I think it was Mark Zuckerberg that described (pre-Elon) Twitter as a clown car that fell into a gold mine. Reminds me a bit of the Open AI board. Most of them I'd never heard of either.
I often hear that about the OpenAI board, but in general are people here know most board members of some big/darling tech companies? Outside of some of the co-founders I don't know anyone.
I don't mean I know them personally, but they don't seem to be major names in the manner of (as you see down thread) the Google Founders bringing in Eric Schmidt.
They seem more like the sort of people you'd see running wikimedia.
Altman must be pissed af, he help built so much stuff and now got fked in the arse by these doomers. He realize the fastest way to get back to parity is to join MS because they already own the source code and model weights and it’s Microsoft. Starting a new thing from scratch would not guarantee any type of success and would take many years. This is his best path.
Deservedly or not, Satya Nadella will look like a genius in the aftermath. He has and will continue to leverage this situation to strengthen MSFT's position. Is there word of any other competitors attempting to capitalize here? Trying to poach talent? Anything...
After Balmer I couldn’t have imagined such competency from Microsoft.
After Ballmer, competency can only be higher at Microsoft.
Well 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…
>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.
Why did Ilya sign the letter demanding the board resign or they'll go to Microsoft then?
Yeah, this was a fight between the non-profit and the for-profit branches of OpenAI, and the for-profit won. So now the non-profit OpenAI is essentially dead, the takeover is complete.
The nonprofit side of the venture actually was in worse shape before, because it was completely overwhelmed by for-profit operations. A better way to view this is the nonprofit side rebelled, has a much smaller footprint than the for-profit venture, and we're about to see if during the ascendency of the for-profit activities the nonprofit side retained enough rights to continue to be relevant in the AI conversation.…
> As for employees end masse acting publicly disloyal to their employer, usually not a good career move.
Wut?
This is software, not law. The industry is notorious for people jumping ship every couple of years.
There 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…
I've worked with a lot of non-profits, especially with the upper management. Based on this experience I am mostly convinced that people being motivated by a desire for making money results in far better outcomes/working environment/decision-making than people being motivated by ego, power, and social status, which is basically always what you eventually end up with in any non-profit.
> pressure Altman to limit his side-projects People keep talking about this. That was never going to happen. Look at Sam Altman's career: he's all about startups and building companies. Moreover, I can't imagine he would have agreed to sign any kind of contract with OpenAI that required exclusivity. Know who you're hiring; know why you're hiring them. His "side-projects" could have been hugely beneficial to them over…
> His "side-projects" could have been hugely beneficial to them over the long term. How can you make a claim like this when, right or wrong, Sam's independence is literally, currently, tanking the company? How could allowing Sam to do what he wants benefit OpenAI, the non-profit entity?
> Sam's independence is literally, currently, tanking the company?
A few weeks ago my 4yr old Minecraft gamer was playing pretend and said "I'm fighting the biggest boss. THE MICROSOFT BOSS!" Yeah M$ hasnt had a good reputation. I finally left Windows this year because I'm afraid of them after Win11. 2023/4 will be the year of the Linux Desktop in retrospect. (or at least my family's religion deemed it)
You'd do yourself a favor by not referring to them as "M$". It taints your entire message, true or not.
OP should start by not letting their 4yo play video games.