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We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

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Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#371

Post by concordDance »

pug_mode wrote: post #246
shubhamjain wrote: post #162

At the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1]. > Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressu…

I'm convinced there is a certain class of people who gravitate to positions of power, like "moderators", (partisan) journalists, etc. Now, the ultimate moderator role has now been created, more powerful than moderating 1000 subreddits - the AI safety job who will control what AI "thinks"/says for "safety" reasons. Pretty soon AI will be an expert at subtly steering you toward thinking/voting for whatever the "safety"…

It is utterly mad that there's conflation between "let's make sure AI doesn't kill us all" and "let's make sure AI doesn't say anything that embarrasses corporate".

The head of every major AI research group except Metas believes that whenever we finally make AGI it's vital that it shares our goals and values at a deep even-out-of-training-domain level and that failing at this could lead to human extinction.

And yet "AI safety" is often bandied about to be "ensure GPT can't tell you anything about IQ distributions".

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#372

Post by dlkf »

shubhamjain wrote: post #162

At the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1]. > Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressu…

> I know it's easy to ridicule the sheer stupidity the board acted with (and justifiably so), but take a moment to think of the other side. If you truly believed that Superhuman AI was near, and it could act with malice, won't you try to slow things down a bit?

The real ”sheer stupidity” is this very belief.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#373

Post by kmlevitt »

highwaylights wrote: post #200
r721 wrote: post #29

Quote tweets by main participants: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727206691262099616 (+ follow-up https://twitter.com/sama/status/1727207458324848883 ) https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727206609477411261 https://twitter.com/miramurati/status/1727206862150672843 UPD https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1727208843137179915 https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1727210329560756598 https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/17272076…

That’s certainly some very.. deliberate.. board picks. Summers, too. Welp.

Say what you want about Summers specifically but I think it's a good idea getting some economists on the board. They are academics but focused on practical, important issues like loss of jobs and what that means for the economy and society. Up until now it seems like the board members have either been AI doomers with no practical experience or Silicon Valley types that inevitably have conflicts of interest, because everybody is starting their own AI venture now.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#374

Post by nbanks »

turndown wrote: post #7

From the outside none of this makes much sense. So the old board just disliked him enough to oust him but apparently didn’t have a good pulse on the company and overplayed their hand?

They wanted a new CEO and didn't expect Sam to take 95% of the company with him when he left.

Sam also played his hand extremely well; he's likely learned from watching hundreds of founder blowups over the years. He never really seemed angry publicly as he gained support from all the staff including Ilya & Mira. I had little doubt Emmett Shear would also welcome Sam's return since they were both in the first YC batch together.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#376

Post by righthand »

What's interesting to me is that during this time Meta and OpenAI have eliminated their AI ethics members/teams but are still preaching about how it matters. No one has given any details beyond grand statements about it's importance on what these ethical AIs do. Everyone has secured their payday though.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#377

Post by layer8 »

pug_mode wrote: post #246
shubhamjain wrote: post #162

At the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1]. > Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressu…

I'm convinced there is a certain class of people who gravitate to positions of power, like "moderators", (partisan) journalists, etc. Now, the ultimate moderator role has now been created, more powerful than moderating 1000 subreddits - the AI safety job who will control what AI "thinks"/says for "safety" reasons. Pretty soon AI will be an expert at subtly steering you toward thinking/voting for whatever the "safety"…

This polarizing “certain class of people” and them vs. us narrative isn’t helpful.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#378

Post by robryk »

epups wrote: post #268
transcriptase wrote: post #47

Assuming they weren’t LARPing, that Reddit account claiming to have been in the room when this was all going down must be nervous. They wrote all kinds of nasty things about Sam, and I’m assuming the signatures on the “bring him back” letter would narrow down potential suspects considerably. Edit: For those who may have missed it in previous threads, see https://old.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126

Why can't these safety advocates just say what they are afraid of? As it currently stands, the only "danger" in ChatGPT is that you can manipulate it into writing something violent or inappropriate. So what? Is this some San Francisco sensibilities here, where reading about fictional violence is equated to violence? The more people raise safety concerns in the abstract, the more I ignore it.

Consider that your argument could also be used to advocate for safety of starting to use coal-fired steam engines (in 19th century UK): there's no immediate direct problem, but competitive pressures force everyone to use them and any externalities stemming from that are basically unavoidable.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#379

Post by jakey_bakey »

Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

It wasn't necessarily groupthink - there was profound pressure from team Sam to sign that petition. What's going to happen to your career when you were one of the 200 who held out initially?

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#380

Post by smt88 »

haunter wrote: post #336
Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

> OpenAI is in fact not open Apple is also not an apple

Apple has no by-laws committing itself to being an apple.

This line of argument is facile and destructive to conversation anyway.

It boils down to, "Pointing out corporate hypocrisy isn't valuable because corporations are liars," and (worse) it implies the other person is naive.

In reality, we can and should be outraged when corporations betray their own statements and supposed values.

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