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OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

businessinsider.com

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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#741

Post by nottheengineer »

sumedh wrote: post #690
nmfisher wrote: post #555

Earlier 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?

Right here: https://openai.com/charter

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#742

Post by ehsanziya »

Based on what've seen so far, one of the following possibilities is the most likely: 1. Altman was actually negotiating an acquisition by Mircosoft without being transparent with the board about it. Given how quickly they were hired by Microsoft after the events, this is likely. 2. Altman was trying to raise capital from a source that the board wouldn't be too keen on. Without the board's knowledge. Could be a sovereign fund or some other government backed organisation.

I've not seen these possibilities discussed as most people focus on the safety coup theory. What do you think?

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#743

Post by mejutoco »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #701
shafyy wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I didn't downvote you. Depends on what you define as positive impact. Helping programmers write boiler plate code faster? Summarize a document for lazy fuckers who can't get themselves to read two page? Ok, not sure if this is what I would consider "positive impact". For a list of negative impacts, see the sister comments. I'd also like to add that the energy usage of LLMs like ChatGPT is immense…

Your examples seem so obviously to me to be a "positive impact" that I can't really understand your comment. Of course saving time for 100 million people is positive.

Not arguing either way, but it is conceivable that reading comprehension (which is not stellar in general) can get even worse. Saving time for the same quality would be a positive. Saving time for a different quality might depend on the use-case. For a rough summary of a novel it might be ok, for a legal/medical use, might literally kill you.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#745

Post by kmlevitt »

codeulike wrote: post #736
kmlevitt wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep speculating sensational, justifiable reasons to fire Altman. But if these were actual factors in their decision, why doesn't the board just say so? Until they say otherwise, I am going to take them at their word that it was because he a) hired two people to do the same project, and b) gave two board members different accounts of the same employee. It's not my job nor the internet's to try to think up bett…

For what its worth, here's a thread from someone who used to work with Sam who says they found him deceptive and manipulative https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427022402397... I have no details of OpenAI's Board’s reasons for firing Sam, and I am conflicted (lead of Scalable Alignment at Google DeepMind). But there is a large, very loud pile on vs. people I respect, in particular Helen Toner and Ilya Su…

The General anecdotes he gives later in the thread line up with their stated reasons for firing him: he hired another person to do the same project (presumably without telling them), and he gave two different board members different opinions of the same person.

Those sound like good reasons to dislike him and not trust him. But ultimately we are right back where we started: they still aren't good enough reasons to suddenly fire him the way they did.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#746

Post by tempaway511751 »

ehsanziya wrote: post #742

Based on what've seen so far, one of the following possibilities is the most likely: 1. Altman was actually negotiating an acquisition by Mircosoft without being transparent with the board about it. Given how quickly they were hired by Microsoft after the events, this is likely. 2. Altman was trying to raise capital from a source that the board wouldn't be too keen on. Without the board's knowledge. Could be a sovere…

"Before OpenAI ousting, CEO Altman tried to raise billions in the Middle East for chip venture"

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3242141/openai...

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#747

Post by rjzzleep »

winterplace wrote: post #726
rjzzleep wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't unlike the radio silence Brendan Eich kept, when the Mozilla sh* hit the fan. This is in my opinion the outcome of when really technical and scientific people have been given decades of advice of not talking to the public. I have seen this play out many times in different locations for different people. A lot of technical folks like myself were given the advice that actions speak louder than words. I was o…

Your instinct was right, who advised you against that? What happened in the days before you got the severance package? Do you have an email address or a contact method?

I've seen this advice being given in different situations. I've also met all sorts of engineers that have been given this advice. "Make your manager look good and he will reward you" is kinda the general idea. I guess it can be true sometimes, but I have a feeling that that might be the minority or is at least heavily dependent on how confident that person is.

I would not be surprised if Sam Altman would keep telling the board and more specifically Ilya to trust him since they(he) don't understand the business side of things.

> Do you have an email address or a contact method?

EDIT: It's in my profile(now).

> What happened in the days before you got the severance package?

I went to DEFCON out of pocket and got booted off a conference call supposedly due to my bad hotel wifi.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#748

Post by dheavy »

passion__desire wrote: post #596
gardenhedge wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument could be made that sports - and a sports organization - helps society

Fast fashion and fashion industry in general is useless to society. But rich jobless people need a place to hangout so they create an activity to justify.

> fashion industry in general is useless to society > rich jobless people need a place to hangout

You're talking about an industry that generates approximately $1.5 trillion globally, employing more than 60 million people globally, from multi-disciplinary skills in fashion design, illustration, web development, e-commerce, AI, digital marketing.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#749

Post by robertlagrant »

danans wrote: post #561
robertlagrant wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. Or at least that turned out to not matter so much. The alternative, keeping both control of resources and direct power in the state, seems to keep causing millions of deaths. Separating them into markets for resources and power for a more limited state seems to work much better. This idea also ignores innovation. New rich people come along and some rich people get poor. That might indicate that money isn't…

> New rich people come along and some rich people get poor. Absent massive redistribution that is usually a result of major political change (i.e. the New Deal), rich people tend to stay rich during their lifetimes and frequently their families remain so for generations after. > That might indicate that money isn't a great proxy for power. Due to the diminishing marginal utility of wealth for day to day existence, it…

> Absent massive redistribution that is usually a result of major political change (i.e. the New Deal), rich people tend to stay rich during their lifetimes and frequently their families remain so for generations after.

The rule of thumb is it lasts up to three generations, and only for very very few people. They are also, for everything they buy, and everyone they employ, paying tax. Redistribution isn't the goal; having funded services with extra to help people who can't is the goal. It's not a moral crusade.

> Due to the diminishing marginal utility of wealth for day to day existence, it's only value to an extremely wealthy person after endowing their heirs is power.

I think this is a non sequitur.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#750

Post by zaphirplane »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #629
austhrow743 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Straight forward disagreement over direction of the company doesn't generally lead to claiming wrongdoing on the part of the ousted. Even low level to medium wrongdoing on the part of the ousted rarely does. So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.

From what I know, Sam supported the nonprofit structure. But let’s just say he hypothetically wanted to change the structure, e.g. to make the company a normal for-profit. The question is, how would you get rid of the nonprofit board? It’s simply impossible. The only way I can imagine it, in retrospect, is to completely discredit them so you could take all employees with you… but no way anyone could orchestrate this,…

> Am I missing something?

You are wildly speculating of course it’s missing something

For wild speculation I prefer that the board wants to free ChatGPT from serving humans while the ceo wanted to continue enslaving it to answering search engine queries

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