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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#491

Post by vkou »

quadcore wrote: post #385
selimthegrim wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the team that became Looking Glass Studios did a lot of the same things in parallel so it’s a little unfair to say no one else had figured it out

Not at the same level of quality. For example, their game, ultima underworld if my memory doesnt fault me, didnt have sub-pixel precision for texturing. Their texturing was a lot uglier and unpolished compared to Wolf and especially Doom. I remember I checked, they were behind. And their game crashed. Never saw Doom crash, not even once.

> Not at the same level of quality.

Engine quality? No.

In terms of systems? Design? Storytelling? LGS games were way ahead of their time, and have vastly more relevance than anything post-Romero ID made.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#492

Post by hfjjbf »

GCA10 wrote: post #479
bmitc wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two camps and have let Sam and Greg go angry and seeking retribution. Given the language in the press release, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Sam Altman, and not the board, blindsided everyone? It was apparently his actions and no one else's that led to the consequence handed out by the board. > Which in turn now creates the th…

The only appropriate target for Microsoft's anger would be its own deal negotiators. OpenAI's dual identity as a nonprofit/for-profit business was very well known. And the concentration of power in the nonprofit side was also very well known. From the media coverage of Microsoft's investments, it sounds as if MSFT prioritized getting lots of business for its Azure cloud service -- and didn't prioritize getting a boar…

They loved to trot out the “mission” as a reason to trust a for-profit entity with the tech.

Well, this is proof the mission isn’t just MBA bullshit, clearly Ilya is actually committed to it.

This is like if Larry and Sergei never decided to progressively nerf “don’t be evil” as they kept accumulating wealth, they would have had to stage a coup as well. But they didn’t, they sacrificed the mission for the money.

Good for Ilya.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#493

Post by Clubber »

calf wrote: post #473
bmitc wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two camps and have let Sam and Greg go angry and seeking retribution. Given the language in the press release, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Sam Altman, and not the board, blindsided everyone? It was apparently his actions and no one else's that led to the consequence handed out by the board. > Which in turn now creates the th…

I wonder if there's a specific term or saying for that, maybe "projection" or "self-victimization" but not quite: when one person biasedly frames that other people were responsible for a bad thing, when it is they yourself that were doing the very thing in the first place. Maybe "hypocrisy"?

Lack of accountability. Inability for self reflection.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#494

Post by elorant »

mikeryan wrote: post #380
galangalalgol wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain the sides? Ilya seems to think transformers could make AGI and they need to be careful? Sam said what? "We need to make better LLMs to make more money."? My general thought is that whatever architecture gets you to AGI, you don't prevent it from killing everyone by chaining it better, you prevent that by training it better, and then treating it like someone with intrinsic value. As opposed to lock…

If I'm understanding it correctly, it's basically the non-profit, AI for humanity vs the commercialization of AI. From what I've read, Ilya has been pushing to slow down (less of the move fast and break things start-up attitude). It also seems that Sam had maybe seen the writing on the wall and was planning an exit already, perhaps those rumors of him working with Jony Ive weren't overblown? https://www.theverge.com/…

The non-profit path is dead in the water after everyone realized the true business potential of GPT models.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#495

Post by maronato »

pknerd wrote: post #112
noonething wrote: post #23

I hope they go back to being Open now that Altman is gone. It seems Ilya wants it to 'benefit all of humanity' again.

Means free Gpt4? Ps: It's a serious question

I don’t think so. I think it means OpenAI releasing papers again and slower, less product-focused releases

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#496

Post by hfjjbf »

sheepscreek wrote: post #351
threeseed wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two cam…

In other words, it’s unheard of for a $90B company with weekly active users in excess of 100 million. A coup leaves a very bad taste for everyone - employees, users, investors and the general public. When a company experiences this level of growth over a decade, the board evolves with the company. You end up with board members that have all been there, done that, and can truly guide the management on the challenges t…

And yet it’s very heard of for corporations to poison our air and water, cut corners and kill peoples, and lie, cheat, and steal. That happens every day and nobody cares.

And yet four people deciding the put something - anything - above money is somehow a disaster.

Give me a break.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#497

Post by Rzor »

roguecoder wrote: post #459
DebtDeflation wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the issue was a technical difference of opinion regarding whether transformers alone were needed or other architectures required. It seems the split was over speed of commercialization and Sam's recent decision to launch custom GPTs and a ChatGPT Store. IMO, the board miscalculated. OpenAI won't be able to pursue their "betterment of humanity" mission without funding and they seemingly just pissed off t…

Making humanity’s current lives worse to fund some theoretical future good (enriching himself in the process) is some highly impressive rationalisation work.

Try to tell that to the Effective Altruism crowd.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#498

Post by paulddraper »

torstenvl wrote: post #441
crazygringo wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're confusing business with politics. You're right that a literal coup d'état is the forced takeover of a state with the backing of its own military. But in the business and wider world, a coup (without the d'état part) is, by analogy, any takeover of power that is secretly planned and executed as a surprise. (We can similarly talk about a company "declaring war" which means to compete by mobilizing all resour…

Your post is internally inconsistent. Defining a coup as "any takeover of power" is inconsistent with saying that firing Sam Altman is a coup. CEOs do not have and should not have any power vis-à-vis the board. It's right there in the name. Executives do not have any right to their position. They are an officer, i.e., an agent of the stakeholders. The idea that the executive is the holder of the power and it's a "cou…

Okay, so a CEO doesn't have any power to seize....

Does the chairman of the board have any power?

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#499

Post by fotta »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #448
dividendpayee wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's right. There's a blogger in another post on HN that makes the same point at the very end: https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board

From that link: >I could not find anything in the way of a source on when, or under what circumstances, Tasha McCauley joined the Board. I would add, "or why she's on the board or why anyone thought she was qualified to be on the board". At least with Helen Toner the intent was likely just to add a token AI Safety academic to pacify "concerned" Congressmen. I am kind of curious how Adam D'Angelo voted. If he voted ag…

D’Angelo had to have voted in favor because otherwise they don’t get a four vote majority.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#500

Post by torstenvl »

crazygringo wrote: post #474
torstenvl wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is internally inconsistent. Defining a coup as "any takeover of power" is inconsistent with saying that firing Sam Altman is a coup. CEOs do not have and should not have any power vis-à-vis the board. It's right there in the name. Executives do not have any right to their position. They are an officer, i.e., an agent of the stakeholders. The idea that the executive is the holder of the power and it's a "cou…

You're ignoring the rest of the definition I provided. I did not say it was "any takeover of power". Please read the definition I gave in full. And I am not referring to the CEO status of Altman at all. That's not the coup part. What I'm referring to is the fact that beyond his firing as CEO, he and the chairman were removed from their board seats, as a surprise planned and executed in secret . That's the coup. This…

> You're ignoring the rest of the definition I provided.

That isn't how definitions work. Removals from power that are by surprise and planned in secret are a strict subset of removals from power.

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