OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#711

Post by lisper » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

jonahrd wrote: post #700

mcny wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. I have no inside information. I don't know anyone at Open AI. This is all purely speculation. Now that that's out out the way, here is my guess: money. These people never joined OpenAI to "advance sciences and arts" or to "change the world". They joined OpenAI to earn money. They think they can make more money with Sam Altman in…

I'm not sure I fully buy this, only because how would anyone be absolutely certain that they'd make more with Sam Altman in charge? It feels like a weird thing to speculatively rally behind. I'd imagine there's some internal political drama going on or something we're missing out on.

> how would anyone be absolutely certain that they'd make more with Sam Altman in charge?

Why do you think absolute certainty is required here? It seems to me that "more probable than not" is perfectly adequate to explain the data.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#712

Post by Finbarr » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

leetharris wrote: post #703

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. Maybe it has to do with them wanting to get rich by selling their shares - my understanding is there was an ongoing process to get that happening [1]. If Altman is out of the picture, it looks like Microsoft will assimilate a lot of OpenAI into a separate organisation and OpenAI's shares might become worthless. [1] https://www.f…

Yep. What people don't realize is that Microsoft doesn't own the data or models that OpenAI has today. Yeah, they can poach all the talent, but it still takes an enormous amount of effort to create the dataset and train the models the way OpenAI has done it. Recreating what OpenAI has done over at Microsoft will be nothing short of a herculean effort and I can't see it materializing the way people think it will.

Except MSFT does have access to the IP, and MSFT has access to an enormous trove of their own data across their office suite, Bing, etc. It could be a running start rather than a cold start. A fork of OpenAI inside an unapologetic for profit entity, without the shackles of the weird board structure.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#713

Post by blamestross » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

It's like the "Open" in OpenAi was always an open and obvious lie and everybody except the nonprofit oriented folks on the board knew that. Everybody but them is here to make money and only used the nonprofit as a temporary vehicle for credibility and investment that has just been shed like a cicada shell.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#714

Post by alephnerd » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

jq-r wrote: post #645

godzillabrennus wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Balmer I couldn’t have imagined such competency from Microsoft.

After Ballmer, competency can only be higher at Microsoft.

Ballmer honestly wasn't that bad. He gave executive backing to Azure and the larger Infra push in general at MSFT.

Search and Business Tools were misses, but they more than made up for it with Cloud, Infra, and Security.

Also, Nadella was Ballmer's pick.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#715

Post by ssnistfajen » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

Seems like the board just didn't explain any of this to the staff at all. So of course they are going to take the side that could signal business as usual instead of siding with the people trying to destroy the hottest tech company on the planet (and their jobs/comps) for no apparent reason. If the board said anything at all, the ratio of staff threatening to quit probably won't be this lopsided.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#716

Post by unethical_ban » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

I don't know who is who in this fight. But AI, while having some upsides to research and personal assistants, will not only massively upend a number of industries with millions of workers in the US alone, it will change how society perceives art and truth. We at HN can "see" that from here, but it's going to get real in a short while.

Privacy is out the window, because these models and technologies will be scraping the entire internet, and governments/big tech will be able to scrape it all and correlate language patterns across identities to associate your different online egos.

The Internet that could be both anonymous and engaging is going to die. You won't be able to trust the entity at the other end of a discussion forum is human or not. This is a sad end of an era for the Internet, worse than the big-tech conglomeration of the 2010s.

The ability to trust news and videos will be even more difficult. I have a friend who talks about how Tiktok is the "real source of truth" because big media is just controlled by megacorps and in bed with the government. So now a bunch of seemingly authentic people will be able to post random bullshit on Tiktok/Instagram with convincing audio/video evidence that is totally fake. A lie gets around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.

---

So, I wonder which side of this war is more aware and concerned about these impacts?

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#717

Post by ta1243 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #631

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

> I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. I have no inside information. I don't know anyone at Open AI. This is all purely speculation. Now that that's out out the way, here is my guess: money. These people never joined OpenAI to "advance sciences and arts" or to "change the world". They joined OpenAI to earn money. They think they can make more money with Sam Altman in…

> These people never joined OpenAI to "advance sciences and arts" or to "change the world". They joined OpenAI to earn money

Getting Cochrane vibes from Star Trek there.

> COCHRANE: You wanna know what my vision is? ...Dollar signs! Money! I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I wanna go to the stars? I don't even like to fly. I take trains. I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with ...naked women. That's Zefram Cochrane. That's his vision. This other guy you keep talking about. This historical figure. I never met him. I can't imagine I ever will.

I wonder how history will view Sam Altman

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#718

Post by corethree » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

The masses aren't logical they follow trends until the trends get big enough that it's unwise to not follow.

It started off as a small trend to sign that letter. Past critical mass if you are not signing that letter, you are an enemy.

Also my pronouns are she and her even though I was born with a penis. You must address me with these pronouns. Just putting this random statement here to keep you informed lest you accidentally go against the trend.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#719

Post by anon84873628 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #651

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

> I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. Maybe it has to do with them wanting to get rich by selling their shares - my understanding is there was an ongoing process to get that happening [1]. If Altman is out of the picture, it looks like Microsoft will assimilate a lot of OpenAI into a separate organisation and OpenAI's shares might become worthless. [1] https://www.f…

Yeah, "OpenAI employees would actually prefer to make lots of money now" seems like a plausible answer by default.

It's easy to be a true believer in the mission _before_ all the money is on the table...

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#720

Post by next_xibalba » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #621

I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. The core of the narrative thus far is that the board fired Altman on the grounds that he was prioritising commercialisation over the not-for-profit mission of OpenAI written into the organisation's charter.[1] Given that Sam has since joined Microsoft, that seems plausible, on its face. The board may have been incompetent and shor…

It is probably best to assume that the employees have more and better information than outsiders do. Also, clearly, there is no consensus on safety/alignment, even within OpenAI.

In fact, it seems like the only thing we can really confirm at this point is that the board is not competent.