Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 854 posts

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

#691

Post by tim333 »

bookaway wrote: post #608
admissionsguy wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear - Musk’s crimes are single-handedly turning the US into the leader in EV and space industries, calling one guy a „pedo” and standing trial for it, and supporting the political side that you don’t like?

> calling one guy a „pedo” Yes, and just to be clear -- That one guy was a diver who put his life at risk to save trapped children from an underwater cave, a rescue operation in the span of which a Thai Navy Seal actually died. Furthermore, Musk went on record stating that he had took a further step of hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on the guy, not before he called the guy a pedo, but after when the rea…

And a guy who insulted Musk first.

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

#692

Post by WalterBright »

Kbelicius wrote: post #509
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…

> 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. We did not evolve with private property rights thus, by your reasoning, those are not "natural rights". I am at a loss in trying to understand what you are saying. It seem like you are trying to argue for capitalism…

> We did not evolve with private property rights

Yeah, we did. The concept of "mine" appears very early in children.

Attempts to raise children from birth as good communists have never worked. Nobody has ever managed to indoctrinate people into communal behavior. Even the die hard communists in the USSR still participated in the black market - this was tolerated because even the elites used it.

It turns out that human nature is not very malleable.

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

#693

Post by WalterBright »

sudosysgen wrote: post #681
zaat wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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? We agree here, but that isn't how religion solves the problem. Religious laws are also enforced by threats in the afterlife and violence in the present l…

> hence why it is impossible to derive rights that are logically justified without an appeal to God

All attempts at changing human nature have failed, and it is human nature from whence rights are derived.

Parents with zero or one child believe that human nature is conferred from the parents. Those with 2+ children know that it is inherent.

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

#694

Post by NikolaNovak »

zooq_ai wrote: post #361
imperfect_light wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't lying about product philosophy, lying about your financial stake in an OpenAI VC group would be grounds for dismissal from any company.

[flagged]

At this point I assume this is a troll comment, as nobody could hold views THAT extreme and be THAT snidey in real life (I assume/hope :O )

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

#695

Post by boringg »

tsunamifury wrote: post #116
boringg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not a very defensible person blindly ambitious about power. Kind of weird to be cheering for Elon to knock off Microsoft/OpenAI effort. Also funny to think of Google as an also ran offering for AI.

When it comes to business google is not not an also ran, it has the relationships to monetize the product, vs openAI which has none and a massive trust issue.

Google needs a step function change in capability for it to be at the lead of the pack. It's often not in the conversation for innovative tech in the space right now. I consider that to be an also-ran.

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

#696

Post by HDThoreaun »

mark212 wrote: post #175
HDThoreaun wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vince Mcmahon literally owns WWE but the board fired him. Of course he voted in a new board at the next election but I dont think it's unheard of boards to vote against their founders. Sam is a founder of openAI even if he never controlled the board, and they tried to take control from him.

Bad analogy. Sam has no stock in OpenAI or any sort of formal controlling interest. His power is solely informal: his own talents and abilities and the loyalty of the other employees. Regardless of the truth of the matters, the episode is a perfect example of the limits of formal authority and how informal or "soft" power can be even more effective in shaping events

The point is that board coups are a concept that people are already familiar with, so its not surprising that they thought of it when this similar situation happened.

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

#697

Post by SantalBlush »

WalterBright wrote: post #346
thaumaturgy wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might be time to turn back the clock a bit and revisit some of the things pg said way back when he was pitching Sam Altman to lead YC and the general reaction was "...who?" 2008: "You could parachute [Sam Altman] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without the…

> 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…

I think in order to have a productive discussion about morals and rights, it is essential that those two terms are defined precisely up front. Otherwise, it just leads to everyone talking in circles, because they have different ideas of what those two things mean.

For example, if someone believes that the concept of rights isn't based on morals, I'd suspect they're using a very narrow definition of 'morals'.

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

#698

Post by slg »

m3kw9 wrote: post #648
slg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument flows in both directions. Why defend the guy if you don't know "how everything went down"?

The comment doesn’t indicate a defence of Altman although I’m defending him in my other posts because I usually give people benefit of the doubt

>I usually give people benefit of the doubt

You are not giving Helen Toner the benefit of the doubt. Why does Altman deserve the benefit of the doubt but not her?

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

#699

Post by slg »

m3kw9 wrote: post #649
slg wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Being skeptical about various possibly biased stories from involved parties would mean not accepting any as true. Party A accused party B of being a liar. Party B did not respond. In order to defend party B, you need to accuse party A of lying. Do you not see the flaw in that response? >The burden of proof is usually on the person who brings a claim in a dispute. Only in a criminal trial. There is no assumption of i…

This sounds like entitlement, Altman cannot respond to every attack and satisfy people that assumes he’s guilt if he doesn’t reply

If Altman doesn't think it is worth his time to defend himself, why do you think it is worth your time to defend him?

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

#700

Post by red-iron-pine »

mr_toad wrote: post #197
bmitc wrote: post #86

What is still bizarre is how the board brought him back. I just don't understand that from any angle. It is very clear that he lied and schemed. So why was there any issue? He had no power once fired. If another company wants to hire him, fine. If he wants to make platitudes on Twitter, who cares? Employees threatened to leave? Let them. I imagine many of them wouldn't, and if they did, you could just rehire and find…

> I don't know why Microsoft and others made a huge kerfuffle over it. Microsoft needs the sold-out version of OpenAI so they can make as much money as possible without anyone making pesky noises about ethics and safety.

yeah MS wants the shield that OpenAI provides.

Outsource all of the risk to a non-profit, but still be able to run it, and snag up all of the researchers if/when something gets ugly.

Post reply on HN