Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

Post by iamflimflam1 » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

browningstreet wrote: post #52

nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

Agree with this take. Sam made OpenAI hot, and they’re going to cool, for better or worse. Without revenue it’ll be worse. And surprising Microsoft given their investment size is going to lead to pressures they may not be able to negotiate against. If this pivot is what they needed to do, the drama-version isn’t the smart way to do it. Everyone’s going to be much more excited to see what Sam pulls next and less excit…

Post by TheCleric » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

exitb wrote: post #57

noonething wrote: post #23

I hope they go back to being Open now that Altman is gone. It seems Ilya wants it to 'benefit all of humanity' again.

Isn’t that a bit like stealing from the for-profit investors? I’m not the first one to shed a tear for the super wealthy, but is that even legal? Can a company you invested in just say they don’t like profit any more?

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

swatcoder wrote: post #45

andy99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the board was really serious about doing good over making profit (if this is indeed what the whole thing is about) they'd open source gpt-4/5 with a gpl-style license

That’s not the sense of open they’ve organized around. In fact, it’s antithetical to it. Theirs is a technocratic sense of open, where select credentialed experts collaborate on a rational good without a concentration of control by specific capitalists or nations.

Post by tempsy » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #85

nilkn wrote: post #34

Only time will tell, but if this was indeed "just" a coup then it's somewhat likely we're witnessing a variant of the Steve Jobs story all over again. Sam is clearly one of the top product engineering leaders in the world -- few companies could ever match OpenAI's incredible product delivery over the last few years -- and he's also one of the most connected engineering leaders in the industry. He could likely have $5…

The irony is that a money-fuelled war for AI talent is all the more likely to lead to unsafe AI. If OpenAI had remained the dominant leader, it could have very well set the standards for safety. But now if new competitors with equally good funding emerge, they won’t have the luxury of sitting on any breakthrough models.

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #94

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's actually what Jobs turned out to be? Woz and others were the engineering genius at Apple, and Jobs turned out to be really good at finding and identifying really good sales and branding hooks. See-through colourful boxes, "lickable" UIs, neat-o minimalistic portable music players, flick-flick-flick touch screens, and "One More Thing" presentations. Jobs didn't invent the Lisa and Macintosh. Bill Atkinson,…

I do think Jobs' engineering skill is oversold, but he was also more than just marketing. He had a vision for how technology should integrate with people's lives that drove great ergonomic and UX choices with a kind of polish that was lacking everywhere else. Those alone revolutionized personal computing in many ways. It's hard for younger people to even imagine how difficult it was to get connected to the internet a…