I'm just glad I'm not reading about Elon musk for a few days.
OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
711–720 of 946 posts
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#712Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What exactly is the problem here? Is a non-profit expected to exclusively help impoverished communities or something? Yes. Yes and more yes. That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation. Because they are supposed to be improving society, not profiting from it.
> That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation. That's your belief . The NFL, Heritage Foundation and Scientology are all non-profits and none of them improve society; they all profit from it. (For what its' worth, I wish the law was more aligned with your worldview)
Starting OpenAI as a fork of Scientology from the get go would have saved everyone a great deal of hair splitting.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it ju…
> I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships Brand is just shorthand for trust in their future, managed by a credible team. I.e. relationships . A lot of OpenAI’s reputation is/was Sam Altman’s reputation. Altman has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional. Just the latter has tremendous rel…
The AI community isn't large, as in the brainpower available. I am talking about the PhD pool. If this pool isn't growing fast enough, no matter what cash or hardware is thrown on the table, then the hype Sam Altman generates can be a pointless distraction and waste of everyones time.
But its all par for the course when Hypsters captain the ship and PhDs with zero biz sense try to wrest power.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#714Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Apparently they had to give 48 hours notice for calling special teleconference meetings, and only Mira was notified (not a board member) and Greg was not even invited. > at least four days before any such meeting if given by first-class mail or forty-eight hours before any such meeting if given personally, [] or by electronic transmission. But the bylaws also state that a board member may be fired (or resign) at…
I don't see how this kind of reasoning can possible hold up. How can board members not be invited to such an important decision? You can't say they don't have to be there because they won't be a board member after this decision; they're still a board member before the decision has been made to remove them. If Ilya was on the side of Sam and Greg, the other 3 never had a majority. The only explanation is that Ilya vot…
Everyone assumes that the vote must have happened during the special meeting, but the decision to fire the CEO/or CEO stepping down may happen at any time.
> if the vote happened in an illegitimate way, I'd expect Sam and Greg to immediately challenge it and ignore the decision, and that didn't happen.
So perhaps the vote was legit?
- Investigation concludes Sam has not been consistently candid.
- Board realizes it has a majority and cause to fire Sam and demote Greg.
- Informs remaining board members that they will have a special meeting in 48 hours to notify Sam and Greg.
Still murky, since Sam would have attended the meeting under assumption that he was part of the board (and still had his access badge, despite already being fired). Perhaps it is also possible to waive the 48 hours? Like: "Hey, here is a Google meet for a special meeting in a few hours, can we call it, or do we have to wait?"
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is a non-profit expected to exclusively help impoverished communities or something? What type of politicking and deception is involved in creating a for profit subsidiary which is granted license to OpenAIs research in order to generate wealth? OpenAI was literally founded on the promise of keeping AGI out of the hands of “big tech companies”. The first thing that Sam Altman did when he took over was give Microsoft…
> OpenAI was literally founded on the promise of keeping AGI out of the hands of “big tech companies”. Where does it say that?
In their charter:
> We commit to use any influence we obtain over AGI’s deployment to ensure it is used for the benefit of all, and to avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#716I find it strange that Satya says he has not been given an explanation yet. Tweet from Bloomberg Tech Journalist, Emily Chang >The more I watch this interview – the wilder this story seems. Satya insists he hasn’t been given any reason why Sam was fired. THE CEO OF MICROSOFT STILL DOES NOT KNOW WHY: “I’ve not been told about anything…” he tells me. source: https://x.com/emilychangtv/status/1726835093325721684
Thinking as charitable as possible, this broke just before the weekend and developed over the weekend, outside of business hours. Even the management team of openai haven't seen anything in writing from the board. We should see by lunch / close of business today a written statement by the board.
In today's tiktok world we expect instant responses but business and boards work slower. Really, even 5 years ago we wouldn't be surprised by this. Lawyers, banks, investors etc would all need to be contacted, things arranged, statements prepared, meetings organised. So a written statement late today, and a meeting for mid week. That's about the most charitable I can think of!
Apparently board bylaws say they need 48hrs notice to arrange special meetings. So the earliest would be today if they arranged it early Saturday.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moreover, if this is true, he could reasonably well continue knowing that he has more power than the board. I could almost imagine the board saying, "You can't do that" and him replying "Watch me!" because he understood he is more powerful than them. And he proved he was right, and the board can either step down and lose completely or try to continue and destroy whatever is left of OpenAI.
The thing is, they could have just come out with that fact and everyone in the alignment camp and people who memed the whole super-commercialized "Open" AI thing would be on their side. But the fact that they haven't means that either there was no greater-good mission related reason for ousting Sam or the board is just completely incompetent at communication. Either way, they need to go and make room for people who c…
That is a very good point. Why wouldn't they come out and say it if the reason is Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia? Why make up weak fake reasons?
On the other hand, if it's really just about a power struggle, why not use Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia as the fake reason? Why come up with some weak HR excuses?
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#718Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why are we not taking them at their word? Ignoring the lack of credibility in the given explanations, people are, perhaps, also wary that taking boards/execs at their word hasn't always worked out so well in the past. Until an explanation that at least passes the sniff test for truthiness comes out, people will keep speculating. And so they should.
Right, except most people here are proposing BETTER reasons for why they fired him. Which ignores that if any of these better reasons people are proposing were actually true, they would just state them themselves instead of using ones that sound like pitiful excuses.
Whether it be dissecting what the Kardashians ate for breakfast or understanding why the earth may or may not be flat, seeking to understand the world around us is just what we do as humans. And part of that process is "speculating sensational, justifiable reasons" for why things may be so.
Of course, what is actually worth speculating over is up for debate. As is what actually constitutes a better theory.
But, if people think this is something worth pouring their speculative powers into, they will continue to do so. More power to them.
Now, personally, I'm partly with you here. There is an element of futility in speculating at this stage given the current information we have.
But I'm also partly with the speculators here insofar as the given explanations not really adding up.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think ChatGPT has created some harms: - It's been used unethically for psychological and medical purposes (with insufficient testing and insufficient consent, and possible psychological and physical harms). - It has been used to distort educational attainment and undermine the current basis of some credentials as a result. - It has been used to create synthetic content that has been released unmarked into the inter…
and so has the internet. some use it for good, others for evil.
these are behaviours and traits of the user, not the tool.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#720Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow this is significant, he did this to Charlie cheever the best guy at Facebook and quora. He got Matt on board and fired Charlie without informing investors. Only difference this time 100 billion company is at stake at openai. Process is similar. This going very wrong for Adam D'Angelo. With this I hope other board members get to the bottom get Sam back and vote out D'Angelo from board. This school level immaturity…
People keep talking about an inexperienced board, but this sounds like this D'Angelo might be a bit too experienced, especially in this kind of boardroom maneuvering.
That may be so but those other times he didn't check to see if the arm holding the banana wasn't accidentally attached to the 900 pound gorilla before trying to snatch the banana. And now the gorilla is angry.