Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting • Hacker News Board

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

#661

Post by WalterBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #615

WalterBright wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> You start with the premise that a good societal outcome is morally good

I said how well societies work, and have also used words like "thrive" and "prosperous". We have evolved to be that way, it's our local optima just like beehives have evolved a different local optima.

> you can only make arguments on what things are.

And that's exactly what I did. Humans starve to death under communism - every time it has been tried. Nobody starves due to loose morals.

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

#662

Post by WalterBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:41 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #621

WalterBright wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your right to not be attacked, robbed, or defrauded by others is inherent, not something conferred by religion or morality. As for abortion, the debate there rests on a conflict of the rights of two people, and there isn't any clear answer to it based on rights. Marriage is tangled up with the rights of children. Children are not fully formed humans and we allot them a subset of the rights of adults. Marriage without…

> Your right to not be attacked, robbed, or defrauded by others is inherent, not something conferred by religion or morality. It most certainly isn't. Inherent from where or what? In nature, I have no right not to be attacked by a lion or a pack of wolves, so surely this right cannot exist outside society, and then how can it derive from something outside society? Without a God, man in nature has no rights, though yo…

Then how do you explain the universal fact that the communist notion of rights always fails?

There are clearly some system of rights that are better than others, for humans.

BTW, we kill wolves that attack us.

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

#663

Post by WalterBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:47 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #462

WalterBright wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morals and rights are different things, though they are often conflated. The Constitution, for example, enumerates a series of rights, not morals. Free markets are based on the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (and property). A morality based system could be, for example, you do not have the right to the fruits of your labor, you automatically owe those fruits to others. I'm sad that our K-12 sch…

>Morals and rights are different things, I guess you didn't understand the point, I did not say that rights and morals were the same things, I said that a rights society would still have the moral opinion that its rights were morally good to have, and that respecting those rights was the moral thing to do. You can, I'm sure, recall many discussions on HN where people who come from a society with the right to free spe…

> I seldom hear that particular basis given for free markets however, the basis seems tenuous.

You seldom hear it because it is not taught in schools and is rarely discussed. Leftist ideology is taught instead.

> there may be differences of opinion as to what a free market is/requires, and as to whether the free market was really fundamental to the founding of your country

There are differences of opinion about everything, even math, and even about the Earth being a sphere. Some of those opinions are simply wrong. I did not invent the definition of a free market, you can google it.

> It might be that your country could not really sustain too close a focus on those questions in its K-12 system of education though, best to leave it for later.

Really? The poor dears cannot understand notions of rights? Research shows that kids develop a sense of "mine" long before kindergarten - nobody has to teach it to them.

My father, a college professor of business in his later years, said students would come up to him and say "I didn't think there was a case for free markets! I've never heard of one!" But they do hear a case in K-12 for collectivism.

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

#664

Post by WalterBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #465

WalterBright wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morals do indeed change with the times. Our rights, however, are immutable (inalienable).

So you still have the right to an abortion in Texas?

I addressed the issue of abortion wrt rights elsewhere in this thread.

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

#665

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #360

bmitc wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very generous. Who actually needs greater than 90% of the startups coming out of Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas? Their products just get hyped up and shoved down peoples' throat. And you're wrong. These people do have cash vaults, but they're other peoples' cash vaults. How else do you think they buy things? And they're living in their multi-million dollar mansions and yachts out of benevolence?…

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[deleted]

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

#666

Post by zaat » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #621

WalterBright wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your right to not be attacked, robbed, or defrauded by others is inherent, not something conferred by religion or morality. As for abortion, the debate there rests on a conflict of the rights of two people, and there isn't any clear answer to it based on rights. Marriage is tangled up with the rights of children. Children are not fully formed humans and we allot them a subset of the rights of adults. Marriage without…

> Your right to not be attacked, robbed, or defrauded by others is inherent, not something conferred by religion or morality. It most certainly isn't. Inherent from where or what? In nature, I have no right not to be attacked by a lion or a pack of wolves, so surely this right cannot exist outside society, and then how can it derive from something outside society? Without a God, man in nature has no rights, though yo…

Rights is well developed subject in modern ethics, and it doesn't require God or morality in the sense of "Doing X is bad and therefore immoral". But any discussion of rights is discussion of moral theory.

Modern ethical philosophers have developed ethic theories that propose secular basis for universal rights, moral theory that doesn't rely on God (Rawls is a famous example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice)

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

#667

Post by JimBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #360

bmitc wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very generous. Who actually needs greater than 90% of the startups coming out of Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas? Their products just get hyped up and shoved down peoples' throat. And you're wrong. These people do have cash vaults, but they're other peoples' cash vaults. How else do you think they buy things? And they're living in their multi-million dollar mansions and yachts out of benevolence?…

[flagged]

HIKARU SULU: "You try to cross brains with Walter, he'll cut you to pieces every time." - from The Corbomite Maneuver

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

#668

Post by zaat » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #656

zaat wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God is of very little help (here), as pointed by Plato/Socrates in the Uthyphro dilemma. The naturalistic fallacy is not limited to natural rights, as Hume's is-ought is applicable to legal rights just the same - you can't logically deduce from the fact that there are laws that mandate rights a conclusion that one ought to abide by them. Natural or universal rights does not require theism. Robert Nozick is famous pro…

Natural rights do really require theism to be truly natural, ie, independent of morality and society. Theism avoids the is-ought problem by forgoing the ought, with theism natural law can simply be, and whether you decide you ought to abide them is no longer so important. Nozick's position on the existence natural rights is simply not grounded. He appeals to intuition and to the reader's morality to appeal for their…

> Natural rights do really require theism to be truly natural, ie, independent of morality and society. Theism avoids the is-ought problem by forgoing the ought, with theism natural law can simply be, and whether you decide you ought to abide them is no longer so important.

Hume's original text describing the is-ought problem is specifically targeting justification of ethics on god. Laws that no one is ought to abide by are no laws but nonsense.

Is murder immoral because god hate murder, or do god hate murder because it is immoral?

> At the end of the day, secular natural rights is an intuitive and appealing but ungrounded position that cannot be logically justified

Many will argue that no moral theory can be logically justified, and that the search for logical justification is category error

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

#669

Post by WalterBright » Wed, May 29, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #475

WalterBright wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the kind words! I do appreciate them. I'm sorry to say I don't know enough about Altman to form any kind of opinion on him.

Ultimately it’s pg who owes this community locally and humanity globally for inflicting Altman on the world, but as much as I likewise respect pg on 99/100 things, he seems to be digging his heels in on this one, so I’m not holding my breath. I gather anoxia is a bad way to go. Absent that, a few other recognized OG legends like yourself looking into the matter and rendering an opinion might represent the daylight be…

If Altman has achieved success through force, fraud, or theft, then I oppose him.

If it's through selfish behavior, or hard-nosed behavior, it's ok with me. Just like there's nothing wrong with a football team who plays hard to win, as long as they stay within the rules.

Microsoft eventually defeated me in the C++ business. I don't fault them for that. They are hard-nose players, and I knew what the game was when I got into it. I'm actually friends with a few of their players.

Taking credit for what other people do is immoral, but leaders always do that, all the way up to the President.

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

#670

Post by insane_dreamer » Wed, May 29, 2024, 4:01 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #577

insane_dreamer wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would they be telling? Board members don’t and shouldn’t discuss matters with employees. Please show me the case where employees were told in advance that the board was going to fire the CEO.

I literally said in my last comment who they could've told that would've made the whole thing probably go over better.

I don't think you understand how boards operate, especially in this case. It was the board of the OpenAI __non-profit__, of which Microsoft was _not_ an investor. In this case, their fiduciary duty was not to their shareholders, but rather to the company charter.