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We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

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Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#661
post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

The Hacker News comments section has really gone to shit.

People here used to back up their bold claims with arguments.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#662

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

> Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? I can't believe I'm about to defend VCs and "senior management" but here goes. I've worked for two start-ups in my life. The first start-up had dog-shit technology (initially) and top-notch management. CEO told me early on that VCs invest on the quality of management because they trust good senior executives to hi…

Great comment. You interspersed the two, but instead of using management I like to say that it's leadership that matters. Getting a bunch of people (smart or not) to all row in the same direction with the same vision is hard. It's also commonly the difference between success and failure. Of course the ICs deserve admiration and respect, but people (ICs) are often quick to dismiss leadership.

A great analogy can be found on basketball teams. Lots of star players who should succeed sans any coach, but Phil Jackson and Coach K have shown time and again the important role leadership plays.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#663

Satya and Sam committed securities fraud with their late Sunday “funding secured” ploy to protect the MSFT stock price. This was the obvious outcome. Sam had no intentions of actually going through with that and Satya was in no position to unilaterally commit to the type of funding that he was implying. They lied to protect the stock. That should be illegal. In fact, it is illegal.

Short sellers in shambles right now.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#664

With Sam coming back as CEO, hasn't OpenAI board proven that it has lost its function? Regardless of who is in the board, they won't be able to exercise one of the most fundamental of their rights, firing the CEO, because Sam has proven that he is unfireable. Now, Sam can do however he pleases, whether it is lying, not reporting, etc. To be clear, I don't claim that Sam did, or will, lie, or misbehave.

This is a better deal for the board and a worse one for Sam than people realize. Sam and Greg and even Ilya are both off the board, D'Angelo gets to stay on despite his outrageous actions, and he gets veto power over who the new board members will be and a big say in who gets voted on to the board next. Everybody's guard is going to be up around Sam from now on. He'll have much less leverage over this board than he d…

I'd be shocked if D'Angelo doesn't get kicked off. Even before this debacle his AI competitor app poe.com is an obvious conflict of interest with OpenAI.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#665

At the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1]. > Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressu…

I feel like the "safety" crowd lost the PR battle, in part, because of framing it as "safety" and over-emphasizing on existential risk. Like you say, not that many people truly take that seriously right now. But even if those types of problems don't surface anytime soon, this wave of AI is almost certainly going to be a powerful, society-altering technology; potentially more powerful than any in decades. We've all se…

No one who wants to capitalize on AI appears to take it seriously. Especially how grey that safety is. I'm not concerned AI is going to nuke humanity, I'm more concerned it'll re-enforce racism, bias, and the rest of human's irrational activities because it's _blindly_ using existing history to predict future.

We've seen it in the past decade in multiple cases. That's safety.

The decision that the topic discusses means Business is winning, and they absolutely will re-enforce the idea that the only care is that these systems allow them to re-enforce the business cases.

That's bad, and unsafe.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#666
post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

> it is effectively controlled by Microsoft

I don't consider this confirmed. Microsoft brought an enormous amount of money and other power to the table, and their role was certainly big, but it is far from clear to me that they held all or most of the power that was wielded.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#667

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

Yea its a bit much he obviously doesn't deserve the admiration that he is getting. That said he deserves respect for helping bring ChatGPT to market, he deserves support because the board have acted like clowns and justified it with their mission of public accountability, but have rejected the idea that the board itself should be publicly accountable.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#668
post #479
post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

> Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. If the "other side" (board) had put up a SINGLE convincing argument on why Sam had to go maybe the employees would have not supported Sam unequivocally. But, atleast as an outsider, we heard nothing that suggests board had reasons to remove Sam other than "the vibes were off" Can you really acc…

My guess is that the arguments are something along the lines of “OpenAIs current products are already causing harm or on the path to do so” or something similar damaging to the products. Something they are afraid of both having continue to move forward on and to having to communicate as it would damage the brand. Like “We already have reports of several hundred people killing themselves because of ChatGPT responses…” and everyone would say, “Oh that makes… wait what??”

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#669
post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

How can you without access to the information that actual employees had of the situation say "there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees"?

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#670

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

> Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? I can't believe I'm about to defend VCs and "senior management" but here goes. I've worked for two start-ups in my life. The first start-up had dog-shit technology (initially) and top-notch management. CEO told me early on that VCs invest on the quality of management because they trust good senior executives to hi…

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