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

arstechnica.com

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

#61

Post by piuantiderp »

swatcoder wrote: post #45
andy99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the board was really serious about doing good over making profit (if this is indeed what the whole thing is about) they'd open source gpt-4/5 with a gpl-style license

That’s not the sense of open they’ve organized around. In fact, it’s antithetical to it. Theirs is a technocratic sense of open, where select credentialed experts collaborate on a rational good without a concentration of control by specific capitalists or nations.

I think your technocratic sense of open is misplaced. At this point OpenAI is clearly controlled by the US and it's ok. If anything one wonders if Altman's ouster has a geopolitical angle, cozying up to other countries and such.

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

#62

Post by dave4420 »

superhumanuser wrote: post #50
fullshark wrote: post #17

Man this still seems crazy to me. The idea that this tension between commercial/non-commercial aspirations got so bad they felt the nuclear option of a surprise firing of Altman was the only move available doesn't seem plausible to me. I believe this decision was ego and vanity driven with this post-hoc rationalization that it was because of the mission of "benefiting humanity."

I wonder if the "benefiting humanity" bit is code for anti mil-tech. What if Sam wasn't being honest about a relationship with a consumer that weaponized OpenAI products against humans?

Could be.

Or it could be about the alignment problem. Are they designing AI to prioritise humanity’s interests, or its corporate masters’ interests? One way is better for humanity, the other brings in more cash.

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

#63

Post by fullshark »

BryantD wrote: post #55
fullshark wrote: post #17

Man this still seems crazy to me. The idea that this tension between commercial/non-commercial aspirations got so bad they felt the nuclear option of a surprise firing of Altman was the only move available doesn't seem plausible to me. I believe this decision was ego and vanity driven with this post-hoc rationalization that it was because of the mission of "benefiting humanity."

What if the board gave Altman clear direction, Altman told them he accepted it, and then went off and did something else? This hypothesis doesn’t require the board’s direction to be objectively good.

IDK none of us are privy to any details of festering tensions or if there was a "last straw" scenario that if it was explained it would make sense. Something during that dev day really pissed some people off that's for sure.

Given what the picture looks like today though that's my guess, firing Altman is an extreme scenario! Lots of CEOs have tensions with their boards over various issues otherwise the board is pointless!

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

#64

Post by intellectronica »

Waterluvian wrote: post #29

How important is Altman? How important were three senior scientists? Can they start their own company, raise funding, and overtake OpenAI in a few years? Or does OpenAI have some material advantage that isn’t likely to be harmed by this? Perhaps the competition is inevitably a good thing. Or maybe a bad thing if it creates pressure to cut ethical corners. I also wonder if the dream of an “open” org bringing this tech…

> How important is Altman? How important were three senior scientists? Can they start their own company, raise funding, and overtake OpenAI in a few years?

The general opinion seems to be estimating this at far above 50% YES. I, personally would bet at 70% that this exactly what will happen. Unless some really damaging information becomes public about Altman, he will definitely have the strong reputation and credibility, definitely will be able to raise very significant funding, and the only expert in industry / research he definitely won’t be able to recruit would be Ilya Sutskever.

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

#65

Post by wolverine876 »

In the past, many on HN complained that OpenAI had abandoned its public good mission and had morphed into a psuedo-private for-profit. If that was your feeling before, what do you think now? Are you relieved or excited? Are you the dog who caught the car?

At this point, on day 2, I am heartened that their mission was most important, even at the heart of the most important technology maybe ever or since nuclear power or writing or democracy. I'm heartened at the board's courage - certainly they could anticipate the blowback. This change could transform the outcome for humanity and the board's job was that stewardship, not Altman's career (many people in SV have lost their jobs), not OpenAI's sales numbers. They should be fine with the overwhelming volume of investment available to them.

Another way to look at it: How could this be wrong, given that their objective was not profit, and they can raise money easily with or without Altman?

On day 3 or day 30 or day 3,000, I'll of course come at it from a different outlook.

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

#66

Post by tuxguy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #29

How important is Altman? How important were three senior scientists? Can they start their own company, raise funding, and overtake OpenAI in a few years? Or does OpenAI have some material advantage that isn’t likely to be harmed by this? Perhaps the competition is inevitably a good thing. Or maybe a bad thing if it creates pressure to cut ethical corners. I also wonder if the dream of an “open” org bringing this tech…

An optimistic perspective of how despite today's regrettable events, Sama and gdb will start something new and more competition is a good thing : https://x.com/DrJimFan/status/1725916938281627666?s=20

I have a contrarian prediction : Due to pressure from investors and a lawsuit against the openai board, the board will be made to resign and Sama & Greg will return to openai.

Anybody else agree ?

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

#67

Post by dmitrygr »

ls612 wrote: post #9

What are the odds Sam can work the phones this weekend and have $10B lined up by Monday for a new AI company which will take all of the good talent from OpenAI?

Other than having a big mouth what has HE done? As far as I can find, the actual engineering and development was done NOT by him, while he was parading around telling people they shouldn't WFH, and schmoozing with government officials

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

#68

Post by cratermoon »

kylecazar wrote: post #2

Here's what I don't understand. There clearly were tensions between the for and not-for growth factions, but the Dev Day is being cited as a 'last straw'. It was a product launch. Ilya, and the board, should have been well aware of what was being released on that day for months. They should have at the very least been privy to the plan, if not outright sanctioned it. Seems like before launch would have been the time…

Let's look closer at the Ilya Sutskever vs Sam Altman tensions, and think of the product/profit as a cover.

Ilya Sutskever is a True Believer in LLMs being AGI, in that respect aligned with Geoff Hinton, his academic advisor at University of Toronto. Hinton has said "So by training something to be really good at predicting the next word, you’re actually forcing it to understand. Yes, it’s ‘autocomplete’—but you didn’t think through what it means to have a really good autocomplete"[1].

Meanwhile, Altman has decided that LLMs aren't the way.[2]

So Altman was pushing to turn the LLM into a for-profit product, to get what value it has, while the Sutskever-aligned faction thinks it is AGI, and want to keep it not-for-profit.

There's also some difference about whether or not AGI poses an "existential risk" or if the risks of current efforts at AI are along the lines of algorithmic bias, socioeconomic inequality, mis/disinformation, and techno-solutionism.

1. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/geoffrey-hinto...

2. https://www.thestreet.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-s...

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

#69

Post by late2part »

mvkel wrote: post #41
nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

[Removed. Unhelpful speculation.]

How many days a week do you hang out with Sam and Greg and Ilya to know these things?

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

#70

Post by shafyy »

nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

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