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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

#571
post #299

It's hard to believe a Board that can't control itself or its employees could responsibly manage AI. Or that anyone could manage AGI. There is a long history of governance problems in nonprofits (see the transaction-cost economics literature on point). Their ambiguous goals induce politics. One benefit of profit-driven boards is that the goals make only well-understood risk trade-off's between growth now or later, an…

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

Super interesting link there. You should submit it, if no one has yet.

"Governance can be messy. Time will be the judge of whether this act of governance was wise or not." (Narrator: specifically, about 12 hours.) "But you should note that the people involved in this act of corporate governance are roughly the same people trying to position themselves to govern policy on artificial intelligence.

"It seems much easier to govern a single-digit number of highly capable people than to “govern” artificial superintelligence. If it turns out that this act of governance was unwise, then it calls into serious question the ability of these people and their organizations (Georgetown’s CSET, Open Philanthropy, etc.) to conduct governance in general, especially of the most impactful technology of the hundred years to come. Many people are saying we need more governance: maybe it turns out we need less."

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

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has orchestrated two coups in different organizations, where the leadership did not align with the organization's interests and missions, I can assure you that the final stage of such a coup is not something that can be executed after just an hour of preparation or thought. It requires months of planning. The trigger is only pulled when there is sufficient evidence or justification for such action. Bui…

How are you still hireable? If I knew you orchestrated two coups at previous companies and I was responsible for hiring, you would be radioactive to me. Especially knowing that all that effort went into putting together a successful coup over other work. Coups, in general, are the domain of the petty. One need only look at Ilya and D'Angelo to see this in action. D'Angelo neutered Quora by pushing out its co-founder,…

The regular HN commenter says "ceos are bad useless and get paid too much" but now when someone suggests getting rid of one of them suddenly its the end of the world

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

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So microsoft got in at round 1, and then round 2 for some nebulous multiple which may or may not be less than than. These weasel words are not proof of anything

Microsoft's first-round investment totals $1bn at most. Nothing public substantiates a profit cap of $1tn.

1t would be the 100x times 10B. I guess in absence of public information, we could assume anything. Default terms of unlimited, 100x for 1T or some arbitrarily lower number

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

#574
post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. People should oppose openly or leave.

As you are new here, I would urge you to read the site's Guidelines [1], which the tone & wording of your comment indicate you have not read. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok. Thank you.

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

#575
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the first AGI is going to be used to kill other AGIs in the cradle ?

The scenario usually bandied about is AGI self-improving at an accelerating rate: once you cross the threshold to self-improvement, you quickly get superintelligence with God-like powers beyond human comprehension (a.k.a. the Singularity) as AGI v1 creates a faster AGI v2 which creates a faster AGI v3 etc. Any AI researchers still plodding along at mere human speed are then doomed: they won't be able to catch up even…

What if AI self improvement is not exponential?

We assume a self improving AI will lead to some runaway intelligence improvement but if it grows at 1% per year or even per month that’s something we can adapt to.

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

#576
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the US ever stated or followed a policy of neutrality and openness? OpenAI positioned itself like that, much the same way Switzerland does in global politics.

> Has the US ever stated or followed a policy of neutrality Yes, most of the time from the founding until the First World War. > and openness? Not sure what sense of "openness" is relevant here.

I’m not sure you can call Manifest destiny neutral.

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

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is spot on. The key to it all is 'if you strike at the king, you best not miss'.

Going off on a big tangent, but Jiang Zemin had made several failed assassination attempts on Xi Jinping, but he was still able to die of old age.

Never heard about this before. Sources?

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

#578
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to tell that to the Effective Altruism crowd.

Literally any investment is a divert of resources from the present (harming the present) to the future. E.g. planting grains for next year rather than eating them now.

There is a difference between investing in a company who is developing ai software in a widely accessible way that improve everyone’s lives and a company that pursues software to put out of work entire sectors for the profit of a dozen of investors

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

#579

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…

As someone who has orchestrated two coups in different organizations, where the leadership did not align with the organization's interests and missions, I can assure you that the final stage of such a coup is not something that can be executed after just an hour of preparation or thought. It requires months of planning. The trigger is only pulled when there is sufficient evidence or justification for such action. Bui…

I would never work with you. This is why investors have such a bad reputation. If I had not retained 100% ownership and control of my business, I am sure someone like you would have tossed me out by now.

Focus on results, not political games.

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

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. People should oppose openly or leave.

Aren't you taking sides in a fight without knowing which side was "right"? Or do you believe that loyalty trumps all other values? At this point I'm in danger of triggering Godwin's Law so I had better stop.

My comment was phrased inappropriately.
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