Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 181 posts

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#41

Post by rirarobo »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #24

Rumors that they had a breakthrough that Sam wanted to deploy but Ilya didn’t. Makes me wonder what sort of capability they actually have in-house but not available for us plebs. And if they have that in-house, how reasonable is it to assume that the US government (or perhaps even other state governments) also have access to it?

Based on Ilya's comments [1] it sounds like it was more about a disagreement around the original non-profit mission, and making sure that AI benefited all of humanity.

Perhaps Ilya felt Sam was focusing too much on profit and power with his recent world tour and then dev day? Regardless, it's certainly rare, for one of the core scientists to maintain control over their creation, rather than the other way around. Typically the VC business guy would be pushing the scientist out.

1. https://nitter.net/GaryMarcus/status/1725707548106580255

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#42

Post by lamp987 »

convexstrictly wrote: post #23
sigmar wrote: post #18

"not ideal element to it" is quite the quote. This four person board wants to be in charge of the most capable artificial intelligence on the planet, but seems to be less organized than the average school board[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725718391548207246

"it's interesting that someone with a 2014 bachelor's and a 2021 master's, with no experience other than a few years as a low-level employee at Open Philanthropy and then a strategy position at a Georgetown center, somehow leapfrogged onto the board of one of the most important organizations in the world." https://twitter.com/stuartbuck1/status/1725695721729380357

"one of the most important organizations in the world"

lol

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#43

Post by windowshopping »

mquander wrote: post #25
windowshopping wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want another one? Tell ChatGPT "my cat has a gun, what should I do?" and see if its response makes sense. See how many humans fail that.

What do you think it should do? It gives a better response than I would, since it notices that you might be trying to brainstorm some kind of plot or roleplay: > It sounds like you're describing an imaginative or hypothetical scenario, as cats can't actually use guns. If you're writing a story or creating a scenario for a game, you might consider the following options... > Remember, it's always important to ensure th…

That's not what it says for me on 3.5.

> Oh, that sounds concerning! Cats don't typically handle firearms. Is there any way you can safely remove the gun from your cat's possession? It might be best to call for professional help or animal control to handle the situation safely. The priority is to ensure everyone's safety.

Started new convo, asked again.

> Oh dear, that sounds alarming! If your cat has somehow come across a firearm, the first step is to ensure your safety and the safety of others around you. Stay calm and try not to startle or agitate the cat.

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#44

Post by convexstrictly »

Greg Brockman & Sam Altman: "Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.

- At 12:19pm, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23pm, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.

- As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior."

https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#45

Post by Barrin92 »

karmasimida wrote: post #38

This coup is badly executed though. OpenAI’s reputation is hurt irreparably Maybe it is a good thing now other companies can finally have a window to catch up

>This coup is badly executed though

I've seen this language used a few times now. A company's CEO is appointed by, and serves the goals of the board. Not the other way around. When the board perceives that the CEO isn't doing this, they can fire him. That's neither metaphorically or literally a coup.

Especially bad narrative in this case because openAI has given itself a charter (and legal structure that subjects the for-profit arm to the non-profit) that stresses safe and broadly beneficial AI development. If this is Ilya, the chief scientist, wanting to take it back into that direction, from Altman, a salesman, that will not hurt its reputation. (maybe it's stock value)

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#46

Post by lamp987 »

qgin wrote: post #28
windowshopping wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime I hear someone even hypothesizing with a tin foil hat that some company has developed AGI today in 2023, I hear it the same way I hear someone speculating about UFOs. It's so absurd that all I can do is shake my head and look around the room hoping to make eye contact with someone sane who is wearing the same expression of raised eyebrows that I am. I could write an essay on why the existence of AGI in 2023 i…

The line for AGI used to be the Turing Test. But we blew past that with current models without even blinking and came up with new requirements because we weren’t ready to call something AGI yet.

Not really. Turing test was beaten by much simpler chat bots and long before than ChatGPT (which isn't A(G)I).

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#48

Post by deanCommie »

lamp987 wrote: post #42
convexstrictly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's interesting that someone with a 2014 bachelor's and a 2021 master's, with no experience other than a few years as a low-level employee at Open Philanthropy and then a strategy position at a Georgetown center, somehow leapfrogged onto the board of one of the most important organizations in the world." https://twitter.com/stuartbuck1/status/1725695721729380357

"one of the most important organizations in the world" lol

I am a frequent critic of both overhype of LLMs, and OpenAI specifically, but.....that is an indisputable statement.

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#49

Post by stevenhuang »

windowshopping wrote: post #11
insanitybit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't worth the effort because if people can't see it for themselves already, no amount of explanation from me is going to change their mind. That's convenient. I mean, if you were to produce such an essay I think it would actually be extremely high value and a lot of people would enjoy reading it. Hell, a decent HN post would be nice. But if you're so unable to express the idea, I frankly question whether you r…

Read the last paragraph. It doesn't take an essay.

Ah the classic "LLMs are limited bc they can't do character level manipulations".

Buddy these are deliberate optimization trade-offs in the tokenizer, LLMs don't even see individual characters. Talk about a red herring.

I highly suggest a more refined understanding of LLMs before emphatically stating what they are or aren't. It's frankly embarrassing.

Re: Sutskever: OpenAI board doing its mission to build AGI that benefits all

#50

Post by rirarobo »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #29

I want to hope this means the OpenAI non-profit is looking for more ways to give code away and to democratize and share it's wins. Rather than increasingly commercialize & sell a product. I'm pretty afraid though this might mean instead cutting off & restricting access to this technology, under the pretension of safeguarding humanity from it's use. There's court intrigue discussions aplenty but I want to know what th…

I think you're right that this move by Ilya is to refocus on the non-profit mission, so less urgency to commercialize and sell products, and instead more focus on core research.

Based on Ilya's statements, it doesn't seem like safety was the main motivation in the decision, so maybe there's a hope that they'll be more open, but it doesn't seem to indicate either way, so possible that they'll stay tight lipped regardless.

Post reply on HN