We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#861

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #856

garrison wrote: post #637

If OpenAI remains a 501(c)(3) charity, then any employee of Microsoft on the board will have a fiduciary duty to advance the mission of the charity, rather than the business needs of Microsoft. There are obvious conflicts of interest here. I don't expect the IRS to be a fan of this arrangement.

Others have pointed out several reasons this isn't actually a problem (and that the premise itself is incorrect since "OpenAI" is not a charity), but one thing not mentioned: even if the MS-appointed board member is a MS employee, yes they will have a fiduciary duty to the organizations under the purview of the board, but unless they are also a board member of Microsoft (extraordinarily unlikely) they have no such fi…

> and that the premise itself is incorrect since "OpenAI" is not a charity

OpenAI is a 501c3 charity nonprofit, and the OpenAI board under discussion is the board of that charity nonprofit.

OpenAI Global LLC is a for-profit subsidiary of a for-profit subsidiary of OpenAI, both of which are controlled, by their foundational agreements that gie them legal existence, by a different (AFAICT not for-profit but not legally a nonprofit) LLC subsidiary of OpenAI (OpenAI GP LLC.)

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#862

Post by bannedbybros » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#863

Post by sgt101 » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

MattHeard wrote: post #531

I was hopeful for a private-industry approach to AI safety, but it looks unlikely now, and due to the slow pace of state investment in public AI R&D, all approaches to AI safety look unlikely now. Safety research on toy models will continue to provide developments, but the industry expectation appears to be that emergent properties puts a low ceiling on what can be learned about safety without researching on cutting…

There are no emergent properties, just a linear increase in knowledge that can be retrieved.

- It can't plan

- It can't do arithmetic

- It can't reason

- It can approximately retrieve knowledge with a natural language query (there are some issues with this, but it's very good)

- It can encode data into natural languages and other modalities

I'm not worried about it, I am worried about how badly people have misunderstood what it can do and then attempted to use it for things that matter.

But I'm not surprised.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#864

Post by gsuuon » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

At least they'll be operating under the original charter - it sounds like the mission continues. Not sure about this new board but hard to imagine they'd make the same sort of mistake.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#865

Post by oatmeal1 » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #856

garrison wrote: post #637

If OpenAI remains a 501(c)(3) charity, then any employee of Microsoft on the board will have a fiduciary duty to advance the mission of the charity, rather than the business needs of Microsoft. There are obvious conflicts of interest here. I don't expect the IRS to be a fan of this arrangement.

Others have pointed out several reasons this isn't actually a problem (and that the premise itself is incorrect since "OpenAI" is not a charity), but one thing not mentioned: even if the MS-appointed board member is a MS employee, yes they will have a fiduciary duty to the organizations under the purview of the board, but unless they are also a board member of Microsoft (extraordinarily unlikely) they have no such fi…

Microsoft is going to appoint someone who benefits Microsoft. Whether a particular vote would violate fiduciary duty is subjective. There's plenty of opportunity for them to prioritize the welfare of Microsoft over OAI.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#866

Post by thepasswordis » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

stetrain wrote: post #827

laserlight wrote: post #236

With Sam coming back as CEO, hasn't OpenAI board proven that it has lost its function? Regardless of who is in the board, they won't be able to exercise one of the most fundamental of their rights, firing the CEO, because Sam has proven that he is unfireable. Now, Sam can do however he pleases, whether it is lying, not reporting, etc. To be clear, I don't claim that Sam did, or will, lie, or misbehave.

Imagine if the board of Apple fired Tim Cook with no warning right after he went on stage and announced their new developer platform updates for the year alongside record growth and sales, refused to elaborate as to the reasons or provide any useful communications to investors over several days, and replaced their first interim CEO with another interim CEO from a completely different kind of business in that same wee…

[flagged]

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#867

Post by archsurface » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

I'm not American - I'm unclear what all this fuss is about? From where I am it looks like some arbitrary company politics in a hyped industry with a guy whose name I've seen mentioned on this site occasionally but really comes across as just a SV or San Fran cult of personality type. Am I missing something? Is there some substance to this story or is it just this week's industry soap opera?

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#868

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

kmlevitt wrote: post #354

laserlight wrote: post #236

With Sam coming back as CEO, hasn't OpenAI board proven that it has lost its function? Regardless of who is in the board, they won't be able to exercise one of the most fundamental of their rights, firing the CEO, because Sam has proven that he is unfireable. Now, Sam can do however he pleases, whether it is lying, not reporting, etc. To be clear, I don't claim that Sam did, or will, lie, or misbehave.

This is a better deal for the board and a worse one for Sam than people realize. Sam and Greg and even Ilya are both off the board, D'Angelo gets to stay on despite his outrageous actions, and he gets veto power over who the new board members will be and a big say in who gets voted on to the board next. Everybody's guard is going to be up around Sam from now on. He'll have much less leverage over this board than he d…

(Sam Altman was never on the board to begin with)

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#869

Post by campbel » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #807

Yeah I don’t know. I think you’d be kind of nuts to build anything on their APIs anymore. Sure I’ll keep using ChatGPT in a personal capacity/as search. But no way I’d trust my business to them

Working out nicely for Msft then. You can use GPT4 via Azure already.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#870

Post by campbel » Wed, Nov 22, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

lysecret wrote: post #737

Fascinating, I see a lot of VC/Msfot has overthrown our NPO governing structure because of profit incentives narrative. I don't think this is what really happened at all. The reason this decision was made was because 95% of employees sided with Sam on this issue, and the board didn't explain themselves in any way at all. So it was Sam + 95% of employees + All investors against the board. In which case the board shoul…

I don't think the board was big enough for starters. Of the folks on their, only one (Adam) had experience as a leader of a for profit venture. Helen probably lacks the leadership background to make any progress pushing her priorities.