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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

#221

Post by [deleted] »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #203
apantel wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Greed” is one of those words where the definition doesn’t really tell you where the line is: “intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.” (Oxford via Google) Who doesn’t feel “intense and selfish desire” for money? Who doesn’t feel that going into a performance review? It’s human nature to feel this feeling, if that’s what we want to call “greed”.

Just speaking for myself but if I were getting a 500k salary, my remaining concerns would shift in the direction of worrying about the longevity of human civilization, and less about the value of my equity comp. That's because I'd have enough to put a roof over my kids heads and food on their plate, so the world they grow up in would be my next priority. That would probably have me siding with the board against Altma…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#222

Post by laserlight »

marshray wrote: post #209
ants_everywhere wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that greed plays a role in civilization, but I think your read on human history is overly simplistic in an important way. A great deal of what has driven civilization forward are the people who are driven by curiosity. People like Archimedes, Plato, Newton, Einstein. Not to mention the millions of curious nameless folks who improved the boat, the spear, the wheel, the book. Folks like RMS without whom I doubt…

> Without these folks, it's not clear to me that humanity ratchets forward in progress. I think the part you're missing is all the brilliant ideas from brilliant people we missed out on over that 2,000+ year from people we never heard of due to science and art being funded only haphazardly by random wealthy patrons. For almost all of history it was simply not an option to make a living simply by writing or researchin…

The point of GP comment is that these people weren't driven by greed. Whether or how they were sponsored by the wealthy wasn't relevant to the discussion.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#223

Post by thinkingemote »

juliusdavies wrote: post #206
mr_toad wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there’s a precedent for a CEO of a “non-profit” effectively answerable to no-one and able to use it as their personal fiefdom. It’s basically a company without shareholders. I’m curious how this will play out legally. Certainly, no one with any sense will be “donating” any money in OpenAI without some strong and specific guarantees of what they’re going to be getting in return. So it can in no way can be cons…

Does the pope count as a precedent? Lots of donations head the pope’s way every day.

The church provides a number of charitable services in healthcare, education etc across the world particularly in the developing world. If you add them all up they provide the most globally.

They actually do things compared to this "open" and "non profit" front of a technology company.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#224

Post by [deleted] »

rain_iwakura wrote: post #72
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #47

In all the possible timelines, there is no universe in which the review concluded wrongdoing on Altman's part and demanded his immediate removal. Trust me, I checked. In fact, I hired WilmerHale to review all 30,000 possible timelines. After paying them $2M in fees, they concluded that I was right all along.

damn we got a Kwisatz Haderach over here.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#225

Post by code51 »

baking wrote: post #202
Jensson wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current members are almost all from for-profit backgrounds, they are on Sams side here.

I don't think you understand the concept of governance. This is not Tesla's board.

Any case similar to this? What kind of boards you find to be more fitting for the case of OpenAI? It may not be Tesla but you’re probably drawing another reference from history, right?

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#226

Post by [deleted] »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #118
nostrademons wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I think Microsoft will end up buying some form of assets off of OpenAI (it's a non-profit with odd corporate governance that Altman doesn't own stock in, so I don't think they'll buy the whole company) for an extremely exorbitant price. Altman will put in some ambitious but clueless Microsoft manager to run it and move on to his next thing. Then it'll turn out that Gen AI is dramatically overhyped and the real-w…

Your appraisal seems to stem from a lot of people's disillusionment with the whole OpenAI thing: namely that GenAI is a hype train and will fade away as a gimmicky toy with limited real world-use cases. It's interesting seeing that perspective, because while I think it's based on a comparison of GenAI with prior "change everything" hype trains (VR, crypto), it's clearly not the same, and you and most people really do…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#227

Post by bitcharmer »

kweingar wrote: post #11

Total victory for sama, it seems. The company is his to run. Let’s hope he is a good steward of our emerging new world.

Like most executives these days he has a fetish for shareholder value and permanent growth. And he will prioritise this at the cost of everything else; OpenAI's founding ideals being sacrificed in the first order.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#229

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

laserlight wrote: post #222
marshray wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without these folks, it's not clear to me that humanity ratchets forward in progress. I think the part you're missing is all the brilliant ideas from brilliant people we missed out on over that 2,000+ year from people we never heard of due to science and art being funded only haphazardly by random wealthy patrons. For almost all of history it was simply not an option to make a living simply by writing or researchin…

The point of GP comment is that these people weren't driven by greed. Whether or how they were sponsored by the wealthy wasn't relevant to the discussion.

you make a good point. But let's explore that drive.

if you looked at great inventors say like Nobel, who amassed a fortune based on research and innovation - would you characterize him driven by greed ?

Why ? Is he any different from say Philo Farnsworth, or Louis Pasteur who never became wealthy ? Were they not driven by the same drive as Nobel ?

Is the drive to succeed different for these sets of people?

Truth is in the eye of the beholder

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#230

Post by nextaccountic »

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…

> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed,

Where did you see that?

Why didn't the board say so when they had the chance?

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