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Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#91

Post by ZiiS »

9dev wrote: post #76
n_ary wrote: post #55

While I don’t know what is happening in OpenAI, from my experience(long enough to have an opinion), top people often leave when the employer is doing well or passing the last hurdle because, by that time the employer has gained adequate presence and brand identity that anyone leaving can immediately end up in top FAANG or equivalent Corps with much better benefits and of course pay/equity and other things. Only time…

I don’t know if people realise that there really isn’t any more prestigious place to work at right now than OpenAI. You don’t leave there for a better opportunity.

They can ask for huge salary bumps which may provide better opportunities for thier families.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#92

Post by karmasimida »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #81
karmasimida wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am at lost. Not fear, just lost. Don't know what to do. Is my investment into their API still worth it? It feels very unstable at this moment.

Microsoft owns it. I honestly can not imagine trying to build a business on an API owned by Microsoft of all companies.

Would like to elaborate a bit?

Though my investment will be still tiny at the moment, but not other multi-modal model on the market right is as good.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#93

Post by gandutraveler »

9dev wrote: post #76
n_ary wrote: post #55

While I don’t know what is happening in OpenAI, from my experience(long enough to have an opinion), top people often leave when the employer is doing well or passing the last hurdle because, by that time the employer has gained adequate presence and brand identity that anyone leaving can immediately end up in top FAANG or equivalent Corps with much better benefits and of course pay/equity and other things. Only time…

I don’t know if people realise that there really isn’t any more prestigious place to work at right now than OpenAI. You don’t leave there for a better opportunity.

Unless Sam is already forming a new AI company.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#94

Post by quickthrower2 »

cryptoz wrote: post #62
quickthrower2 wrote: post #27

Makes me wonder whether to keep building upon OpenAI? Given that they have an API and it takes effort to build on that vs. something else. I am small fry but maybe other people are wondering the same? Can they give reassurances about their products going into the future?

Also same here. Actually currently staying up late Friday night hacking on OpenAI API projects (while waiting for SpaceX Starship launch, it's quite a day for high-tech news!) - and wondering if I should even bother. Of course I will keep hacking, but...still it makes you think. Which is a very unexpected feeling. Hugely more interested in the open source models now, even if they are not as good at present. Because a…

Totally. I'll keep going too. I am just putting a nice GUI wrapper around the new Assistant stuff which looks damn cool. Project is half "might make some bucks" and half "see if this is good to use in the day job".

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#95

Post by beowulfey »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #85
thr8976 wrote: post #4

Aleksander in particular is deeply invested in AI safety as a mission. It's a very confusing departure, since most of the reporting so far indicates that Ilya and the board fired Sam to prioritize safety and non-profit objectives. A huge loss for OpenAI nonetheless.

> since most of the reporting so far indicates that Ilya and the board fired Sam to prioritize safety and non-profit objectives With evidence, or is this the kind of pure speculation that media indulges in when they have no information and have to appear knowledgeable?

Twitter rumors from “insiders”

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#96

Post by saberience »

namdnay wrote: post #68
Simon_ORourke wrote: post #50

The board is like a who's who of privilege and nepotism - https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/17/openai-sam-altman-firing-b...

Why nepotism? The article you linked to has no mention of particular family ties that got them there? If anything it’s a remarkably meritocratic board, when compared with most other industries The fact that it’s all well connected wealthy people is kind of the point, the board is there (among others) to bring advice and experience

What credentials does Tasha McCauley have to be on the board of a company like OpenAI? I can think of 100s or perhaps 1000s of people more qualified to be there.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#97

Post by schleck8 »

convexstrictly wrote: post #84
aidaman wrote: post #61

GPT5 pre-training just ended I believe. Brock, Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, would have likely all been involved. These are huge losses. Pachocki led pre-training for GPT-4, and probably GPT-5. Brockman is the major engineer responsible for the efficiency improvements that enabled ChatGPT and GPT-4 to be even remotely cost-effective. That is a piece that is often overlooked, but OpenAI's advantage over the competition in c…

"Greg Brockman works 60 to 100 hours per week, and spends around 80% of the time coding. Former colleagues have described him as the hardest-working person at OpenAI." https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6309033/greg-brockman...

This is like a supervillain origin story, Greg and Sam are 100 % going to start something new now, even if it's just out of spite with how much both seem to have liked their work at OpenAI

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#98

Post by mcny »

9dev wrote: post #76
n_ary wrote: post #55

While I don’t know what is happening in OpenAI, from my experience(long enough to have an opinion), top people often leave when the employer is doing well or passing the last hurdle because, by that time the employer has gained adequate presence and brand identity that anyone leaving can immediately end up in top FAANG or equivalent Corps with much better benefits and of course pay/equity and other things. Only time…

I don’t know if people realise that there really isn’t any more prestigious place to work at right now than OpenAI. You don’t leave there for a better opportunity.

> I don’t know if people realise that there really isn’t any more prestigious place to work at right now than OpenAI. You don’t leave there for a better opportunity.

My guess is they know something we don't Or they assume sama being fired means the trajectory of OpenAI as a company has changed or is likely to change significantly?

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#99

Post by Racing0461 »

Mentlo wrote: post #66
hilux wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking for my own n of 1, ChatGPT Pro has almost entirely (>90%) replaced the Google search engine in my daily life. The results from ChatGPT are just so much better and faster. That's got to be worth something, since Alphabet is a $1.7T company mostly on the strength of ads associated with Google search.

Chat gpt is not a good source of truth so can’t be used for information retrieval at scale. You might have a specific usage pattern that is very different to the majority of Google Search users so it works for you

the ad ridden shitware website filled with seo buzzwords with 100% opacity keywords also isn't a good source of truth. i'll take chatgpt over that.

Re: Three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI

#100

Post by deneas »

cinntaile wrote: post #6
thr8976 wrote: post #4

Aleksander in particular is deeply invested in AI safety as a mission. It's a very confusing departure, since most of the reporting so far indicates that Ilya and the board fired Sam to prioritize safety and non-profit objectives. A huge loss for OpenAI nonetheless.

The way Sam and Greg were fired maybe led him to no longer have faith in the company and so he quit?

Important detail: Only Sam was fired, Greg was removed from the board and then later quit. Source: https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559
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