A lot of techies will be left sleepless tonight and have a bad Monday morning :)
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
431–440 of 1001 posts
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#432November 17th OpenAI blog post: "The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI." The fact that they agreed to join as MS employees kinda proves that money was a big motivator.
Sam's NW is north of $500 mil, he doesn't need the money. He needs GPU compute and MSFT has mountains of it
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#433I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…
OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests were like a catholic mom's. Less morals are okay by me.
Can you put that in precise terms, rather than a silly analogy designed to play on peoples emotions?
What exactly and precisely, with specifics, is in OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests that you think are a net negative for our species?
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#434This looks like a short term compromise to defend MSFT before the market opens. A number of members will follow Sam and Greg, but I doubt if it will be the majority given it's yet another big tech rather than a brand new startup. And what would be their roles? Yet another VP/SVP? Those folks are not really AI guys and don't fit very nicely into all the bureaucracy rampant in big techs. Satya will of course try to giv…
Satya just tweeted saying that Sam Altman would be the CEO of this new group.
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Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
Satya will probably allow them to run a startup under the MS umbrella without interference and with full MS backing.
Yeah... Not really how a mega-corp like MSFT does things. They LOVE to have control.
These are incorrect priors, especially when the mega-corp in question is Microsoft under Satya Nadella.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#436I don't buy it. If you listen to Sam and Greg, they want to change the world and bring us into a world of abundance that everyone can participate in. They were the ideators of this "awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company". Microsoft is setup to create shareholder value. That's it. Both of them will eventually find it moot to advance tech so a few folks get richer.
Yeah I'm surprised about Sam joining MS based on he usually says. But on the other hand, that's a pretty neat move - you fire me - now I own you (simplification, maybe).
Actions speak louder than words, and should give you pause to re-evaluate your trust
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#437I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…
For one, I wish some of that caution could have been there when Facebook was in its OpenAI stage 15 years ago. A lot of people don't seem to realize that this mess is exactly what it looks like to slow down something now that could become something else we will all regret in 10 years.
I certainly hope you're right, but as I suspect I have less knowledge of corporate governance and politics than gpt-3.5, I can only hope.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because OpenAI has first mover advantage, an actual product, the household "ChatGPT" name and starting anything from 0 would mean you start with a 3-0 disadvantage. Even if you threw a few billion dollars at it and attracted all of the top minds for at least a year - probably longer - you will be seen as the "ChatGPT alternative". How long before you can capture the momentum they have now with OpenAI? It's also a leg…
At the end of the day, it is MSFT that emerged as a winner.
Yes, when this whole saga is over they will probably absorb the carcass.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#439I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…
OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests were like a catholic mom's. Less morals are okay by me.
If you think Microsoft has a better track record, you'll find yourself disappointed.
Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft
#440How to kill your company in one week?
It’s only been the weekend, it just feels like a week. The announcement that OpenAI’s board had fired Sam Altman came shortly before markets closed on Friday and as of this writing we’re about 5.5 hours away from when they open again.