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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

#881

If they join Sam Altman and Greg Brockman at Microsoft they will not need to start from scratch because Microsoft has full rights [1] to ChatGPT IP. They can just fork ChatGPT. Also keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits. So this could end up being the cheapest acquisition for Microsoft: They get a $90 Billion company for peanuts. [1]…

This is wrong. Microsoft has no such rights and its license comes with restrictions, per the cited primary source, meaning a fork would require a very careful approach. https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-and-openai-forge-awkw...

I think without looking at the contracts, we don't really know. Given this is all based on transformers from Google though, I am pretty sure MSFT with the right team could build a better LLM.

The key ingredient appears to be mass GPU and infra, tbh, with a collection of engineers who know how to work at scale.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#882

I'm cancelling my Netflix subscription, I don't need it.

But boy will I renew it when this gets dramatized as a limited series. This is some Succession -level shenanigans going on here. Jesse Eisenberg to play Altman this time around?

I'm thinking more like "24"

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#884

If they join Sam Altman and Greg Brockman at Microsoft they will not need to start from scratch because Microsoft has full rights [1] to ChatGPT IP. They can just fork ChatGPT. Also keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits. So this could end up being the cheapest acquisition for Microsoft: They get a $90 Billion company for peanuts. [1]…

> Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits To be clear, these don't go away. They remain an asset of OpenAI's, and could help them continue their research for a few years.

A hostile relationship with your cloud provider is nutso.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought.... Wouldn't one of the board members be like "If you screw with us any further we're releasing gpt to the public" I'm wondering why that option hasn't been used yet.

Probably a violation of agreements with OpenAI and it would harm their own moat as well, while achieving very little in return.

There is no moat

https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-ne...

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#886
THE FEAR AND TENSION THAT LED TO SAM ALTMAN’S OUSTER AT OPENAI

https://txtify.it/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technol...

NYT article about how AI safety concerns played into this debacle.

The world's leading AI company now has an interim CEO Emmett Shear who's basically sympathetic to Eliezer Yudkowsky's views about AI researchers endangering humanity. Meanwhile, Sam Altman is free of the nonprofit's chains and working directly for Microsoft, who's spending 50 billion a year on datacenters.

Note that the people involved have more nuanced views on these issues than you'll see in the NYT article. See Emmett Shear's views best laid out here:

https://twitter.com/thiagovscoelho/status/172650681847663424...

And note Shear has tweeted the Sam firing wasn't safety related. Note these might be weasel words since all players involved know the legal consequences of admitting to any safety concerns publicly.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#888

If they join Sam Altman and Greg Brockman at Microsoft they will not need to start from scratch because Microsoft has full rights [1] to ChatGPT IP. They can just fork ChatGPT. Also keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits. So this could end up being the cheapest acquisition for Microsoft: They get a $90 Billion company for peanuts. [1]…

This is wrong. Microsoft has no such rights and its license comes with restrictions, per the cited primary source, meaning a fork would require a very careful approach. https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-and-openai-forge-awkw...

Archive of the WSJ article above: https://archive.is/OONbb

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#889

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could make ChatGPT++ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B

“Microsoft Chat 365” Although it would be beautiful if they name it Clippy and finally make Clippy into the all-powerful AGI it was destined to be.

It is too bad MS doesn’t have the rights to any beloved AI characters.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the OpenAI board renege on the deal with msft?

A contractual mistake one makes only once is ensuring there's penalties for breach, or a breach would entail a clear monetary loss which is what's generally required by the courts. In this case I expect Microsoft would almost certainly have both, so I think the answer is 'no.'

This. MSFT is dreaming of an OpenAI hard outage right now, perfect little detail to forfeit compute credits.
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