It is always so impressive to see what the US law allows.
This would be not only unethical viewed in Germany, i could see how a CEO would go to prison for such a thing.
OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
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Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
Awfully familiar to the other South-African emerald mine inheritor tech mogul.
Please. Elon's track record to take tesla from concept car stage to current mass production levels and building SpaceX from scratch is hardly comparable to Altman's track record.
SpaceX didn’t start from scratch. Their initial designs were based on NASA designs. Stop perpetuating the “genius engineer” myth around Elon Musk.
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#613It is always so impressive to see what the US law allows. This would be not only unethical viewed in Germany, i could see how a CEO would go to prison for such a thing.
Please stop with these incorrect generalizations. Hush agreements are definitely allowed in Germany as well, part of golden parachutes usually.
I know a manager for an EV project at a big German auto company who also had to sign one when he was let go and was compensated handsomely to keep quiet and not say a word or face legal consequences.
IIRC he got ~12 months wages. After a year of not doing anything at work anyway. Bought a house in the south with it. Good gig.
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alignment in the realm of AGI is not about getting everyone to agree. It's about whether or not the AGI is aligned to the goal you've given it. The paperclip AGI example is often used, you tell the AGI "Optimize the production of paperclips" and the AGI started blending people to extract iron from their blood to produce more paperclips. Humans are used to ordering around other humans who would bring common sense and…
AGI started blending people to extract iron from their blood to produce more paperclips That’s neither efficient nor optimized, just a bogeyman for “doesn’t work”.
You're imagining a baseline of reasonableness. Humans have competing preferences, we never just want "one thing", and as a social species we always at least _somewhat_ value the opinions of those around us. The point is to imagine a system that values humans at zero: not positive, not negative.
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
The superalignment team was not focused on that kind of “safety” AFAIK. According to the blog post announcing the team, https://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/ > Superintelligence will be the most impactful technology humanity has ever invented, and could help us solve many of the world’s most important problems. But the vast power of superintelligence could also be very dangerous, and could lead to the…
They failed to align Sam Altman. They got completely outsmarted and out maneuvered by Sam Altman And they think they will be able to align a super human intelligence? That it won’t outsmart and out maneuver them easier than Sam Altman did. They are deluded!
You're making the argument that the task is very hard. This does not at all mean that it isn't necessary, just that we're even more screwed than we thought.
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting a certain amount (according to their vesting schedule) of stock options, which are worth a substantial amount of money and thus clearly is "good and valuable consideration".
The original stock and vesting agreement that was part of their original compensation probably says that you have to be currently employed by OpenAI for the vesting schedule to apply. So in that case the consideration of this new agreement is that they get to keep their vesting schedule running even though they are no longer employees.
but can they simply leave with the already vested options/stock? are there clawback provisions in the initial contract?
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised at such a mean comment and lots of follow-ups with agreement. I don't know Sam personally, I've only heard him here and there online from before OpenAI days and all I got was a good impression. He seems smart and pretty humble. Apart from all openai drama which I don't know enough to have an opinion, past-openai he also seems to be talking with sense. Since so many people took time to put him down there…
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I shared stage with Sam at one point for an hour and was not impressed. Obviously I was wrong as Sam has accomplished so much in the meantime, but my initial impression wasn't much. How he did it is for him to know and for others to ...
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but the employee would be able to refuse the consideration, and thus the contract, and the state of affairs wouldn't change. They would be free to say whatever they wanted.
If they refuse the contract then they lose out on their options vesting. Basically, OpenAI's contracts work like this: Employment Contract the First: We are paying you (WAGE) for your labor. In addition you also will be paid (OPTIONS) that, after a vesting period, will pay you a lot of money. If you terminate this employment your options are null and void unless you sign Employment Contract the Second. Employment Con…
is it even a valid contract clause to tie the value of something to a future completely unknown agreement? (or yes, it's valid, and it means that savvy folks should treat it as zero.)
(though most likely the NDA and everything is there from day 1 and there's no second contract, no?)
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#619This sounds very illegal, how is California allowing this?
Nobody has challenged it in court.
Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if nothing is perpetual, then how long can it last supposing both sides do get ongoing consideration from it? the answer is, the judge will figure it out. Isn't that the reason more competent lawyers put in the royal lives[1] clause? It specifies the contract is valid until 21 years after the death of the last currently-living royal descendant; I believe the youngest one is currently 1 year old, and they all have g…
I know little about law, but isn't this completely ludicrous? Assuming you know a bit more (or someone else here does), I have a few questions: Would any non-corrupt judge consider this is done in bad fait? How is this difference if we use a great ancient sea turtles—or some other long-lived organism—instead of the current royal family baby? Like, I guess my point is anything that would likely outlive the employee ba…
It's a standard legal thing to accommodate a rule that you can't write a perpetual contract, it has to have a term delimited by the life of someone alive plus some limited period.
A case where it obviously makes sense is something like a covenant between two companies; whose life would be relevant there, if both parties want the contract to last a long time and have to pick one? The CEOs? Employees? Shareholders? You could easily have a situation where the company gets sold and they all leave, but the contract should still be relevant, and now it depends on the lives of people who are totally unconnected to the parties. Just makes things difficult. Using a monarch and his currently living descendants is easy.
I'm not sure how relevant it is in a more employer employee context. But it's a formalism to create a very long contract that's easy to track, not a secret trick to create a longer contract than you're normally allowed to. An employer asking an employee to agree to it would have no qualms asking instead for it to last the employee's life, and if the employee's willing to sign one then the other doesn't seem that much more exploitative.