We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#551

Post by throwuwu » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:30 AM UTC

low_tech_love wrote: post #502

laserlight wrote: post #236

With Sam coming back as CEO, hasn't OpenAI board proven that it has lost its function? Regardless of who is in the board, they won't be able to exercise one of the most fundamental of their rights, firing the CEO, because Sam has proven that he is unfireable. Now, Sam can do however he pleases, whether it is lying, not reporting, etc. To be clear, I don't claim that Sam did, or will, lie, or misbehave.

Yes, but on the other hand, this whole thing has shown that OpenAI is not running smooth anymore, and probably never will again. You can't cut the head of the snake then attach it back later and expect it to move on slithering. Even if Sam stays, he won't be able to just do whatever he wants because in an organization as complex as OpenAI, there are thousands of unwritten rules and relationships and hidden processes…

This couldn’t be more wrong. The big thing we learned from this episode is that Sam and Greg have the loyalty and respect of almost every single employee at OpenAI. Morale is high and they’re ready to fight for what they believe in. They didn’t “cut the head off” and the only snake here is D’Angelo, he tried to kill OpenAI and failed miserably. Now he appears to be desperately trying to hold on to some semblance of power by agreeing to Sam and Greg coming back instead of losing all control with the whole team joining Microsoft.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#552

Post by jbu » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:30 AM UTC

flylib wrote: post #111

"A source with direct knowledge of the negotiations says that the sole job of this initial board is to vet and appoint a new formal board of up to 9 people that will reset the governance of OpenAl. Microsoft will likely have a seat on that expanded board, as will Altman himself." https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/172721237871736880...

9 mortal men? Look out for the one ring to rule them all…

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#553

Post by mvdtnz » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:31 AM UTC

Gud wrote: post #61

Once we develop an actual, fully functional AGI, it’s going to steamroll us isn’t it. If these are the stewards of this technology, it’s time to be worried now.

Good thing there's absolutely no plausible scenario where we go from "shitty program that guesses the next word" to "AI". The whole industry is going to be so incredibly embarrassed by the discourse of 2023 in a few years.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#554

Post by mijoharas » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:32 AM UTC

rcaught wrote: post #490

flylib wrote: post #111

"A source with direct knowledge of the negotiations says that the sole job of this initial board is to vet and appoint a new formal board of up to 9 people that will reset the governance of OpenAl. Microsoft will likely have a seat on that expanded board, as will Altman himself." https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/172721237871736880...

> as will Altman himself Would you trust someone who doesn't believe in responsible governance for themselves, to apply responsible governance elsewhere?

How has the board shown that they fired Sam Altman due to "responsible governance".

They haven't really said anything about why it was, and according to business insider[0] (the only reporting that I've seen that says anything concrete) the reasons given were:

> One explanation was that Altman was said to have given two people at OpenAI the same project.

> The other was that Altman was said to have given two board members different opinions about a member of personnel.

Firing the CEO of a company and only being able to articulate two (in my opinion) weak examples of why, and causing >95% of your employees to say they will quit unless you resign does not seem responsible.

If they can articulate reasons why it was necessary, sure, but we haven't seen that yet.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/openais-employees-given-expl...

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#555

Post by throwuwu » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:32 AM UTC

MattHeard wrote: post #531

I was hopeful for a private-industry approach to AI safety, but it looks unlikely now, and due to the slow pace of state investment in public AI R&D, all approaches to AI safety look unlikely now. Safety research on toy models will continue to provide developments, but the industry expectation appears to be that emergent properties puts a low ceiling on what can be learned about safety without researching on cutting…

Easy, don’t be incompetent and don’t abuse your power for personal gain. People aren’t as dumb as you think they are and they will see right through that bullshit and quit rather than follow idiot tyrants.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#556

Post by yawnxyz » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:33 AM UTC

flylib wrote: post #111

"A source with direct knowledge of the negotiations says that the sole job of this initial board is to vet and appoint a new formal board of up to 9 people that will reset the governance of OpenAl. Microsoft will likely have a seat on that expanded board, as will Altman himself." https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/172721237871736880...

they should give two votes to GPT-5

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#557

Post by ethbr1 » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:34 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #538

eclectic29 wrote: post #196

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

I don't think the media are treating him as a "hero and savior of AI". However OpenAI and ChatGTP have undoubtedly been successful and he seems popular with his people. It's human nature to follow the top person as figurehead for an organisation as we or journalists don't have time or info to break down what each of the hundreds of employees contributed. I actually get the impression from the media that he's a bit sh…

> but seems effective at getting stuff done.

Sales usually is. It's the consequences, post-sale, that they're usually less effective at dealing with.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#558

Post by ecmascript » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:34 AM UTC

All these posts about OpenAI.. are people really this interested in whatever happens inside one company?

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#559

Post by ChildOfChaos » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:35 AM UTC

Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

I would say this is a great outcome.

Any other outcome would have split OpenAI quite dramatically and put them back massively.

Big assumption to say 'effectively controlled by Microsoft' when Microsoft might have been quite happy for the other option and for them to poach a lot of staff.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#560

Post by absrec » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 10:36 AM UTC

clnq wrote: post #405

Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

> OpenAI is in fact not open This meme was already dead before the recent events. Whatever the company was doing, you could say it wasn’t open enough. > a real disruptor must be brewing somewhere unnoticed, for now Why pretend OpenAI hasn’t just disrupted our way of life with GPTs in the last two years? It has been the most high profile tech innovator recently. > OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win This is so vagu…

They really need to drive down the amount of computation needed. The dependence on Microsoft is because of the monstrous computation requirements that will require many paid users to break even.

Leaving the economic side even to make the tech 'greener' will be a challenge. OpenAI will win if they focus on making the models less compute intensive but it could be dangerous for them if they can't.

I guess the OP's brewing disruptor is some locally runnable Llama type model that does 80% of what ChatGPT does at a fraction of the cost.