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Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

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Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#861

Post by Jayakumark »

shubhamjain wrote: post #99

Have to give it to Satya. There's a thin possibility that Microsoft would have to write-off its whole $10B (or more?) investment in OpenAI, but that isn't Satya's focus. The focus is on what he can do next. Maybe, recruit the most formidable AI team in the world, removed from the shackles of an awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company? Give enough (cash) incentives and most of OpenAI employees would have no qua…

For Microsoft , 2% loss in stock value on this news on Friday was $60 billion, so writing off $10B and giving another $50B to form a team is still a great deal.

For Sam , he got more than what he was asking and a better prospect to become CEO of Microsoft when Satya leaves. Satya lead cloud division, which was the industry growth market at that time before becoming CEO and now sam is leading AI division , the next growth market.

Ilya still lost in all of this , he managed to get back the keys of a city from sam , who now got this keys to the whole country . Eventually sam will pull everyone out of the city in to rest of his country. Microsoft just needs a few openai employees to join them . They just need data and GPU , openai has reached its limits for getting more data and was begging for more private data while Microsoft holds worlds data, they will just give a few offers to business or free Microsoft products in return of using their data or use their own. I think it’s the end for openAI.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#862

Post by ethanbond »

moralestapia wrote: post #833
belter wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when they did this? "Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion" - https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/ To then write down their assets? "How Skype lost its crown to Zoom" - https://www.wired.co.uk/article/skype-coronavirus-pandemic Or when they did this ? Or how in 2014... "Microsoft buying Nokia's phone business in a $7.2 billion bid for its mobile future" - https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/2/46…

They didn't buy OpenAI, they got the best part of their team to develop new products for MS.

What’s the evidence behind “they got the best part of their team?”

It seems to me roughly all of the value of OpenAI’s products is in the model itself and presumably the supporting infrastructure, neither of which seem like they’re going to MSFT (yet?).

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#863

Post by starfallg »

stingraycharles wrote: post #702
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a bit tragic that Ilya and company achieved the exact opposite of what they intended apparently, by driving those they attempted to slow down into the arms of people with more money and less morals. Well. If they didn’t fire him, Altman will just continue to run hog wild over their charter. In that sense they lose either way. At least this way, OpenAI can continue to operate independently instead of being Micr…

How will they be able to continue doing their things without money? It seems like people forget that it was the investors’ money that made all this possible in the first place.

Now that OpenAI is the leader in the field, it has a lot of monetisation avenues above and over the existing income streams of parterships, ChatGPT+ and API access.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#864

Post by insanitybit »

There's a high likelihood that MS is going to start poaching top AI talent aggressively, with Altman's help. This will be to the significant detriment of OpenAI.

If this is how it plays out, OpenAI's board will be famous for decades to come for their boneheaded handling of this situation.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#865

Post by BlueTemplar »

cyanydeez wrote: post #748
9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

I'm going to just sit here waiting for ClippyAI coming 2025

This music video would have been prophetic, huh ?

Delta Heavy - Ghost (Official Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4taIpALfAo

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#866

Post by staunton »

denton-scratch wrote: post #822
9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

> a council that actually has humanities interests in mind It's interesting that "Effective Altruism" enthusiasts all seem to be mega-rich grifters.

I bet you can only name one...

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#867

Post by sanderjd »

zoogeny wrote: post #190

All of the naysayers here seem convinced this is Altman and Microsoft looking to destroy OpenAI. Normally I am the cynic but this time I’m seeing a potential win-win here. Altman uses his talent to recruit and drive forward a brilliant product focused AI. OpenAI gets to refocus on deep research and safety. Put aside cynicism and consider Nadella is looking to create the best of all worlds for all parties. This might…

Agreed, I think this is an awesome outcome. We now have an extremely capable AI product organization in-house at each of Microsoft, Meta, and Google, and a couple strong research-oriented organizations in Anthropic and OpenAI. This sounds like a recipe for a thriving competitive industry to me.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#868

Post by anonyfox »

Seems like in the minority here, but for me this is looking like a win-win-win situation for now.

1. OpenAI just got bumped up to my top address to apply to (if I would have the skills of a scientist, I am only an engineer level), I want AGI to happen and can totally understand that the actual scientists don't really care for money or becoming a big company at all, this is more a burden than anything else for research speed. It doesn't matter that the "company OpenAI" implodes here as long as they can pay their scientists and have access to compute, which they have do.

2. Microsoft can quite seamlessly pick up the ball and commercialize GPTs like no tomorrow and without restraint. And while there are lots of bad things to say about microsoft, reliable operations and support is something I trust them more than most others, so if the OAI API simply is moved as-is to some MSFT infrastructure thats a _good_ thing in my book.

3. Sam and his buddies are taken care of because they are in for the money ultimately, whereas the true researchers can stay at OpenAI. Working for Sam now is straightforward commercialization without the "open" shenaningans, and working for OpenAI can now become the idealistic thing again that also attracts people.

4. Satya Nadella is becoming celebrated and MSFT shareholder value will eventually rise even further. They actually don't have any interest in "smashing OAI" but the new setup actually streamlines everything once the initial operational hurdles (including staffing) are solved.

5. We outsiders end up with a OpenAI research focussed purely on AGI (6. I am really waiting for when Tim Cook announces anything about this topic in general. Never ever underestimate Apple, especially when there is radio silence, and when the first movers in a field have fired their shots already.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#869

Post by causi »

Applejinx wrote: post #785
causi wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, This isn't saying yes or no to a supervillain working in a secret volcano lair. This is an arms race. If it's possible for a technology to exist it will exist. The only choice we have is who gets it first. Maybe that means we get destroyed by it first before it destroys everyone else, or maybe it's the reason w…

The assumption that it is an arms race is a shockingly anthropocentric view of something that's supposed to be 'intelligence' but is just a distillation of collected HUMAN opinion. Not only that, it's a blindered take on what human opinion is. Humans are killer apes AND cooperative, practically eusocial apes. Failing to understand both horns of that dilemma is a serious mistake.

What's the difference for the world between the Altman and the Sutskever approach for OpenAI? With Altman the bad stuff happens at OpenAI and everyone gets it at the same time. With Sutskever, the bad stuff happens two years later but it happens in random pockets all over the world and nobody can be quite sure what they're facing.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#870

Post by underdeserver »

alsodumb wrote: post #566
belter wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when they did this? "Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion" - https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/ To then write down their assets? "How Skype lost its crown to Zoom" - https://www.wired.co.uk/article/skype-coronavirus-pandemic Or when they did this ? Or how in 2014... "Microsoft buying Nokia's phone business in a $7.2 billion bid for its mobile future" - https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/2/46…

Remember when they did this? "Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion" - https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-g... only to enable GitHub to do greater things, without disrupting user experience? "Four years after being acquired by Microsoft, GitHub keeps doing its thing" - https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/four-years-after-being-acq... or when they acquired LinkedIn before that? "Microsoft…

The Activision purchase is still way too new to judge.
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