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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

#301

Post by kragen »

db-interface wrote: post #280
kragen wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%

I spent a lot of time on SSC from 2013 to 2017, and my recollection is that the Venn diagram of commenters promoting HBD and those promoting RDx was nearly a circle. And similarly for related sites like LW. So in that context I would say the two are closely related. I find it hard to believe you've been exposed to much NRx content if you don't think they consider HBD true and very important. Although don't take that…

i read through most of moldbug's blog, and also knew his name and rhetorical style from crooked timber comments. possibly he was less racist than his followers? or just more circumspect about it. in any case, he attempted to justify his anti-liberal philosophy, at quite extreme length, but never on the basis of racism; so if racism was a core belief of his neoreactionary thought, it was apparently at a subconscious level

i remained unpersuaded in any case, steadfastly liberal

also, much to my surprise, he and i were both members of the first coworking space at spiral muse house in san francisco in 02006. but i didn't go very often, so i don't know if i ever met him; in any case that was before he revealed his identity

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

#302

Post by swatcoder »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #281

“””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.””” This is remarkable and unhinged. I gave the board the benefit of the doubt at first, but as this unfolds, it becomes clear that the board is held hostage by ideological zealots who can’t comp…

> he becomes more sympathetic as the days go by

PR in action!

He's had an excellent PR machine running since Friday and the opposing faction seems to have exactly none (which makes sense given their relative roles and backgrounds). So reporters and Twitter get carefully crafted leaks, tips, and comments from one side and nobody on the other side has the experience, connections, and confidence to push back with a different narrative. And so the story drifts in their favor.

This is why professional PR is a thing and earns people lots of money.

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

#303

Post by reducesuffering »

db-interface wrote: post #217
Manuel_D wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is straightforward guilt-by-association: because of the mere fact that Scott interacted with people espousing neo reactionary views, he must also be sympathetic to those views. Of course, this is completed wrong and easily known by reading Scotts writings on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-f... There is zero way to say in good faith the Scott espouses or even agrees with neo…

I said he was "sympathetic to NRx views" and linked emails from him stating certain views widely held by Moldbug et. al. that he is sympathetic to. Do you disagree that "HBD" is an NRx view, or that the leaked emails express sympathy for it?

NRx views SSC as a useful blog to read in 2013-2017. Oh looks like you did too. Can't believe you're "sympathetic to NRx views."

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

#304

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by nicce »

dchftcs wrote: post #285
nicce wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should assume that most of this happened before the firings. Then it was 1/6 about the voting. But voting is totally different thing than speaking about concerns and then getting actually them into the list, which will we voted further if they decide to do something about it. In theory that is 1/6 * 1/6 power if you are alone with it for the decision to happen.

I still see no justification for assuming that the board member's voice was not heard before the publication. There's zero evidence for it, while the priors ought to be favoring the contrary because she does wield a fairly material form of power. If more evidence does emerge, then we could revisit the premise.

> she does wield a fairly material form of power.

How? Being a board member is not enough. There were aready likely two against her in this case, while the rest is unknown.

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

#306

Post by zucker42 »

abi wrote: post #235
gwern wrote: post #203

None of the comments thus far seem to clearly explain why this matters. Let me summarize the implications: Sam Altman expelling Toner with the pretext of an inoffensive page ( https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding... ) in a paper no one read* would have given him a temporary majority with which to appoint a replacement director, and then further replacement directors. These directors would, nat…

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

I think you're taking the intuition from a for-profit company and wrongly applying it to a non-profit company. When a board member criticizes a for-profit company, that's bad because the goal of the company is make a profit, and bad PR is bad for profit. A board member criticizing a non-profit doesn't have the same direct connection to a result opposite of the goals of the company. And if you actually read the page, it's an extremely mild criticism of OpenAI's decisions.

This situation is simultaneously "reckless board makes ill-considered mistake to suddenly fire CEO with insufficient justification" and "non-profit CEO slowly changes the culture of a non-profit to turn it into profit-seeking enterprise that he has a large amount of control over".

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

#307

Post by kragen »

jxi wrote: post #286
kragen wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He wasn't shutting down her academic freedom. However, if you're going to diss what your own company is doing and praise competitors, you probably shouldn't be on the board. >During the call, Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, said the board was endangering the future of the company by pushing out Mr. Altman. This, he said, violated the members’ responsibilities. >Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is…

that would be true for a for-profit company where her fiduciary duty was to shareholders, but in this case, given the charter in question, not publicly criticizing the company would be more likely to be a breach of her fiduciary duty

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

#308

Post by keepamovin »

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…

So he criticized her and threatened her board position, and then she orchestrated a coup to oust him? Masterful. Moves and countermoves. You have to applaud her strategic acumen, and execution capability, perhaps surprising given her extensive background in policy/academia. Tho maybe it's as Thiel says (about academia: "The battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small") and that's where she developed her Machiavellian skills?

Of course, it could also be that whatever interest groups she represents could not bare to lose a seat.

Whether initiated by her or her backers (or other board forces), I can't see any of the board stepping down if these are the kind of palace intrigues that have been occurring. They are all clearly so desperate for power they will cling to the positions on this rocketship for dear life. Even if it means blowing up the rocketship so they can keep their seat.

Microsoft can't spend good will erasing the entire board and replacing it, even tho it's near major shareholder because too much values the optics around its relationship to AI right now.

A strong, effective leader in the first place would have prevented this kind of situation. I think the board should be reset and replaced with more level headed, less ideological, more experienced veterans...tho picking a good board is no easy task.

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

#309

Post by mpalmer »

jacquesm wrote: post #284
jafitc wrote: post #236

Sam Altman's Actions - Sam complained that Helen Toner's research paper criticized OpenAI's safety approach and praised Anthropic's, seeing it as dangerous for OpenAI - He reprimanded her for the paper, saying as a board member she should have brought concerns to him first rather than publishing something critical right when OpenAI was in a tricky spot with the FTC - He then began looking for ways to remove her from…

Nice summary.

"Thank you! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I'm here to help!"

- the author of the summary, probably

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

#310

Post by comp_throw7 »

jacquesm wrote: post #265
mcny wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Being a co-author of that publication was not her performing her role as an OpenAI board member, it was her day job.
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