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Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#291

Post by quickthrower2 »

pjmlp wrote: post #126
mebutnotme wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d recommend trying to build out your systems to work across LLMs where you can. Create an interface layer and for now maybe use OpenAI and Vertex as a couple of options. Vertex is handy as while not always as good you may find it works well for some tasks and it can be a lot cheaper for those. If you build out this way then when the next greatest LLM comes out you can plug that into your interface and switch the ta…

Definitely, just like with games development, the key is to master how things work, not specific APIs. AI tools will need a similar plugin like approach.

I have a good idea how transformers work and have written Python code and trained toy ones, but end of the day right now calling OpenAI nothing I can build can beat it.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#292

Post by Tade0 »

konschubert wrote: post #254
Tade0 wrote: post #171

I'm embarrassed to say, being Polish myself, I had no idea that key people in OpenAI were Polish - I assume it was a coordinated resignation then. Madry is actually spelled Mądry, which translates to "Wise".

Why make this about nationality?

Is that something controversial?

Anyway, I was providing context. The way I see it, since they speak the same language natively, they might have had a frank conversation about this at some point and decided to resign in concert.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#293

Post by bcherny »

benkarst wrote: post #230

It's incredible how many of you alleged tech people think that Sam just wanted a world of safe AI while his actions suggest he wanted to make dump trucks of money. He was the one who partnered with Microsoft and turned it from a non-profit to a for-profit company.

Honest question: How would he make money if he didn’t have equity in OpenAI?

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#294

Post by visarga »

KaiserPro wrote: post #168
karmasimida wrote: post #8

Well it begins. OpenAI will be a shell of itself in very short time. Advice: you can't win over a narrative, which is what Sam has become. People and resources will come to him, by themselves.

I mean yes, but also no. the dataset is the crucial bit of openAI. that takes a lot of time and money to make. So its perfectly possible for openAI to carry on innovating without these people. But equally, it could turn to shit. However, Sam isn't jesus, so its not like he's going to magically make another successful company.

> the dataset is the crucial bit of openAI

I bet he'll train models on copious amounts of synthetic data made with GPT-4. There are lots of datasets in the open. That makes catching up easier.

No public facing model can be protected from data exfiltration and distillation. All deployed skills leak, your competition will replicate with less effort. And they only need to leak once and every subsequent model can inherit the skill. I think the first movers paid a high price for being first, and will quickly see their advantage erode. Latecomers will catch up and find AI easier to work with. The difference is made by the great fine-tuning datasets that are in the open, a growing lake of distilled abilities.

Another latecomer advantage is benefiting from significant innovation in the engineering part: flash attention, quantization, continuous batching, KV caching, LoRA, and more.

The new AI era will be more equalitarian. Catching up is much easier than discovering, and we can run AI privately, unlike search engines and social networks. You can't exploit SOTA advantage at scale. Being first is a fleeting advantage, the moment you go in the open everyone replicates.

Maybe one reason this is happening is because AI skills are very composable. Any addition to the skill repertoire already fits with other skills. This makes open sourcing skills very attractive. Of course, the datasets are what is being open sourced.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#295

Post by Iv »

chasd00 wrote: post #242
mirzap wrote: post #193

This is escalating rather quickly. It is an incredibly irresponsible move by the OpenAI board. Hypergrowing company, and now they managed to shake up their user's trust in leadership stability. This has Adam's (D'Angelo) fingerprints all over it (for context, he did overthrow his co-founder, and Quora has been struggling ever since). This guy shouldn't sit on any board ever again. I predict the board will be fired, a…

Who fires the board at a 501.3c?

In that case, Microsoft

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#296

Post by bozhark »

sasaf5 wrote: post #140
convexstrictly wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Greg Brockman works 60 to 100 hours per week, and spends around 80% of the time coding. Former colleagues have described him as the hardest-working person at OpenAI." https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6309033/greg-brockman...

I am either skeptical or envious of such claims. Someone coding so much would quickly be launched into meetings to communicate one's results and to coordinate with others. It would be my life's dream to spend 80 hours per week coding without having to communicate with others... but no one is an island...

No one wants to be another woz

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#297

Post by ramraj07 »

benkarst wrote: post #230

It's incredible how many of you alleged tech people think that Sam just wanted a world of safe AI while his actions suggest he wanted to make dump trucks of money. He was the one who partnered with Microsoft and turned it from a non-profit to a for-profit company.

How exactly will he make loads of money if he didn’t have any equity in OpenAI? Or should we assume that was a lie?

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#298

Post by ramraj07 »

mebutnotme wrote: post #73
quickthrower2 wrote: post #27

Makes me wonder whether to keep building upon OpenAI? Given that they have an API and it takes effort to build on that vs. something else. I am small fry but maybe other people are wondering the same? Can they give reassurances about their products going into the future?

I’d recommend trying to build out your systems to work across LLMs where you can. Create an interface layer and for now maybe use OpenAI and Vertex as a couple of options. Vertex is handy as while not always as good you may find it works well for some tasks and it can be a lot cheaper for those. If you build out this way then when the next greatest LLM comes out you can plug that into your interface and switch the ta…

That would go as well as trying to write a universal android iOS app or write ansi sql to work across database platforms. A bad idea in every dimension.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#299

Post by Iv »

mirzap wrote: post #193

This is escalating rather quickly. It is an incredibly irresponsible move by the OpenAI board. Hypergrowing company, and now they managed to shake up their user's trust in leadership stability. This has Adam's (D'Angelo) fingerprints all over it (for context, he did overthrow his co-founder, and Quora has been struggling ever since). This guy shouldn't sit on any board ever again. I predict the board will be fired, a…

> and now they managed to shake up their user's trust in leadership stability

Do users care about that? I care about features stability and avoidance of shitification.

That's why I am usually preferring open models to depending on OpenAI's API. This drama has me curious about the outcome and if it leads to more openness from OpenAI, it may gain me back as a user.

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