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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

businessinsider.com

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Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#571

Post by marcinzm »

ur-whale wrote: post #492
the_real_cher wrote: post #473

This seems disingenuous on her part. Almost the entire company was posting hearts on X in support of Sam. The essence if her claim is they were doing that for their stock options? Cynical take to me.

> Almost the entire company Almost the entire company is composed of wide-eyed young AI researchers who probably were never confronted in their entire life to the kind of psychopathic predator Altman seems to be. One of the thing these type of folks excel at is winning the hearts of bright yet gullible folks.

It's the same as all the revolutionaries and cult leaders that turned into dictators once in power.

Those seeking a greater meaning to their lives get drawn to the sweet nectar of lies that tells them their life will have meaning as long as, and only if, they just keep following the leader's every wish.

Except this time it's not aliens following Halley's comet but AGI.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#572

Post by andy_ppp »

"We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues. An independent committee of the board worked with the law firm Wilmer Hale, to conduct an extensive review of the events of November."

It's interesting that the review was never published and no comments from the review were mentioned. The "summary" here[1] only reveals a list of things they did and the least possible endorsement of Altman.

"WilmerHale found that the prior Board acted within its broad discretion to terminate Mr. Altman, but also found that his conduct did not mandate removal."

I find it telling that they did not release the actual report.

[1] https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to...

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#573

Post by Lewton »

the_real_cher wrote: post #473

This seems disingenuous on her part. Almost the entire company was posting hearts on X in support of Sam. The essence if her claim is they were doing that for their stock options? Cynical take to me.

> The essence if her claim is they were doing that for their stock options?

Wasn't that extremely obvious at the time?

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#574

Post by marcinzm »

telltruth wrote: post #471

While most of the interview is boring and nothing new has been said by Toner, to me, it feels like huge political fight where sama tried to overthrow her first and then Toner went in attack mode trying to overthrow him. It's clear she was the lead instigator and accidently found Illya as sympathetic co-conspirator. Board was obviously ok and took no action when they weren't informed about release of ChatGPT. It also…

> They are not the founder, they are not even technical

OpenAI can't have it both ways. Either it's not a company owned by it's founders (as Sam claims) or it is. A board that does nothing ever is equivalent to the former.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#575

Post by thih9 »

ZiiS wrote: post #510
senectus1 wrote: post #482

seems to be fairly large amount of evidence that SA is a bit of an asshole.

For someone with his amount of power; if you are only 'a bit of an asshole' you may as well be a saint.

Either you’re fine with powerful assholes, or you suggest stripping autocratic CEOs of power; or perhaps I’m missing your point.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#576

Post by robertlagrant »

robertlagrant wrote: post #502
ur-whale wrote: post #491

And the pile of evidence that demonstrates Altman is a high-IQ psychopath grows ever taller.

Evidence that the earth is flat grows ever taller as well. If you have no method for removing things that turn out to not be true, only taller will the pile grow.

I don't normally reply for this reason, but it's fascinating. -4 score with no replies.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#577

Post by fastball »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #549
fastball wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said publicly? There is a lot of room between "discuss publicly" and "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance". For example, a lot of the pressure that caused them to reverse course came from Microsoft. Maybe if the board had discussed such a big decision without OpenAI's biggest investor, Microsoft would've been on board with the firing.

Who would they be telling? Board members don’t and shouldn’t discuss matters with employees. Please show me the case where employees were told in advance that the board was going to fire the CEO.

I literally said in my last comment who they could've told that would've made the whole thing probably go over better.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#579

Post by ssgodderidge »

andy_ppp wrote: post #572

"We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues. An independent committee of the board worked with the law firm Wilmer Hale, to conduct an extensive review of the events of November." It's interesting that the review was never published and no comments from the review were mentioned. The "summary" here[1] only reveals a list of things they did and the least possible endorsement of Altman. "Wilme…

> “his conduct did not mandate removal.”

Curious what “mandate” refers to here. He didn’t do anything illegal? Didn’t break bylaws? Or was it that he didn’t do anything to lose the trust?

He could have done everything well within his right as the CEO, but still gotten fired for failure to build trust with the board

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#580

Post by woliveirajr »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #535
n2d4 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that Ilya didn't think the launch was anything notable: https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-was-inaccurate-borin...

One of my most valuable memories is when I dismissed ChatGPT the day it came out. I didn't bother trying it; GPTs were just autocomplete, and OpenAI had already stretched the limits of what autocomplete could do, so this ChatGPT would just be slightly better autocomplete. Much like pg dismissing Facebook as lame when it first launched, I was exponentially mistaken: https://paulgraham.com/swan.html > History tends to…

Funny:

> Thanks to Sam Altman (...) for reading drafts of this.

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