I guess Microsoft now has a new division. (https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/financial-re...)
Supposedly, they are rumored to compete with each other to the point they can actually provide a negative impact.
OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#572Well I give up. I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. With Ilya signing this I have literally no clue what to believe anymore. I was willing to give the board the benefit of the doubt since I figured non-profit > profit in terms of standing on principal but this timeline is so screwy I'm done. Ilya votes for and stands behind decision to remove Altman, Altman goes to MS, other employees want him bac…
I don't think Microsoft is a loser and likely neither is Altman. I view this a final (and perhaps disparate) attempt from a sidelined chief scientist, Ilya, to prevent Microsoft from taking over the most prominent AI. The disagreement is whether OpenAI should belong to Microsoft or "humanity". I imagine this has been building up over months and as it often is, researchers and developers are often overlooked in strate…
If Google or Elon manages to pick up Ilya and those still loyal to him, it's not obvious that this is good for Microsoft.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could be a way to get backdoor-acquihired by Microsoft without a diligence process or board approval. Open up what they have accomplished for public consumption; kick off a massive hype cycle; downplay the problems around hallucinations and abuse; negotiate fat new stock grants for everyone at Microsoft at the peak of the hype cycle; and now all the problems related to actually making this a sustainable, legal techno…
This seems really dangerous. What's to stop top talent from simply choosing a different suitor?
Allegiance to the Altman/Brockman brand. Showing your alligiance to your general when they defected/ were thrown is how you rank up.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, indeed and that's the real loss here: any chance of governing this properly got blown up by incompetence.
Of we ignore the risks and threats of AI for a second, this whole story is actually incredibly funny. So much childish stupidity on display on all sides is just hilarious. Makes what the world would look like if, say, the Manhattan Project would have been managed the same way. Well, a younger me working at OpenAI would resign latest after my collegues stage a coup againstvthe board out of, in my view, a personality c…
The scary thing is that these incompetents are supposedly the ones to look out for the interests of humanity. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
Not that I had any illusions about this being a fig leaf in the first place.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, indeed and that's the real loss here: any chance of governing this properly got blown up by incompetence.
Of we ignore the risks and threats of AI for a second, this whole story is actually incredibly funny. So much childish stupidity on display on all sides is just hilarious. Makes what the world would look like if, say, the Manhattan Project would have been managed the same way. Well, a younger me working at OpenAI would resign latest after my collegues stage a coup againstvthe board out of, in my view, a personality c…
Of we ignore the risks and threats of AI for a second [..] just hope this helps ro cool down the ML sold as AI hype
If it is just ML sold as AI hype, are you really worried about the threat of AI?
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#576There can exist an inherent delusion within elements of a company, that if left unchallenged, can persist. An agreement for instance, can seem airtight because it's never challenged, but falls apart in court. The OpenAI fallacy was that non-profit principals were guiding the success of the firm, and when the board decided to test that theory, it broke the whole delusion. Had it not fully challenged Altman, the board…
> Now the cat is out of the bag, and people no longer believe that a non-profit who can act at will is a trusted vehicle for the future. And maybe it’s not. The big mistake people make is hearing non-profit and think it means there’s a greater amount of morality. It’s the same mistake as assuming everyone who is religious is therefore more moral (worth pointing out that religions are nonprofits as well). Most hospita…
> Most hospitals are nonprofits, yet they still make substantial profits and overcharge customers.
Are you talking about American hospitals?
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#577The key line: “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.”
Sounds a lot like MS wants to have OpenAI but without a boards that considers pesky things like morals.
Sam just gave 3 hearts to Ilya as well... I hope the drama continues and he joins MS at this point.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#578I hear Microsoft is hiring... the board should have resigned on Friday, Saturday the latest because of how they handled this and it is insane if they don't resign now. Employees are the most affected stakeholders here and the board utterly failed in their duty of care towards people that were not properly represented in the board room. One thing they could do is to unionize and then force that they be given a board s…
You’re right in theory, but with the non-profit “structure” the employees are secondary to the aims of the non-profit, and specifically in an entity owned wholly by the non-profit. The board acted as a non-profit board, driven by ideals not any bottom lines. It’s crazy that whatever balance the board had was gone as the board shrunk, a minority became the majority. The profit folks must have thought D’Angelo was on t…
As a board if you ignore your duty of care towards you employees you better have a whopper of a good reason. That's the one downside about being a board member: you are liable for the fall-out of your decisions if those turn out to have been misguided. And we're well out of 'oops' territory on this one.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. I seriously doubt this will work out for him. He has to be the smartest stupid person that the world has seen.
I've worked with this type multiple times. Mathematical geniuses with very little grasp of reality, easily manipulated into doing all sorts of dumb mistakes. I don't know if that's the case, but it certainly smells like it.
His post previous to that seems pretty ironic in that light - https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1710462485411561808
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#580Well I give up. I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. With Ilya signing this I have literally no clue what to believe anymore. I was willing to give the board the benefit of the doubt since I figured non-profit > profit in terms of standing on principal but this timeline is so screwy I'm done. Ilya votes for and stands behind decision to remove Altman, Altman goes to MS, other employees want him bac…
There's no way to read any of this other than that the entire operation is a clown show. All respect to the engineers and their technical abilities, but this organization has demonstrated such a level of dysfunction that there can't be any path back for it. Say MS gets what it wants out of this move, what purpose is there in keeping OpenAI around? Wouldn't they be better off just hiring everybody? Is it just some kin…
I feel weird reading comments like this since to me they've demonstrated a level of cohesion I didn't realize could still exist in tech...
My biggest frustration with larger orgs in tech is the complete misalignment on delivering value: everyone wants their little fiefdom to be just as important and "blocker worthy" as the next.
OpenAI struck me as one of the few companies where that's not being allowed to take root: the goal is to ship and if there's an impediment to that, everyone is aligned in removing said impediment even if it means bending your own corner's priorities
Until this weekend there was no proof of that actually being the case, but this letter is it. The majority of the company aligned on something that risked their own skin publicly and organized a shared declaration on it.
The catalyst might be downright embarrassing, but the result makes me happy that this sort of thing can still exist in modern tech