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OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

businessinsider.com

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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#511

Post by mcmcmc »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #420
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite hypothesis: Ilya et al suspected emergent AGI ( e.g. saw the software doing things unprompted or dangerous and unexpected) and realized the Worldcoin shill is probably not the one you want calling the shots on it. For the record, I don't think it's true. I think it was a power play, and a failed coup at that. But it's about as substantiated as the "serious" hypotheses being mooted in the media. And it's m…

But why would Ilya publicly say he regrets his decision and wants Sam to come back. You think his existential worries are less important than being liked by his coworkers??

I think his existential worries about humanity were overruled by his existential worries about his co-founder shares and the obscene amount of wealth he might miss out on

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#512

Post by 3cats-in-a-coat »

This board's behavior is so weird, it's as if they can't explain their actions, because no one would believe them Kyle Reese came from the future to warn them about Skynet.

Kidding aside, maybe they have a "secret" reason to fire Sam Altman, but we've seen how "this is a secret / matter of national security / etc." goes with law enforcement. It's brutally abused to attack inconvenient people and enrich yourself on their behalf. So that should never be an excuse for punishing someone. Never.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#514

Post by bambax »

> Sustkever is said to have offered two explanations he purportedly received from the board, according to one of the people familiar. One explanation was that Altman was said to have given two people at OpenAI the same project. The other was that Altman allegedly gave two board members different opinions about a member of personnel. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. These explanations didn't make sense to employees and were not received well, one of the people familiar said.

Yeah well, you don't say. It's beyond weird that the board can't come up with a reason why Sam Altman was fired so abruptly.

One explanation would be a showdown. At some point in the week Sam and the board had an argument, and Sam said something to the effect of "fuck you, I'm the CEO and there's nothing you can do about it", to which the board replied "well, we'll just see about that".

The argument doesn't need to be major or touch fundamental values or policies; it can be a simple test of who's in charge.

But now the board made a fool of themselves. It seems they lost that round.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#515

Post by 23B1 »

lolinder wrote: post #510
shandor wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused how the board is still keeping their radio silence 100%. Where I’m from, with a shitstorm this big raging, and the board doing nothing, they might very easily be personally held responsible for all kinds of utterly nasty legal action. Is it just different because they’re a nonprofit? Or how on earth the board is thinking they can get away with this anymore?

What specific legal action could be pursued against them where you're from? Who would have a cause for action? (I'm genuinely curious—in the US I'm not aware of any action that could be taken here by anyone besides possibly Sam Altman for libel.)

Shareholder lawsuits happen all the time for much smaller issues.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#516

Post by [deleted] »

mvdtnz wrote: post #429
ssnistfajen wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the text completion algorithm is sufficiently advanced enough then we wouldn't be able to tell it's not AGI, especially if it has access to state-of-the-art research and can modify its own code/weights. I don't think we are there yet but it's plausible to an extent.

No. This is modern day mysticism. You're just waving your hands and making fuzzy claims about "but what if it was an even better algorithm".

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#518

Post by lolinder »

23B1 wrote: post #515
lolinder wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific legal action could be pursued against them where you're from? Who would have a cause for action? (I'm genuinely curious—in the US I'm not aware of any action that could be taken here by anyone besides possibly Sam Altman for libel.)

Shareholder lawsuits happen all the time for much smaller issues.

Right, but my understanding is that the nonprofit structure eliminates most (if not all) possible shareholder suits.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#519

Post by mirekrusin »

mvdtnz wrote: post #430
dwaltrip wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs predict language, and language is a representation of human concepts about the world. Thus, these models are constructing, piece by piece, conceptual chains about the world. As they learn to construct better and more coherent conceptual chains, something interesting must be happening internally.

No they are not.

Intelligence is just optimization over recursive prediction function.

There is nothing special about human intelligence threshold.

It can be surpassed by many different models.

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