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OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

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Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#731

Post by scythe »

kmlevitt wrote: post #661
Jensson wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this was a fight between the non-profit and the for-profit branches of OpenAI, and the for-profit won. So now the non-profit OpenAI is essentially dead, the takeover is complete.

This view is dated now, because now even Ilya Setskever, The head research scientist who instigated the firing in the first place, now regrets his actions and wants things back to normal! So it really looks like this comes down to the whims of a couple board members now. they don’t seem to have any true believers on their side anymore. It’s just them and almost nobody else.

There is no solid evidence that Setskever instigated the firing beyond speculation by friends who suggest that he had disagreements with Altman. It could just as well have been any of the other board members, or even a simple case of groupthink (the Asch conformity effect) run amok.

Furthermore, it's consistent with all available information that they would prefer to continue without Sam, but they would rather have Sam than lose the company, and now that Microsoft has put its foot down, they'd rather settle.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#732

Post by dayjah »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #726
dayjah wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start ups thrive by, in part, creating a sense of camaraderie. Sam isn’t just their boss, he’s their leader, he’s one of them, they believe in him. You go to bat for your mates, and this is what they’re doing for him. The sense of togetherness is what allows folks to pull together in stressful times, and it is bred by pulling together in stressful times. IME it’s a core ingredient to success. Since OAI is very succes…

Not just Sam, since Greg stuck with Sam and immediately quit he set the precedent for the rest of the company. If you read this post[0] by Sam about Greg's character and work ethic you'll understand why so many people would follow him. He was essentially the platoon sergeant of OpenAI and probably commands an immense amount of loyalty and respect. Where those two go, everyone will follow. [0] https://blog.samaltman.c…

Absolutely! Thanks for pointing out that I missed Greg in my answer.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#733

Post by jkaplan »

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…

Probably some combination of: 1. Pressure from Microsoft and their e-team 2. Not actually caring about those stakes 3. A culture of putting growth/money above all

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#734

Post by slavik81 »

jacquesm wrote: post #341
boh wrote: post #312

There can exist an inherent delusion within elements of a company, that if left unchallenged, can persist. An agreement for instance, can seem airtight because it's never challenged, but falls apart in court. The OpenAI fallacy was that non-profit principals were guiding the success of the firm, and when the board decided to test that theory, it broke the whole delusion. Had it not fully challenged Altman, the board…

Yes, indeed and that's the real loss here: any chance of governing this properly got blown up by incompetence.

> that's the real loss here: any chance of governing this properly got blown up by incompetence

If this incident is representative, I'm not sure there was ever a possibility of good governance.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#735

Post by davisr »

raphman wrote: post #300
tarruda wrote: post #246

The whole thing starts to look like a coup orchestrated by Microsoft

Somehow reminds me of Nokia... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7645482 frik on April 25, 2014: > The Nokia fate will be remembered as hostile takeover. Everything worked out in the favor of Microsoft in the end. Though Windows Phone/Tablet have low market share, a lot lower than expected. > * Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning…

> I don't actually believe that there is an evil Microsoft master plan.

What planet are you living on?

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#736

Post by standapart »

What a wonderful way to cut headcount/expense and lock-in profitable margins on healthy annual revenue.

Can only work when you have the advantage of being the dominant product in the marketplace -- but I gotta hand it to the board, I couldn't have done it better myself.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#737

Post by returningfory2 »

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.

This comment is factually incorrect. As part of the deal with OpenAI, Microsoft has access to all of the IP, model weights, etc.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#738

Post by cactusplant7374 »

captainclam wrote: post #410
cactusplant7374 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will never discover AGI with this approach because 1) they are brute forcing the results and 2) none of this is actually science.

1) It may be possible to brute-force a model into something that sufficiently resembles AGI for most use-cases (at least well enough to merit concern about who controls it) 2) Deep learning has never been terribly scientific, but here we are.

If it can’t digest a math textbook and do equations, how would AGI be accomplished? So many problems are advanced mathematics.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#739

Post by Arainach »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #659
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…

Really? If they work at OpenAI they are already among the highest lifetime earners on the planet. Favouring moving oneself from the top 0.5% of global lifetime earners to the top 0.1% (or whatever the percentile shift is) over the safe development of a potentially humanity-changing technology would be depraved. EDIT: I don't know why this is being downvoted. My speculation as to the average OpenAI employee's place in…

Focusing on "global earnings" is disingenuous and dismissive.

In the US, and particularly in California, there is a huge quality of life change going from 100K/yr to 500K/yr (you can potentially afford a house, for starters) and a significant quality of life change going from 500K/yr to getting millions in an IPO and never having to work again if you don't want to.

How those numbers line up to the rest of the world does not matter.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#740

Post by RadixDLT »

OpenAI's co-founder Ilya Sutskever and more than 500 other employees have threatened to quit the embattled company after its board dramatically fired CEO Sam Altman. In an open letter to the company's board, which voted to oust Altman on Friday, the group said it is obvious 'that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI'. Sutskever is a member of the board and backed the decision to fire Altman, before tweeting his 'regret' on Monday and adding his name to the letter. Employees who signed the letter said that if the board does not step down, they 'may choose to resign' en masse and join 'the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman'.
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