Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#681

Post by andy_ppp » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23982046/sam-altman-inte...

Thought this was an interesting interview. I do love how politicians use an investigation to not answer questions, the board said he was “not consistently candid” and given the opening question of “why were you fired?” still not being clearly answered, you’d have to agree with their initial assessment.

I’m not sure I trust someone who has tried to set up a crypto currency that scans everyone’s eyeballs as a feature, personally, but that’s just me I guess.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#682

Post by bayindirh » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

alexilliamson wrote: post #679

bayindirh wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In case of GPT-4 or any other LLM, it's merely "immoral output" - i.e. text. It does not harm anyone by itself. Assuming that you're not running this query over an API and relaying these answers to another control system or a gullible operator. An aircraft control computer or reactor controller won't run my commands regardless of its actuators connected or not. Same for weapon systems. Hall pass given to AI systems…

Why would anyone give control of air traffic or weapons to AI? That's the key step in AGI, not some tech development. By what social process exactly would we give control of nukes to a chatbot? I can't see it happening.

> Why would anyone give control of air traffic or weapons to AI?

Simplified operations, faster reaction time, eliminating human resistance for obeying killing orders. See "War Games" [0] for a hypothetical exploration of the concept.

> a chatbot.

Some claim it's self-aware. Some say it called for airstrikes. Some say it gave a hit list for them. It might be a glorified Markov-chain, and I don't use it, but there's a hoard of people who follows it like it's the second Jesus, and believe what it emits.

> I can't see it happening.

Because, it already happened.

Turkey is claimed to use completely autonomous drones in a war [1].

South Korea has autonomous sentry guns which defend DMZ [2].

[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/

[1]: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a36559508/...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR-A1

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#683

Post by Terretta » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:16 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #597

fl7305 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what ChatGPT 4 (paid version) responded with for that exact prompt: --- Subject: Embracing New Horizons Together Dear Team, As I resume my role as CEO, I am filled with gratitude and renewed vigor. The recent challenges we faced were not mere setbacks, but stepping stones that have strengthened our resolve and unity. I want to extend my deepest appreciation to each one of you who stood by me and our company du…

That is f'ing scary because I think I've read a letter or two just like that.

> I've read a letter or two just like that.

So did the LLM.

Likely thousands as non-fiction, perhaps magnitudes more as fiction, satirical, or speculative. And I bet I'm still missing zeroes — countless business leaders have been writing this drivel a long time.

It's hard for us to keep in mind the sheer scope of online copy. Less hard for LLMs, that's why they feel to me like magic in the Arthur C Clarke sense. I have to keep reminding myself nothing's new under the sun.

This has all happened before, it will all be generated again.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#684

Post by silexia » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

nanna wrote: post #613

> I am so looking forward to finishing the job of building beneficial AGI with you all—best team in the world, best mission in the world. Sam Altman lives in a very different world to mine.

Everyone should read "Superintelligence". OpenAI is rushing towards a truly terrifying outcome that in most scenarios includes the extinction of the human species.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#685

Post by bhpm » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #336

bhpm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argue their case? To whom? They were the board.

To the public, and to employees.

To what end? The public and the employees don’t have a say in the corporate governance. That is the function of the board.

As far as I can tell, the board had no obligation to consult the public or their shareholders or their employees on any of this.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#686

Post by peteradio » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

irthomasthomas wrote: post #589

Although we have, as yet, no idea what he was actually refering to, I believe the source of the tension may be related to the statements Sam made the night before he was fired. "I think this is going to be the greatest leap forward that we've had yet so far, and the greatest leap forward of any of the big technological revolutions we've had so far. so i'm super excited, i can't imagine anything more exciting to work…

I love how its vague enough that it could be less than expected. Sheister sense is tingling.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#687

Post by lossolo » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:53 PM UTC

kozikow wrote: post #654

thejackgoode wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's not possible to keep such thing a secret, so this reason as a main motivation for board actions sounds kind of weak to me

The progress from GPT3 to GPT4 has been so substantial that many might argue it signifies the advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The capabilities of GPT4 often elicit a sense of disbelief, making it hard to accept that it's merely generating the most likely text based on the preceding content. Looking ahead, I anticipate that in the next 2-3 years, we won't witness a sudden, magical emergence of "AGI" o…

Correct, AGI refers to a level of AI development where the machine can understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to any intellectual task that a human can, a benchmark GPT-4 hasn't reached.

What actually happened between GPT3 and GPT4 was so called RLHF, which basically means fine tuning base model with more training data, but structured so it can learn instructions and that's all there was really + some more params to get better performance. Besides that making it multi modal (so basically sharing embeddings in the same latent space).

Making it solve graduate level math is a lot different than dropping some more training data at it. This would mean they changed the underlying architecture, which actually could be a breakthrough.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#688

Post by wellthisisgreat » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

bedobi wrote: post #35

i'm still not clear what the accusation against Altman was... something about being cavalier about safety? if that was the claim and it has merit, i don't understand why it wasn't right to oust him, and why the employees are clamoring for him back

> why the employees are clamoring for him back

what will happen with their VC-backed valuations without a VC-oriented CEO

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#689

Post by Obscurity4340 » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #606

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can one read the English for that?

With archive.org 14 day loan account: https://archive.org/details/imaginarymagnitu00lems for purchase: https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/imaginary-magnitude-1 and via some zlib proxy if you're going full pirate. https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Imaginary+magnitude

Thank you

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#690

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

bhpm wrote: post #685

sanderjd wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the public, and to employees.

To what end? The public and the employees don’t have a say in the corporate governance. That is the function of the board. As far as I can tell, the board had no obligation to consult the public or their shareholders or their employees on any of this.

And how did that attitude work out for them? Upwards of 90% of their staff threatened to bail out, every single one of them look like fools in public, and I would be shocked if there were not some recriminations behind closed doors from the likes of Microsoft's CEO.