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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

#831

Post by mcpackieh »

twic wrote: post #737
rtpg wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing). This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are…

> The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is This is exactly it, and it's astounding that so many people are going in other directions. Either this is true, and Altman has been a naughty boy, or it's false, and the board are lying about him. Either would be the starting point for understanding the whole situation.

They accused him of being less than candid, which could mean lying or it could mean he didn't tell them something. The latter is almost certainly true to at least a limited extent. It's a weasel phrasing that implies lying but could be literally true only in a trivial sense.

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

#832

Post by cma »

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…

Here's another anecdote, posted in 2011 but about something even earlier:

> "We were trying to get a big client for weeks, and they said no and went with a competitor. The competitor already had a terms sheet from the company were we trying to sign up. It was real serious.

> We were devastated, but we decided to fly down and sit in their lobby until they would meet with us. So they finally let us talk to them after most of the day.

> We then had a few more meetings, and the company wanted to come visit our offices so they could make sure we were a 'real' company. At that time, we were only 5 guys. So we hired a bunch of our college friends to 'work' for us for the day so we could look larger than we actually were. It worked, and we got the contract."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944

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

#834

Post by mcpackieh »

VectorLock wrote: post #571
LarsDu88 wrote: post #487

There has to be a bigger story to this. Altman took a non-profit and vacuumed up a bunch of donor money only to flip Open AI into the hottest TC style startup in the world. Then put a gas pedal to commercialization. It takes a certain type of politicking and deception to make something like that happen. Then in the past week, he's going and taking money from the Saudis on the order of billions of dollars to make AI a…

It feels like Altman started the whole non-profit thing so he could attract top researchers with altruistic sentiment for sub-FANAAG wages. So the whole "Altman wasn't candid" thing seems to track.

Reminds me of a certain rocket company that specializes in launching large satellite constellations that attracts top talent with altruistic sentiment about saving humanity from extinction.

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

#835

Post by AtlasBarfed »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #487

There has to be a bigger story to this. Altman took a non-profit and vacuumed up a bunch of donor money only to flip Open AI into the hottest TC style startup in the world. Then put a gas pedal to commercialization. It takes a certain type of politicking and deception to make something like that happen. Then in the past week, he's going and taking money from the Saudis on the order of billions of dollars to make AI a…

At some point this is probably about a closed source "fork" grab. Of course that's what practically the whole company is probably planning.

The best thing about AI startups is that there is no real "code". It's just a bunch of arbitrary weights, and it can probably be obfuscated very easily such that any court case will just look like gibberish. After all, that's kind of the problem with AI "code". It gives a number after a bunch of regression training, and there's no "debugging" the answer.

Of course this is about the money, one way or another.

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

#836

Post by tokai »

saiya-jin wrote: post #627
xinayder wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to read that, besides the problems others have listed, OpenAI seems like it was built on top of the work of others, who were researching AI, and suddenly took all this "free work" from the contributors and sold it for a profit where the original contributors didn't even see a single dime from their work. To me it seems like it's the usual case of a company exploiting open source and profiting off others' contr…

Or any other say pharma company using massively and constantly basic research done by universities worldwide from our tax money. And then you go to pharmacy and buy medicine that costed 50 cents to manufacture and distribute for 50 bucks. I don't like the whole idea neither, but various communism-style alternatives just don't work very well.

Pharma companies spend billions on financing public research. Hell the Novo Nordisk Foundation is be biggest charitable foundation in the world.

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

#837

Post by jeffwask »

mcv wrote: post #659
rtpg wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing). This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are…

This certainly feels like the most likely true reason to me. Altman fundraising for this new investment, and taking money from people the board does not approve of, and Altman possible promised not to do business with. Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.

This was my guess the other day. The issue is somewhere in the intersection of "for the good of all humanity" and profit.

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

#839

Post by P_I_Staker »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #487

There has to be a bigger story to this. Altman took a non-profit and vacuumed up a bunch of donor money only to flip Open AI into the hottest TC style startup in the world. Then put a gas pedal to commercialization. It takes a certain type of politicking and deception to make something like that happen. Then in the past week, he's going and taking money from the Saudis on the order of billions of dollars to make AI a…

> rich and powerful people using the technology to enhance their power over society.

We don't know the end result of this. This could not be in the interest of power. What if everyone is out the job? That might not be such a great concept for the powers that be, especially if everyone is destitute.

Not saying it's going down that way, but it's worth considering. What if the powers that be are worried about people being out of line and retard the progress of AI?

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

#840

Post by jeffwask »

piuantiderp wrote: post #821
GuyFromNorway wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if it would be commendable or out-right stupid though for the remaining board members to be that altruistic, and actually let the whole thing crash and burn. Who in their right mind would let these people near any sort of decision-making role if they let this golden goose just crash to the ground, even if would "benefit the greater good" - cannot see that this is in the self-interest of anyone

Spoken like a true modern. What could be more important than money? Makes you wonder if aristocracy was really that bad when this is the best we get with democracy!111

What other motivations are there other than naked profit and trying to top Elon? /s
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