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Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

nytimes.com

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Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#251

Post by jacquesm »

hutzlibu wrote: post #237
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting but it may well be they both have a point: Helen for telling him to get lost and Sam for attempting to remove her before she would damage the company. But she could have made that point more forcefully by not comparing Anthropic to OpenAI, after all who better than her to steer OpenAI in the right direction. I noted in a comment elsewhere that all of these board members appear to have had at least on…

"But it is also possible that the Russians would have launched a first strike on the USA if they were unopposed. It almost happened as it was!" When did a first strike of the Sowjetunion allmost happened? I rather think it was the other way around, first strike was evaluated, to hit them before they got the bomb.

Cuban Missile Crisis/Bay of Pigs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#252

Post by kragen »

db-interface wrote: post #210
kragen wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think the leaked screenshots support those conclusions; i don't have any idea where you're getting those conclusions from

In them he says "HBD is probably partially correct" -- do you think that's not a NRx view (I agree others also hold it, but I would argue that it's a core view of NRx -- it doesn't need to be exclusive to them, e.g. Islam considers Jesus a prophet too), or that he publicly held that position previously?

i'm not familiar with the varieties of neoreaction that consider it a core view, though apparently to my surprise they do exist

i think the vast majority of racists aren't neoreactionaries, though. like literally more than 99.9%

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#253

Post by z7 »

for1nner wrote: post #171
paulddraper wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Sam wanted to be the first recipient of Helen's expression. So -- if appropriate -- he could make changes. Or he could not change, and she publishes anyway.

> So -- if appropriate -- he could make changes. Where are you drawing this conclusion from? Nothing in the text suggests that was his intent - certainly his actions thereafter suggest that he was in fact more concerned with the potential harm to the for-profit company.

The journalist failed to make that point really clear. He "reprimanded" her "and" said "it was dangerous to the company". What exactly did he "reprimand" her for? The "and" seems to imply two separate points of criticism.

>In the email, Mr. Altman said that he had reprimanded Ms. Toner for the paper and that it was dangerous to the company, particularly at a time, he added, when the Federal Trade Commission was investigating OpenAI over the data used to build its technology.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#254

Post by comp_throw7 »

Aunche wrote: post #241
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam wanted to restrict Helen's free expression on the topic of beneficial AI in order to boost OpenAI's position. That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter.

> That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter. A board member should care about their organization more than their interpretation of the charter. If a Mozilla board member publicly criticized Firefox for violating their charter of a free and open internet because they're receiving money from Google, while also praising Brave for not doing so, I guarantee that they'd also…

This is exactly backwards. The reason we create organizations like this is not for the benefit of the organization itself, but to accomplish specific goals. Those goals are outlined in the charter. If the organization starts doing things that conflict with the charter, the responsibility of the board is to course-correct.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#255

Post by TheOsiris »

hollerith wrote: post #86
hintymad wrote: post #65

>Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that mission would be fulfilled. Doesn’t this sound like Toner herself is playing god? That is, only she is the gatekeeper of humanity and only she knows what is good for the entire humanity, when many of us believe that OpenAI’s tech is p…

>Doesn’t this sound like Toner herself is playing god? That is, only she is the gatekeeper of humanity and only she knows what is good for the entire humanity, when many of us believe that OpenAI’s tech is perfectly safe and amazingly beneficial? Yeah, well, hate to burst your nice warm Silicon-Valley bubble, but most Americans believe that continuing to create smarter and smarter AIs is dangerous, so who's playing g…

> but most Americans believe that continuing to create smarter and smarter AIs is dangerous, so who's playing god now?

Aren't you just making this up? I haven't seen any surveys on what "most Americans believe" re AI. I know a lot of people that are concerned. But I'll bet good money that "most Americans" don't give a crap

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#256

Post by nicce »

atombender wrote: post #240
ac2u wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at the Reddit reverse takeover as an example; Machiavelli would be in awe. What were the details on that? (Sorry it’s not an easy story to find on Google given how much the keywords overlap with OpenAI topics)

Yishan Wong's comment here [1] explains it. (He's the unnamed "young up-and-coming" CEO of the story.) In short, the plan was to reduce Condé Nast's ownership of Reddit by hiring a new CEO, and convincing that person to demand, as a condition for their hiring, that CN reduce their ownership share. Further VC funding and back-room machinations let them further reduce CN's share of the company, thus eventually wresting…

The link says “Page not found”

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#257

Post by jdprgm »

I really don't understand why the three board members have just been completely silent online since things hit the fan with no activity or privating profiles. You would think if this was some sort of ideological based coup and pre-meditated you would have a full PR plan in place and pushing your message aggressively.

This whole thing has just been bizarre and it still feels like there has to be some big key piece missing that somehow nobody has revealed.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#258

Post by jacquesm »

lucubratory wrote: post #238
jacquesm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I subscribe to capitalism, but not to that degree. I see it the same way I see democracy: flawed but I don't have anything better. > From the perspective of avoiding an AI race, conflict of interest could very well be a good thing. On the American subcontinent: yes. But the world is larger than that.

Helen Toner has done a huge amount of work slowing down capabilities research in China. That's why she lived in Beijing for a year, she is a big part of why there are a lot of Chinese researchers from various AI labs signed onto the CAIS statement, and it's what her relationship to the Pentagon is all about. I think she is probably the individual person who knows the most in the world about the relative AI capabiliti…

Well, if she was working with the Chinese she couldn't have done a more effective job.

So I'm not sure how this all integrates in her head but you break the glass in break-the-glass moments, not before, it's a one-shot thing.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#259

Post by jph00 »

Aunche wrote: post #241
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam wanted to restrict Helen's free expression on the topic of beneficial AI in order to boost OpenAI's position. That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter.

> That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter. A board member should care about their organization more than their interpretation of the charter. If a Mozilla board member publicly criticized Firefox for violating their charter of a free and open internet because they're receiving money from Google, while also praising Brave for not doing so, I guarantee that they'd also…

I would have thought a non-profit board that puts the growth and success of their organization above the mission in their charter, even if they view the organization as going against their mission, sounds like the worst kind of board. How could that possibly be a good idea?

Isn't the whole reason we have non-profit boards and charters is so that they can make just this kind of call?

(I'm not saying that this is what is happening here -- just responding to your particular claim.)

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#260

Post by danenania »

Davidzheng wrote: post #190
hintymad wrote: post #65

>Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that mission would be fulfilled. Doesn’t this sound like Toner herself is playing god? That is, only she is the gatekeeper of humanity and only she knows what is good for the entire humanity, when many of us believe that OpenAI’s tech is p…

That's her job to decide what's good for humanity from my reading of the charter

It's not her job to overrule the people running the actual organization, 95% of the employees, and all of OpenAI's stakeholders without a good fucking reason.
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