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OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

businessinsider.com

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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#671

Post by TrackerFF »

squigz wrote: post #448
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Have these people never worked at any other company before? Half the board has not had a real job ever. I’m serious.

Could you please elaborate on what a 'real job' is in this context?

I'm going to assume that he's referring to Tasha and Helen.

I don't know if that is accurate, or even fair - the only thing I can see, is that there's very little open information regarding them.

From the little I can find, Tasha seems to have worked at NASA Research Park, as well as having been CEO for startup called Geo Sim Cities. Stanford and CMU alumni? While other websites say Bard college and University of Southern California.

As for Helen, she seems to have worked as a researcher in both academia and Open Philanthropy.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#672

Post by xpuente »

Most likely related to this:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/openai-pauses-new-chatgp...

The back-end cost does not scale. Hence, they have a big problem. AGI nonsense reasons are ridiculous. Transformers are a road to nowhere and they knew it.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#673

Post by blackoil »

015a wrote: post #350
aravindgp wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my point why would d Angelo want openai to thrive when his own company poe(chatbot) wants compete in the same space. Its conflict of interest which ever way you look. He should resign from board of openai in the first place. The main point is greg, Ilya can get 50% vote and convince Helen toner to change decision. It's all done then it's 3 to 2 in board of 5 people. Unless greg board membership is reinstated.…

So? Sam gave Worldcoin early access to OpenAI's proprietary technology. Should Sam step down (oh wait)?

Worldcoin has no conflict of interest with OpenAI. Unless he gave tech for free causing great loss to the OpenAI it is simply finding an early beta customer.

Also, to fire over something so trivial would be equally if not more stupid. It is like firing Elon because he without open bidding sent Tesla on SpaceX.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#674

Post by verdverm »

Zolde wrote: post #660
trhway wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move Then that execution and operationalization failure is even more profound.

You are under the impression that OpenAI "just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold", but it was one of the fastest growing B2C companies ever, failing to scale to paid demand, not failing to scale to monetization. I admire the execution and operationalization, where you see a failure. What am I missing?

If the leadership of a hyper scaling company falls apart like what we've seen with OpenAI, is that not failure to execute and operationalize?

We'll see what comes of this over the coming weeks. Will the service see more downtime? Will the company implode completely?

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#675

Post by jacquesm »

himaraya wrote: post #447
jacquesm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of which should have been covered in the paperwork.

Hence the need for strict governance. I can't think of another board with so many board seats empty, to say nothing about conflicts of interest.

That's another item, actually. When there are a lot of vacancies on the board you don't make controversial decisions if you can avoid them for fear of being seen as acting without sufficient support for the decision. Especially not if those decisions have the potential to utterly wreck the thing you are supposed to be governing.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#676

Post by shafyy »

todd3834 wrote: post #576
shafyy wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ChatGPT has already had a tremendous positive impact on society. Citation needed

Fair enough, I should have said, it’s my opinion that it has had a positive impact. I still think it’s easy to see them as a non profit. Even with everything they announced at AI day. Can anyone make an argument against it? Or just downvote because you don’t agree.

For what it's worth, I didn't downvote you.

Depends on what you define as positive impact. Helping programmers write boiler plate code faster? Summarize a document for lazy fuckers who can't get themselves to read two page? Ok, not sure if this is what I would consider "positive impact".

For a list of negative impacts, see the sister comments. I'd also like to add that the energy usage of LLMs like ChatGPT is immensely high, and this in a time where we need to cut carbon emissions. And mostly used for shits and gigles by some boomers.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#677

Post by jacquesm »

kmlevitt wrote: post #368
jacquesm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it matters anymore. He's between a rock and a hard place: if the others followed him without knowing the real reason he's got two more enemies on the board who are likely talking to their own lawyers by now. If he spills it he's screwed immediately, if he doesn't he's screwed in the longer term. So for his sake I hope there are some nice time-stamped minutes that detail exactly what caused them to act l…

That’s another thing though: they were apparently holding secret meetings plotting all this without informing Greg or Sam, which is apparently against their own regulations. So if that’s the case it’s unlikely there is any formal record of what was discussed. And perhaps by design.

That would be pretty damning and it is very likely to come out. Board meetings that aren't board meetings are a big no-no.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#678

Post by blackoil »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #497
dclowd9901 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I’ve always assumed (known) there is no actual difference between high level execs and you: they just think higher of themselves.

What you've likely seen of executives is 15 minutes of face time after 7 weeks of vicious Game of Thrones behind the scenes. It's a curated image.

That is the idea, keep GoT behind the scene. Don't dump it on the street. When you have a new king, make sure he isn't usurped next day and population is revolting outside the gates of Red Keep.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#679

Post by jacquesm »

leoc wrote: post #291
jacquesm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have no details of OpenAI's Board’s reasons for firing Sam" Not the strongest opening line I've seen.

I do have to point out that this is also true of nearly everyone else who’s expressed a strong opinion on the topic, and it didn’t stop any of them …

That's a fair point but there is at the same time a lot of information about how boards are supposed to work and how board members are supposed to act and the evidence that did come out doesn't really make it seem as if it is compatible with that body of knowledge.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#680

Post by m_mueller »

motoxpro wrote: post #540
dmix wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically he's the interim CEO in a chaotic company just assigned in the last 24hrs. I'd probably wait to get my bearings before walking in acting like I've got everything under control on the first day after a major upheaval. The only thing I've read about Shear is he is pro-slowing AI development and pro-Yudkowsky's doomer worldview on AI. That might not be a pill the company is ready to swallow. https://x.com/dr…

The more I read into this story the more I can't help but to be a conspiracy theorist and say that it feels like the boards intent was to kill the company. No explanation beyond "he tried to give two people the same project the "Killing the company would be consistent with the companies mission" line in the boards statement Adam having a huge conflict of interest Emmet wanting to go from a "10" to a "1-2" I'm either…

Could it be that their research found more 'glimpses' of a dangerous AGI?
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