Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding • Hacker News Board

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#531

Post by JoshuaDavid » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:41 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #68

tempusalaria wrote: post #2

This claims that Anthropic founders also tried to throw Sam out before leaving. They claim three sources but not clear how strong - technically the current board could be three sources

Skilled journalists (and this piece was written by skilled journalists) would not use the three members of the board as their only three sources. A big part of this kind of journalism is taking information from sources, considering the potential bias of each source and carefully correlating it with information from other sources before publishing it. That bit specifically says: "After they failed, they gave up and de…

> Skilled journalists (and this piece was written by skilled journalists) would not use the three members of the board as their only three sources.

Depends on whether their goal is to inform or to convince.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#532

Post by TerrifiedMouse » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:46 AM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #423

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The for-profit arm was always meant to be subservient to the non-profit arm - the latter practically owns the former. The important thing for the non-profit arm is the mission, its own existence is secondary.

> The important thing for the non-profit arm is the mission, its own existence is secondary. So OpenAI should just shut down because the charitable donations were not enough to keep the lights on.

If they lack money they could always scale back operations.

Also running the for-profit arm the way Altman did isn’t the only way.

A more reasonable CEO would do what he/she can to make money without running afoul of the charter. Yes, it will be less profit - and sometimes no profit at all - but that’s the way it should be in a non-profit organization.

OpenAI used to be an organization that dabbled with various AI technologies. Anyone remember their DOTA2 bot? Before Altman turned it into all about commercializing their LLM - going so far as to try to lobby congress to create laws, in the name of safety of course, to hobble any upstart competition.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#533

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:49 AM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #445

jacquesm wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Practically all of the most relevant experts in this domain, leadership in OpenAI, think it's right around the corner. Oh, ok. That makes it alright then. So, let's see those minutes of that meeting where this was decided with all of the pomp and gravitas required rather than that it was a petty act of revenge or to see who could oust who first from OpenAI. Because that's what it looks like to me based on what is n…

What you’re missing is that Eliezer has been beating this drum a long time, while the rest of HN and the world is asleep at the wheel. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and the original founders of OpenAI believe AGI is an existential threat and are building it with the belief that it’s best they’re the ones who do it, rather than worse people, in an arms race. Eliezer is the one saying “you fucking fools, you’re speeding up th…

Eliezer - we're all gonna die - Y has his own problems.

People really watch too many movies. The real risk isn't AGI killing us all, the real risk is that plenty of people will think they are smart enough to create it and then to contain it whilst the ruthless faction of humanity uses it to set up shop in a way that they can never ever be dislodged again. Think global Mafia or something to that effect, or a world divided into three chunks by three major power blocs each with their own AI core. That's a much more likely outcome and one that on account of an incompetent board has just become a little bit more likely.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#534

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:49 AM UTC

traject_ wrote: post #433

reducesuffering wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The board has all my respect for standing up to the capitalists of Altman, the VCs, Microsoft. Big feathers to ruffle - even though the execution was misjudged, turns out most of its employees are pretty capitalistic too Exactly. This is a battle between altruistic principles and some of the most heavyweight greedy money in the world. The board messed up the execution, but so did OpenAI leadership when they offered…

One man's altruist is another man's fanatic. I, for one, would prefer an evil bandit over an evil fanatic because at least a bandit sleeps once in a while as that C.S Lewis quote goes.

And the bandit likely is honest about their motives.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#535

Post by doktrin » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #33

PepperdineG wrote: post #3

>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

Amazing how these higher minded people always forget about the little people on the ground. All these employees losing their livelihoods for the greater good. Not surprised an ethicist thinks like this.

> Microsoft has given every OpenAI employee a job offer.

> All these employees losing their livelihoods for the greater good

You penned both of these statements today. Clearly you understand that OpenAI employees are a highly compensated and in-demand resource whose “livelihoods” are in no jeopardy whatsoever, so the theatrics here are really bizarre.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#536

Post by ah765 » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

xigency wrote: post #517

didibus wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's not in charge of the for-profit arm though, all she could do was fire the CEO, and she did, which would seem consistent with her criticism. I don't think she has many more power as being on the board. She also isn't at the top; in the sense she needs other board members to vote similar to her to enact any change, so it's possible she kept bringing up concerns and not getting support. Academically, did she not d…

Her position was listed as a fun fact, not in a responsible disclosure of possible conflicts of interest (though it ran the other way). Being at the top of the org and being present during the specific incidents that gives one qualms burdens one with moral responsibility, even if they were the one who voted against. You shouldn’t say “they did [x]” instead of “we did [x]” when x is bad and you were part of the team.

It sounds like your argument is "Even if OpenAI did something bad, Helen should never write about it, because she is part of OpenAI".

Or, that she should write her paper in the first person: "We, OpenAI, are doing bad things." That would probably be seen as vastly more damaging to OpenAI, and also ridiculous since she doesn't have the right to represent OpenAI as "we".

I have no idea why you think that should be a rule, aside from wanting Helen to never be able to criticize OpenAI publicly. I think it's good for the public if a board member will report what they see as potentially harmful internal problems.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#537

Post by sarchertech » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:51 AM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #528

sarchertech wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how that works. You can argue that Ilya has a fiduciary responsibility to the investors as an officer of the company. Toner doesn’t. She is an independent board member on the board of the non-profit that owns a controlling share in the company, but she doesn’t personally own a majority share of the company. As an independent board member, she has no duty but to uphold the charter. She represents no shareho…

She joined the board of OpenAI knowing that they owned a for profit subsidiary that received billions of dollars of investment. Being independent means that she could provide a unique outsider perspective, not that she has no obligations to her organization whatsoever. If you're going to be completely independent, you shouldn't be surprised when over 90% of the organization turns against you.

Whether people turn against her or not is irrelevant to my point. She has no personal fiduciary duty to the minority shareholders in the for-profit company. Her only duty is to the charter.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#538

Post by remarkEon » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:52 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #520

gwern wrote: post #203

None of the comments thus far seem to clearly explain why this matters. Let me summarize the implications: Sam Altman expelling Toner with the pretext of an inoffensive page ( https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-Decoding... ) in a paper no one read* would have given him a temporary majority with which to appoint a replacement director, and then further replacement directors. These directors would, nat…

It's interesting the paper is selling Anthropic's approach to 'safety' as the correct approach when they just launched a new version of Claude and HN thread is littered with people saying its unusable because half the prompts they type get flagged as ethical violations. It's pretty clear some legitimate concerns about a hypothetical future AGI, that we've barely scraped the surface of, turns into "what can we do toda…

Has Toner (or someone with like-minded views) filled in the blanks between "GPT-4" and "Terminator Judgement Day" in a believable way? I've read what Yudkowsky writes but it all sounds so fantastical that it's, at least to me, more like an episode of The Twilight Zone or The X-Files than something resembling reality. Is Toner really in the "nuke the datacenters" camp? If so, was her placement on the board not a mistake from the beginning?

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#539

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:54 AM UTC

wnoise wrote: post #412

jacquesm wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's covered. Second line.

It's covered with a vague line that would also cover merely having a disagreement with.

Feel free to improve on it, it's open source, unlike OpenAI.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#540

Post by xigency » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 5:54 AM UTC

ah765 wrote: post #536

xigency wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her position was listed as a fun fact, not in a responsible disclosure of possible conflicts of interest (though it ran the other way). Being at the top of the org and being present during the specific incidents that gives one qualms burdens one with moral responsibility, even if they were the one who voted against. You shouldn’t say “they did [x]” instead of “we did [x]” when x is bad and you were part of the team.

It sounds like your argument is "Even if OpenAI did something bad, Helen should never write about it, because she is part of OpenAI". Or, that she should write her paper in the first person: "We, OpenAI, are doing bad things." That would probably be seen as vastly more damaging to OpenAI, and also ridiculous since she doesn't have the right to represent OpenAI as "we". I have no idea why you think that should be a ru…

I just don’t know why an ethicist would remain involved in a company they find is behaving unethically and proceed with business as usual. I suppose the answer is the news from Friday, though the course feels quite unwise for the multitude of reasons others have already outlined.

Regarding specific verbiage and grammar, I’m sure an academic could give clearer guidance on what is better form in professional writing. What was presented was clearly lacking.