known as the founder of Quora (and Quora's demise).

Helen Toner is well-known as well, specifically to those of us who work in AI safety. She is known for being one of the most important people working to halt and reverse any sort of "AI arms race" between the US & China. The recent successes in this regard at the UK AI Safety Summit and the Biden/Xi talks are due in large part to her advocacy. She is well-connected with Pentagon leaders, who trust her input. She also…

She has an h index of 8 :/ thats tiny for those that are unaware, in property much every field. AI papers are getting an infinite number of citations now a days because the field is exploding - just goes to show no one doing actual AI research cares about her work

Anyway, the idea that the Chinese military or leadership actually will sacrifice a potential advantage in the name of ai safety is absurd.

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