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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

#281

Post by Jensson »

Aeolun wrote: post #246
KoolKat23 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They joined a company, owned by a not-for-profit with specific goals. They then held it hostage unless it could continue to veer off-course, all in the pursuit of more money. It is literally the definition of greed, selfish desire for money to the detriment of the foundations goals. Whether the foundation would've actually survived thereafter is besides the point. Obviously they're entitled to do that though from a d…

Kinda feels like if 90% of the people you’ve hired for your not for profit are what you’d call “greedy”, maybe the fault doesn’t lie with those employees. Anyhow, the goal of the foundation is AGI, earning the money you need to survive until you manage that does not sound evil.

Sam Altman set this up a long time ago for sure, but problem employees are still a problem even if the person who hired those people maybe is a bigger problem.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#282

Post by ethbr1 »

baking wrote: post #179
kmeisthax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>While the investigation cleared Altman to reclaim his board seat, he said he “did learn a lot from this experience,” expressing remorse for one incident in particular involving a board member he did not name. >That appeared to be a reference to former OpenAI director Helen Toner, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown think tank. After she published a research analysis that cri…

It's always magnanimous to apologize for bad things after you've gotten away with them.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#283

Post by baking »

code51 wrote: post #225
baking wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It is hard to think of a case of a public charity that owns a controlling interest in a for-profit subsidiary and that is all they do. The Morman church owns a lot of businesses, but it is still the Morman Church.

Note that in the US, private foundations are not permitted to own a controlling interest in a for-profit company, so the example has to be a public charity. IKEA is controlled by a Dutch nonprofit foundation, but it has no obligation to the public except to give away a small portion of the profits.

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

https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco...

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#284

Post by apwell23 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #282
baking wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While the investigation cleared Altman to reclaim his board seat, he said he “did learn a lot from this experience,” expressing remorse for one incident in particular involving a board member he did not name. >That appeared to be a reference to former OpenAI director Helen Toner, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown think tank. After she published a research analysis that cri…

It's always magnanimous to apologize for bad things after you've gotten away with them.

he doesn't think its a bad thing though. Its just a thing you are supposed to say.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#285

Post by freedomben »

gkoberger wrote: post #110
freedomben wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because there's one "right-leaning" major AI (Grok), and as far as I can tell that's the only differentiating feature. Did you actually look into that or did you just make assumptions? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/23/grok-ai... https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/12/10/elon-musks...

From the article you posted: "Elon Musk has been pitching xAI’s “Grok” as a funny, vulgar alternative to traditional AI that can do things like converse casually and swear at you." Silly me for taking Elon at his word

> Silly me for taking Elon at his word

I really don't mean to dog pile, but this seems wrong in two ways. First he never said Grok would be right-wing. In fact he promised neutrality, so I don't think you were "taking Elon at his word" I think you were taking somebody else at their word about Elon's word. If Elon did say Grok would be right-wing, I would very much like to know so if you know of a source, please share.

Second, it really is unwise at best to "take Elon at his word". For example, Elon has been saying Tesla would have full self driving for years. He tends to make very grand aspiration promises/declarations that aren't super grounded in reality. So yeah, if Elon says "Grok will be perfectly neutral/centrist" or even "Grok will be right wing" if you care at all about being accurate then you really need to check before assuming it's true. "Trust but verify" would be the minimum I would give to Elon.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#286

Post by ckdarby »

willcipriano wrote: post #259
ben_w wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing apples (openness) to oranges (doing stuff). It would be weird to even ask "How much open source code and research does the Catholic Church publish?" The church does stuff away for free, sure, but then so too does ChatGPT have this shockingly powerful free tier.

> How much open source code and research does the Catholic Church publish? The Catholic church has not only engaged in centuries of religious scholarship, it has given the knowledge freely to anyone. They even set up buildings where you can go and they will teach you what they have found, most people go on Sunday. That isn't to mention their patronizing of the arts supported the greatest painters and composers that h…

That is what most companies would call a recruitment event.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#287

Post by ants_everywhere »

apantel wrote: post #166
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…

Yes, curiosity and the desire to create and explore. Those are probably my main drivers though I certainly can feel and acknowledge that greed and lust are key drivers. I wasn’t saying greed is the only driver. Edit: I’d also add, I think it’s a false romanticism to think that people like Einstein and other great thinkers and creators were not without the lower drives like greed and lust. If you think about all of th…

Right, I agree. I'm not saying people like Einstein don't have greed or lust. What I did say is that empirically the people motivated by curiosity often have lower than average greed levels, which I think makes them uncharacteristic of the population in general.

With respect to lust, I didn't mention it because it was orthogonal, but my understanding is that they're about evenly divided into groups with higher than average lust and lower than average. Paul Erdos is a famous name rumored to be in the latter category.

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#288

Post by renegade-otter »

99catmaster wrote: post #267
sandspar wrote: post #240

[flagged]

I’m lacking a lot of context here, why are Altman and his crew (not sure who they are either) creeps?

You should look into Effective Accelerationism. It's legit nuts, created by people who will not have to deal with the consequences when the society collapses (they are way too rich for that).

https://www.businessinsider.com/effective-accelerationism-hu...

Re: OpenAI board reappoints Altman and adds three other directors

#289

Post by ants_everywhere »

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…

It's definitely the case that well funded science proceeds faster, but science being funded in the name of strategic necessity is ancient. And it has tended to be the case that when funding has been focused on applied topics like engineering, then knowledge advances more slowly. When scientists are allowed to pursue more pure subjects, that tends to be the right climate for germinating new ideas.

Compare, for example, the engineering-focused Roman empire with the idea-focused Greeks.

> governments recognized that technology was a strategic necessity, bam, within a century or two we went from playing with primitive batteries, to nuclear fission, the internet, and now AI.

Governments have recognized this since at least the time of Archimedes, though. A lot of well-known mathematicians worked on things like canons, mines, railroad networks etc. So I think something else is needed to explain the explosion you're talking about other than governments recognizing the strategic importance of technology. Probably computers (and networks of computers) together with the figuring out of quantum mechanics played major roles.

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