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Perhaps they don’t want to work for a board of directors which is openly hostile to the work they’re doing?
The boarded sided with the chief scientist and co-founder of OpenAI in an internal dispute. How does that show hostility to the work OpenAI is doing?
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> OpenAI’s biggest issue is that it has no moat. This just isn't true. They have the users, the customers, Microsoft, the backing, the years ahead of most, and the good press. It's like saying Uber isn't worth anything because they don't own their cars and are just a middleman. Maybe that now changes since they fired the face of the company, and the press and sentiment turns on them.
Uber is worth less than zero. They already are at full capacity (how many cities are there left to expand) and still not profitable.
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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.
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>responsible board The board was irresponsible and incompetent by design. There is one OpenAI board member who has an art degree and is part of some kind of cultish "singularity" spiritual/neo-religious thing. That individual has also never had a real job and is on the board of several other non-profits.
> There is one OpenAI board member who has an art degree Oh no! Everyone knows that progress is only achieved by people with computer science degrees.
This is how you get politicians that try to ban encryption to "save the children."
If they gave Altman 1 weeks notice and let him save face in the media, what would they have lost? Is there a fear Altman would take all the best engineers on the way out?
Jeremy Howard (of fast.ai): https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1725712220955586899 He is not exactly an insider, but seems broadly aligned/sympathetic/well-connected with the Ilya/researchers faction, his tweet/perspective was a useful proxy into what that split may have felt like internally.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman...
My other main guess is his push for government regulation being seen as stifling AI growth or even collusion with unaligned actors by the more scienc-y side and got him ousted by them.
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Investors are not gonna like when the business guy who was pushing for productizing, profitability and growth get ousted. We don’t know all the details about what exactly caused the board to fire Sam. The part about lying to the board is notable. It’s possible Sam betrayed their trust and actually committed a fireable offense. But even if the rest of the board was right, the way they’ve handled it so far doesn’t insp…
Again, they didn't state that he lied. They stated that he wasn't candid. A lot of people here have been reading specifics into a generalized term. It is even possible to not be candid without even using lies of omission. For a CEO this could be as simple as just moving fast and not taking the time to report on major initiatives to the board.
If I take the time to accuse my boss of failing to be candid instead of thanking him in my resignation letter or exit interview, I'm not saying I think he could have communicated better, I'm saying he's a damned liar, and my letter isn't sent for the public to speculate on.
Whether the board were justified in concluding Sam was untrustworthy is another question, but they've been willing to burn quite a lot of reputation on signalling that.