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

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

#611

Post by threeseed »

sackfield wrote: post #607
ben_w wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If OpenAI gets as far with AI as they want to, then it is absolutely imperative that nobody there is accidentally leaning on the scales, let alone actually doing anything (even something minor) with selfish intent. Even if they're "just another tech firm", that's still enough for them to be another Facebook with the Cambridge Analytica and Rohingya scandals, and many people would like to make sure such things don't r…

We should feel great that they now have a competent board that will make sure of that.

Nobody should feel great about the situation at OpenAI.

Especially with all of the people leaving and publicly criticising the companies trust and safety stance.

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

#612

Post by belter »

admissionsguy wrote: post #533
MrSkelter wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The board is working with the assumption the CEO isn’t a liar. Altman is a classic sociopath, a T-1000 to Musk’s clunky T-800. OpenAI is fated to implode in scandal. His 7 trillion dollar funding round ambition is a blaring siren to anyone with a working brain that he’s out of control and capable of doing real damage. He wants a sum of money that could crash the world economy. He thinks he should have the power of th…

Just to be clear - Musk’s crimes are single-handedly turning the US into the leader in EV and space industries, calling one guy a „pedo” and standing trial for it, and supporting the political side that you don’t like?

He called a guy a pedo but was impersonating a child on twitter...

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

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

#613

Post by breck »

Centigonal wrote: post #240
breck wrote: post #97

> "telling us they had no belief that he could or would change, no point in giving him feedback" This is awful behavior. Never ever stop talking. Never ever stop giving feedback. When someone says something along the lines of "the other person wasn't listening so I had to take action against them", they are almost always lying. (They are probably lying to themselves most of all). The other person usually is listening…

I agree that you should never stop giving feedback, but if you have an advisory or managerial duty toward someone, and you don't take action when your feedback is being consistently ignored by that person, then when do you take action (if ever)?

> then when do you take action (if ever)?

I think you _never_ take secretive action. You don't go behind someone's back.

They should have said, "Sam, we think you are wrong, we think we are right, and we think you are not listening, so we are going to take this to the board."

They should not have conspired.

Don't conspire.

Also, in my experience, in a situation like this where sides A and B see things differently, and side B can't convince side A they are wrong, _both_ sides are usually wrong. People can easily see how others are wrong, but often find it harder to see how their position is also wrong. The solution is to keep talking it out. Until that correct position C is found.

When Side B is so confident that they are right and take secret action against Side A, not only do they still get things wrong (because the still yet to be discovered idea C is the correct position), but they are guilty of dishonest behavior, as those that conspired against SamA are here.

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

#614

Post by light_hue_1 »

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…

Don't worry. It wouldn't matter if they released the report. These law firms are charged to find nothing and say nothing.

MIT agreed to have a report from a law firm after having secret dealings with Epstein. The law firm very carefully managed to avoid every issue that wasn't already known and every question people actually wanted answers to.

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

#615

Post by sudosysgen »

WalterBright wrote: post #448
bergen wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Marriage without children is an issue of morality, not rights. It was historically an issue of rights And children rights are a fairly new thing. And no, you are wrong - your right not be attacked is based on morality, you say "attacking someone is wrong" - there is no law in nature preventing this. But you made no point for your argument - just stepping through mine with comments.

> your right not be attacked is based on morality The very first thing a group does when organized is to protect themselves from attack. They do this because it works. We've evolved that way, which makes it a law of nature for humans. Communist rights, however, are not laws of nature because they do not work with humans. Humans are not beehives. But the most compelling argument for "natural rights" is observing how w…

> Communist rights, however, are not laws of nature because they do not work with humans. Humans are not beehives.

The laws of nature do not include any rights, unless there's some new physics I'm not aware of.

> But the most compelling argument for "natural rights" is observing how well societies work that enforce them, and how well they work when other systems of rights are tried. The evidence is pretty clear.

This is an argument from morality. You start with the premise that a good societal outcome is morally good and then use that to justify the rights you advocate for.

You fundamentally cannot make an argument for what something should be like without resorting to morality. Without it, you can only make arguments on what things are.

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

#616

Post by ZiiS »

thih9 wrote: post #575
ZiiS wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am saying most extremely powerful people (CEO of OpenAI is what top 0.0001%) are assholes; qualifying it with "a bit of" is a win.

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

#617

Post by specialist »

nickpp wrote: post #401
specialist wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With extreme inequity, who's gonna make all the smaller bets? Lost in the food fight over today's robberbarons is recognition that small and medium new business formation continues to decline. IMHO, those are the job creators and wealth creation (vs mere wealth transfer) I prefer we boosted. I trust billionaires will somehow muddle along with or without our help.

> With extreme inequity, who's gonna make all the smaller bets? The more large, visible winners you have in a society the more us little people are incentivized to buy those lottery tickets. Crowd funding, angel investing and small funds do exist. Or even Robinhood.

Since you mentioned Robinhood: What impact have they had? Are their users better for using Robinhood?

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

#618

Post by sudosysgen »

zaat wrote: post #563
Kbelicius wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the most compelling argument for "natural rights" is observing how well societies work that enforce them, and how well they work when other systems of rights are tried. The evidence is pretty clear. We did not evolve with private property rights thus, by your reasoning, those are not "natural rights". I am at a loss in trying to understand what you are saying. It seem like you are trying to argue for capitalism…

Natural and legal rights are well established terms that are being used, discussed and evaluated since ancient times. The term natural right precede our discovery of evolution by 2 millennia. Whether the right to property is natural right or not is a separate point and debatable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property

The term natural right since ancient times was a religious construct that has little or nothing to do with the modern, post-Renaissance understanding of the term, so tracing a lineage here is a definitional error. In any case, what a natural right is isn't (and cannot be) a well established term, and indeed the rise in atheism is a fundamental threat to the doctrine, as most all ideas of natural law have to rely on a God to avoid the naturalistic fallacy.

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

#619

Post by lotsofpulp »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #334
tibbar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had the answer there before you dismissed it -- the board agreed to bring Sam Altman back before resigning because of massive pressure campaign that involved 90%+ of employees threatening to resign, and Microsoft (which has OpenAI's IP rights) offering to hire them all immediately. This included the company's key leadership. The organization was unraveling overnight. This was far past the tipping point of "a few…

> the board agreed to bring Sam Altman back before resigning because of massive pressure campaign that involved 90%+ of employees threatening to resign, and Microsoft... But, what kind of Wild West is this? It's all so unhinged and strange. There are no NDAs, non-competes or other impediments? MS just guts OpenAI at its whim? > there would have been no OpenAI left to preside over. ...If MS can do this, then there's a…

The beauty of California is that there are no non competes, for anyone, ever.

It is a very pro employee policy, hence attractive to the best and brightest.

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

#620

Post by jononomo »

adastra22 wrote: post #292
throwcon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a good thing?

Paul Graham is British. That was actually an insult.

PG described it as a good thing -- apparently that is now a question ("what have you hacked?) that they ask people who want to join Y Combinator.
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