Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's right here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-cod... (See also Scott's response: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times... )
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My bad, edited.
Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
41–50 of 625 posts
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#42>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 mission would be fulfilled. Now we know where that came from
It's pretty heavily implied by OpenAI's charter: https://openai.com/charter
It's weird to me that Helen is getting so much crap for upholding the charter. No one objected to the charter at the time it was published. The charter was always available for employees, investors, and customers to read. Did everyone expect it to be ignored when push came to shove?
There's a lot of pressure on Helen right now from people who have a financial stake in this situation, but it's right there in the charter that OpenAI's primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. If employees/investors/customers weren't OK with that, they should not have worked with OpenAI.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#43The 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…
It's interesting but it may well be they both have a point: Helen for telling him to get lost and Sam for attempting to remove her before she would damage the company. But she could have made that point more forcefully by not comparing Anthropic to OpenAI, after all who better than her to steer OpenAI in the right direction. I noted in a comment elsewhere that all of these board members appear to have had at least on…
> And does she believe that this will hold true for all time? That they and their colleagues are so unique that they hold the key to something that can otherwise not be replicated.
It's impossible to understand this position. We can be sure that in some countries right now there are vigorous attempts to build autonymous AI-enabled killing machines, and those people care nothing for whatever safety guardrails some US startup is putting in place.
I'm a believer in a skynet scenario, though much smarter people than me are not, so I'm hopefully wrong. But whatever, hand waving attempts to align/ soften, safeguard this technology are pointless and will only slow down the good actors. The genie is out of the bottle.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#44The main takeaway from this whole saga is, be careful who you allow on your board. Nearly everyone on OpenAI board is young, inexperienced and unqualified to be on the board of one of the most important companies on the planet.
Here's Ms. Toner's linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-toner-4162439a/
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit naive, to put it mildly. It presumes that nobody else would be able to replicate the effort and that the parties that are able to replicate it would also destroy theirs after proving that it could be done. Fat chance.
Indeed. The only way to retain control of the leading ship in the race is to keep it together as you steer it. If the ship disintegrates, then you're no longer in control of the leading ship, and someone else will win the race.
The charter states that OpenAI should allow another company to win the race under certain circumstances:
>We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”
That's why Sam pressuring Helen to shut up about Anthropic is so concerning.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actions of other organisations are not in the scope of the board's mission. The actions of the company the board controls are in that scope. "The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,”" We can't control other's actions, but we can control our own. If we feel that our actions are diverging from our own sense of what we ought to be doing we can…
That is absolutely true. But you do operate on a larger stage and sticking your head in the sand and pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist is also not going to work. Altman appears to me to be reckless, ms. Toner appears to be naive. Both should not be near this kind of power.
I would not say that it is fair comparison in this case.
People do the best with the control they have.
In this case, if your company fails to provide for greater good, then it is best to destroy it. And it also shows some example to others. Whatever others do, you have no power. I does not matter if you pretent or not.
Comparison works only if you could do something about it.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#47>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 mission would be fulfilled. Now we know where that came from
Interesting. This is the person who "holds comparable influence to a USAF Colonel." according to "a prominent researcher in AI safety" who "discovered prompt injection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38330566 Well, I suppose this tells us something about the AI safety community and whether it makes sense to integrate safety into one's workflow. It seems that the best AI safetyists will scuttle your company fro…
AI safety is just woke 2.0.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't aiming that at the report per-se but at the actions on Friday. He wanted to keep that kind of report inside or at a minimum to see it beforehand, she didn't, he tried to remove her and ended up being removed himself. Both are out of line. Sorry for the confusion.
I think trying to remove Toner for being a public author of that report is actually pretty out of line. (Note: the NYT article doesn't actually seem to provide evidence that Sam tried to get her removed from the board, though it sure does try to imply it real hard by reference to other things, like the email he sent criticizing her.)
Yes, agreed, that was uncalled for. But it is what probably a large number of CEOs would do.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#49>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 mission would be fulfilled. Now we know where that came from
That doesn’t even follow when taken literally. If the company is destroyed presumably they can’t create artificial intelligence, so there is nothing there to benefit all humanity in the first place.
It follows just fine, I think, given that the possibility space is not limited to "create beneficial AGI" and "don't create AGI". It also includes "create unaligned AGI", which is obviously much worse "don't create AGI"; the board would be remiss in its duties if it didn't try to prevent that from happening.
Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it means that you go outside only after you've exhausted all avenues inside. It's similar to a whistle blower situation, only most whistleblowers don't have their fingers on the self-destruct button. So to press that button before exhausting all other options seems a bit hasty. There is no 'undo' on that button.
Her mandate is specifically to do what is good for society not to do what is good for OpenAI.
And how did this improve society?
I only see negatives. Other entities with less of a brake on their ethics are gaining ground. Microsoft of all parties is strengthening their position and has full access to the core tech.