331–340 of 625 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://openai.com/our-structure "Second, because the board is still the board of a Nonprofit, each director must perform their fiduciary duties in furtherance of its mission—safe AGI that is broadly beneficial. While the for-profit subsidiary is permitted to make and distribute profit, it is subject to this mission. The Nonprofit’s pzrincipal beneficiary is humanity, not OpenAI investors." I see. I don't know whethe…
> but it really does not sound like she had any obligation to do so The optics dont look good though if a board member is complaining publicly.
If Sam would let it go what would happen? Nothing. Criticism and comparisions already exist and will exist. Having it coming from board member at least gives counter argument that they're well aware of potential problems and there is opportunity to address gaps if they are confirmed.
If regulators find argument in the paper reasonable and that's going to have impact - what's wrong with that? It just means argument was true and should be addressed.
They don't need to worry about commercial side because money is being pured more than enough.
The nature of safety research is critical by definition. You can't expect to have research constrained to talk only in positive terms.
Both sides should have worried less and carry on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know nearly enough about the OpenAI situation to suggest what she should have done (apart from "not help to press the self-destruct button," with the benefit of hindsight). However, I've read a bit about EA since the SBF debacle, and a childlike naivete does seem to be baked into the DNA of many of its followers.
You would prefer that $billions be managed by the same snakes in suits who destroy the environment, market products that give people lung cancer, etc.?
In EA, the ends always justify the means, so that includes doing any or all of the things you mention if it achieves some ideological goal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind Altman was also a board member with senior tenure to Toner, and basically hired her to the board.
No, she replaced Holden Karnofsky, who was almost certainly the one to pick her.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The challenge of all this is that while everything going on looks totally bonkers from any normal sense of business, it’s hard to argue that the board isn’t following their charter. IMHO the mistake was setting up the structure the way it is and expecting that to go well. Even with MSFT they are obviously annoyed but also they have shareholders too and one reasonable question here is what the heck was Microsoft’s lea…
When Microsoft came on board the charter effectively went out the window. It's like Idefix thinking he's leading Obelix around on a leash.
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…
This is insane. "They had to fire Sam, because he was trying to take over the board". First: most boards are accountable to something other than themselves. For the exact reason that it pre-empts that type of nonsense. Second: the anti-Sam Altman argument seems to be "let's shut the company down, because that will stop AGI from being invented". Which is blatant nonsense; nothing they do will stop anyone else. (with t…
I mean, yes? The board is explicitly there to replace the CEO if necessary. If the CEO stuffs the board full of their allies, it can no longer do that.
> First: most boards are accountable to something other than themselves. For the exact reason that it pre-empts that type of nonsense.
Boards of for-profits are accountable to shareholders because corporations with shareholders exist for the benefit of (among others) shareholders. Non-profit corporations exist to further their mission, and are accountable to the IRS in this regard.
> Second: the anti-Sam Altman argument seems to be "let's shut the company down, because that will stop AGI from being invented". Which is blatant nonsense; nothing they do will stop anyone else. (with the minimal exception that the drama they have incepted might make this holiday week a complete loss for productivity).
No, the argument is that Sam Altman trying to bump off a board member on an incredibly flimsy pretext would be an obvious attempt at seizing power.
> Third: in general, "publishing scholarly articles claiming the company is bad" is a good reason to remove someone from the board of a company. Some vague (and the fact that nobody will own up to anything publicly proves it is vague) ideological battle isn't a good enough rationale for the exception to a rule that suggests that her leaving the board soon would be a good idea.
This might be true w.r.t. for-profit boards (though not obviously so in every case), but seems nonsensical with non-profits. (Also, the article did not reductively claim "the company is bad".)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.