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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

#261

Post by atombender »

nicce wrote: post #256
atombender wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

Looks like the HN app I was using mangled the link. Fixed now.

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

#262

Post by foota »

Definitely seems like Helen is emerging as the main leader of the coup, "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 could be consistent with its mission. In the board’s view, OpenAI would be stronger without Mr. Altman."

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

#263

Post by cowl »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #75
jacquesm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project That bit I never understood. It doesn't even have a qualification as to who is stewarding the project as if any AI should be assisted no matter who ends up owning it. The whole thing is just so utterly disconnected from the real world.

If you believe that aligned AGI will create a post-scarcity society, there's no reason for its creator to hoard the benefits for themselves. The main thing is to ensure that post-scarcity society actually comes into being. Edit: Note also the "value-aligned, safety-conscious" caveat.

there is no such thing as general post-scarcity though. there is post-scarcity of certain needs but not general post-scarcity. So it's creator would still have reason to hoard certain benefits for themselves while distributing some for all.

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

#264

Post by Rastonbury »

CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

This is not any other company though? It's a non-profit with charter to make AI to benefit all of humanity

Helen believed she was doing her job according to the non-profit charter, obviously this hurts the for-profit side of things but that is not her mandate. That is the reason OpenAI is structured the way it is, with the intention of preventing capitalist forces from swaying them away from the non-profit charter, in hindsight it didn't work, but that was the intention (with the independent directors, no equity stakes, etc)

The board has all my respect for standing up to the capitalists of Altman, the VCs, Microsoft. Big feathers to ruffle - even though the execution was misjudged, turns out most of its employees are pretty capitalistic too

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

#265

Post by jacquesm »

mcny wrote: post #200
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.

>> Sam wanted to restrict Helen's free expression. > No, Sam wanted to be the first recipient of Helen's expression. If I get copy approval to what you write, that is by definition a restriction to your freedom of expression. How is this up for debate?

You don't normally perform you role as a board member through publications in a public forum. You do it by exercising pressure internally to get the effect you desire so you can continue to do so in the future. Going public is usually a one-shot affair.

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

#267

Post by s1artibartfast »

shrimpx wrote: post #166
maxlamb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said he wished she communicated her concerns to him beforehand. How can disagreements be delt with if never communicated directly? So the CEO has to first learn of a disagreement with a fellow board member through a NY Times article?

Hard to defend this level of flex, though: > Mr. Altman, the chief executive, recently made a move to push out one of the board’s members because he thought a research paper she had co-written was critical of the company. It's like your job is to fire me if I fail to fulfill the company mission, but I will fire you if you don't get my approval before saying stuff in public.

Keep in mind Altman was also a board member with senior tenure to Toner, and basically hired her to the board.

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

#268

Post by comp_throw7 »

jacquesm wrote: post #258
lucubratory wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38373572 for why this might have qualified (if the story as presented is accurate).

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

#269

Post by jacquesm »

mikehotel wrote: post #221
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Helen associated with Anthropic?

Apparently an indirect association. From [0]: Fall 2021 Holden Karnofsky resigns from the Board, citing a potential conflict because his wife, Daniela Amodei, is helping start Anthropic, a major OpenAI competitor, with her brother Dario Amodei. (They all live(d) together.) The exact date of Holden’s resignation is unknown; there was no contemporaneous press release. Between October and November 2021, Holden was quiet…

Don't tell me there is another polycule in there somewhere.

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

#270

Post by foota »

kragen wrote: post #242
abi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's not cool for board members to publicly criticize the company.

it's not cool for companies to try to shut down academic freedom of inquiry in scholarly publishing in order to improve their public image her independence from openai was the nominal reason she was asked to supervise it in the first place, wasn't it

I'm not sure you should get to have your cake and eat it too.
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