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

businessinsider.com

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

#671

Post by Auracle »

pests wrote: post #359
Auracle wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no horse in this race but I’m glad that - for once - people aren’t taking claims with absolutely no evidence seriously. That’s no way to function as a society. For all we know she could be jealous, have mental issues, or have a different bone to pick with him and thought that’d be the best way to hurt him. If I had his money I could see some of my own relatives doing similar things after being denied handouts,…

Oh okay then we should just dismiss it?

Absolutely. We have a justice system, not mob justice. False accusations happen all the time. I feel like anyone that feels like you have had pretty charmed lives if you've never known the type of person that would do that.

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

#672

Post by insane_dreamer »

nradov wrote: post #631
insane_dreamer wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not his politics but his takeover and self-sabotage of Twitter. I think most people when they get that much wealth and power turn into assholes because they think they are indestructible (and in a way they are).

Why does anyone here care what happens to Twitter? It's just another social network. We have lots of them. Even if Elon Musk bought it just to burn it down, so what? Anyone who cares can build a replacement. And as a casual Twitter/X user who doesn't give a damn about Musk one way or the other, I don't see the sabotage. The web site and mobile app seem to be working fine. Community Notes is great. I understand that a…

I don't care what happened to Twitter now that I'm off it, but having an egomaniac not only owning but actively controlling, answerable to no one but himself, the most important digital public square in the world, is very problematic from a democratic (not the party) standpoint.

> Anyone who cares can build a replacement.

Technologically, sure; nothing special about it. But in terms of adoption and reach, no, Twitter is unique and extremely difficult to replace.

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

#673

Post by WalterBright »

CPLX wrote: post #511
WalterBright wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, history provides us with examples of societies that confiscated the wealth of the wealthy, and even exterminated them, in their quest to make a utopia. They all ended up as hell-holes. I'm not really interested in repeating that history. It is not at all necessary for wealthy people to be benevolent in order to contribute to society. Nor do they need to be nice people, nor do they need to be unselfish.…

> Unfortunately, history provides us with examples of societies that confiscated the wealth of the wealthy Get out of here with this melodrama. We’re in a society that had higher more progressive tax rates as recently as the 1960’s. This isn’t some science fiction dystopia people are advocating for, just a return to the slightly fairer system we had before organized PR campaigns of the elites brought us the increasin…

> We’re in a society that had higher more progressive tax rates as recently as the 1960’s.

That's only superficially true. There were a lot more deductible things in those days, like company cars and 3 martini lunches. Tax shelter investing was de rigueur then. (Tax shelter investing is an inefficient diversion of resources into unproductive investments.) Reagan traded away the tax shelters and tax deductions for lower tax rates, which turned out rather well.

Washington state has enormously higher tax rates today than in the 60s. Sales tax, property tax, estate tax, and now an income tax.

https://dor.wa.gov/about/statistics-reports/history-washingt...

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

#674

Post by WalterBright »

nvy wrote: post #642
WalterBright wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> amoral wealth-hoarders They're not hoarding wealth. They don't have any Scrooge McDuck cash faults. Their money is all invested , i.e. put to work creating things that people want. > moralists ... capitalists History shows us that societies based on morals (religious, ideological) fare extremely poorly compared with societies based on rights (free markets). Like it or not, for a large, prosperous society you must h…

>They're not hoarding wealth. They don't have any Scrooge McDuck cash faults. Their money is all invested, i.e. put to work creating things that people want. The Panama Papers showed this to be a myth. The ultra rich are in fact extracting wealth and hoarding it in tax havens.

Putting money in a bank is not hoarding it. The bank loans out the money to people who invest/spend it.

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

#675

Post by tptacek »

gorbypark wrote: post #486
tptacek wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it was not so much peer pressure so much as an explicitly coordinated worker action, based on a rational assessment of what their comp packages would look like if the board's plan played out completely.

In my opinion this is most likely. Scenario A, Sam Altman continues as CEO and the for profit arm of OpenAI continues to call the shots, growth and market share continue to be priority number one. Scenario B, Sam Altman is fired, OpenAI non-profit board (re?)-asserts more control. Safety, alignment and other things like that take priority over growth and market share. x% of Employees are Sam believers, and when the r…

Yeah, for what it's worth, I'm not guessing about the comment I wrote; could be totally wrong, but it's something I heard from two different people close to the story.

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

#676

Post by tptacek »

pdonis wrote: post #637
tptacek wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. Sure. But if you're disinclined to hold businesses to higher standards than the norms of business, is there some other argument that would be persuasive about Altman's obligation during the board ouster debacle?

> if you're disinclined to hold businesses to higher standards than the norms of business The only reason to be so disinclined in the case of OpenAI would be that you're sure their existential risk claims are wrong. If that's the case, then I suppose you could just shrug your shoulders and ignore the whole kerfluffle, at least as long as you have no skin in the game. I personally still think the conduct of everyone i…

Ok. That makes sense. Thanks!

Can I reasonably assume that people who are very riled up about OpenAI not meeting its original (weird, IMO) moral standard are revealing that they do in fact take existential AI risk seriously?

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

#677

Post by sudosysgen »

WalterBright wrote: post #662
sudosysgen wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't need to, there simply isn't a universally true notion of rights, it has to be socially defined, whether you're a communist or a capitalist.

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

I certainly agree with you : but "better for humans" is a morally grounded position.

> BTW, we kill wolves that attack us.

Sure. How is that a problem?

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

#678

Post by UIUC_06 »

Atotalnoob wrote: post #177
AlbertCory wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is kind of gross. You post your blog (subtle advertising) then vehemently attack anyone who dares to disagree? Not cool.

Oh no, it's the HN police again. Everyone duck and cover!

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

#679

Post by sudosysgen »

zaat wrote: post #666
sudosysgen wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Nothing I am saying is at odds with modern ethics. I am literally presenting what is basically hetheredoxy. Rights can be natural or artifical (social, legal, etc...). For rights to be natural, you need to appeal to a God, or to natural morality. If you are looking for rights that aren't necessarily natural, you can derive them from a moral theory. There are moral theories that are not derived from an appeal to divinity or metaphysics, but they cannot claim to be naturally and objectively true.

So I still do not understand how we aren't saying the same thing. Rawls proposes a system of universal rights based on a particular moral theory, he does not prove that his system of rights is natural, it is artificial. In fact, Rawls is not a proponent of natural rights, he is a proponent of socially determined rights, hence his theory of the Veil that allows us to socially evaluate proposed rules.

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

#680

Post by stale2002 »

Terr_ wrote: post #432
stale2002 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, so what? > While you might reasonably disagree with their conclusion What I want is for people to actually discuss the topic as opposed to doing a roundabout dismissal that is devoid of substance. > Yet you literally just did that Now you are catching on! I was worried that I was being too subtle. Indeed I did do that! Annoying isn't it? Especially when I am simply fighting fire with fire and showing why this…

> What I want is for people to actually discuss the topic As I already said, they are discussing the topic of [what probably happened in a controversy between Sam Altman and the OpenAI board], by comparing it to [another controversy involving Sam Altman and another board]. That's related and relevant data. You're the one driving all the meta-noise here, with your illogical attempt to gatekeep it as off-topic. > > You…

Hey, as long as you agree that making meta comments about who is making what comments in which message board, as opposed to directly addressing the substance, is worthless and bad then I am glad to have convinced you over to that.
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