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Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

nytimes.com

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Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#91

Post by kragen »

db-interface wrote: post #52
kragen wrote: post #20

keep in mind that the lead reporter on this, cade metz, is the one who wrote the character assassination piece on scott alexander repeatedly insinuating he was a neo-nazi (and de-anonymizing him, costing him his job due to some kind of weird psychiatrist ethical code) so while probably nothing in here is literally false , it's quite likely calculated to give false impressions; read with caution (well, it's literally…

While I don't agree with all of the framing in the NYT story, it's worth noting that Scott Alexander was much friendlier to Moldbug et. al. than the anti-Metz camp argued at the time: https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001 I think Metz's motivation for that framing was his assumption that if SA was not at least sympathetic to NRx views, he would not allow them to be such a big voice in his comme…

alexander is the guy who wrote the 30,000 word anti-reactionary faq about why moldbug was wrong, though; those screenshots explain in detail why he was unsympathetic to their neoreactionary views, rather than demonstrating that he was sympathetic to them

he does say some things there that are entirely outside the pale and that he should have known better than, but sad to say, those particular beliefs aren't limited to neoreactionaries

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#92

Post by Fomite »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #42
PepperdineG wrote: post #3

>Ms. Toner disagreed. The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that mission would be fulfilled. Now we know where that came from

It's pretty heavily implied by OpenAI's charter: https://openai.com/charter It's weird to me that Helen is getting so much crap for upholding the charter. No one objected to the charter at the time it was published. The charter was always available for employees, investors, and customers to read. Did everyone expect it to be ignored when push came to shove? There's a lot of pressure on Helen right now from people who…

Turns out for a lot of people it's easy to be on board with a high minded charter until it might cost something.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#93

Post by jacquesm »

nicce wrote: post #77
jacquesm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but then maybe you should realize that you are out of your depth and abstain. Because clear as day this kind of power is actively being sought by many operators and if OpenAI was 'the good guys' then any chance of the good guys getting a head start has just been blown out of the water. If she agreed with the Microsoft deal but not with what followed that too would be hopelessly naive. Microsoft + ethics?

> If she agreed with the Microsoft deal but not with what followed that too would be hopelessly naive. Microsoft + ethics? I guess the main problem here is that nobody knows properly what this deal contains and how it was made. I believe CEO has power to do such deal alone?

That depends on the mandate. He would bind the company but it is possible that his mandate specifically forbids deals that include either IP or exclusivity.

But what is interesting is that until MS got involved OpenAI was struggling for funding and talent, and afterwards it took off like a rocket.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#94

Post by mupuff1234 »

CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

> I think he reacted the exact same way any CEO would

Perhaps if you think of it as another YC startup, but not so much if you view OpenAI as a non-profit first and foremost.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#95

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

greyface- wrote: post #70
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We will attempt to directly build safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome. >... >We commit to use any influence we obtain over AGI’s deployment to ensure it is used for the benefit of all, and to avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power. >Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. >... >We are concern…

This charter is doomed to be interpreted in radically different ways by people with differing AI-eschatological beliefs. It's no wonder it's led to so much conflict.

Sam wanted to restrict Helen's free expression on the topic of beneficial AI in order to boost OpenAI's position. That suggests he cares more about the success of OpenAI than he does upholding the charter.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#96

Post by jessenaser »

> Mr. Altman complained that the research paper seemed to criticize OpenAI’s efforts to keep its A.I. technologies safe while praising the approach taken by Anthropic, according to an email that Mr. Altman wrote to colleagues and that was viewed by The New York Times.

> OpenAI's board of directors approached rival Anthropic's CEO about replacing chief Sam Altman and potentially merging the two AI startups, according to two people briefed on the matter. (https://www.reuters.com/technology/openais-board-approached-...)

It all makes sense.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#97

Post by snapwood »

winenbug wrote: post #74
ipaddr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promoting Anthropic and putting down OpenAI doesn't make her better at her job. Her job isn't self promotion.

Unless she has equity in Anthropic (which would be major conflict of interest), I don't see how this is self promotion...?

I'm guessing the reasoning is something like this...

As a CEO I'd want your concerns brought to me so they could be addressed. But if they were addressed, that is one less paper that could be published by Ms. Toner. As a member of the openai board, seeing the problem solved is more important to openai than her publishing career.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#98

Post by alvah »

brigadier132 wrote: post #35
throw20away wrote: post #15

Ms. Toner’s motive is now clearer for being criticized about her research. Mr. D’Angelo had a competing commercialization product with Poe. Mr. Sutskever seems easy to manipulate emotionally and is in constant ideological battles. Mrs. McCauley AKA Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s wife, what’s her motive?

Apparently she is also an "Effective Altruist" (along with Toner) so they are ideologically aligned.

EA hadn’t had a good run in the corporate world, over the last year or so

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#99

Post by winenbug »

https://openai.com/our-structure

This whole thing was so, SO poorly executed, but the independent people on the board were gathered specifically to prioritize humanity & AI safety over OpenAI. It sounds like Sam forgot just that when he criticized Helen for her research (given how many people were posting ways to "get around" ChatGPT's guardrails, she probably had some firm grounds to stand on).

Yes, Sam made LLMs mainstream and is the face of AI, but if the board believes that that course of action could destroy humanity it's literally the board's mission to stop it — whether that means destroying OpenAI or not.

What this really shows us is that this "for-profit wrapper around a non-profit" shenanigans was doomed to fail in the first place. I don't think either side is purely in the wrong here, but they're two sides of an incredibly badly thought-of charter.

Re: Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding

#100

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
CSMastermind wrote: post #4

The only specific accusation made in the article is that Sam criticized Helen Toner for writing a paper: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/ That says Anthropic has a better approach to AI safety than OpenAI. Sam apparently said she should have come to him directly if she had concerns about the company's approach and pointed out that as a board member her words have weight at a time when he w…

It's interesting but it may well be they both have a point: Helen for telling him to get lost and Sam for attempting to remove her before she would damage the company. But she could have made that point more forcefully by not comparing Anthropic to OpenAI, after all who better than her to steer OpenAI in the right direction. I noted in a comment elsewhere that all of these board members appear to have had at least on…

>I noted in a comment elsewhere that all of these board members appear to have had at least one and some many more conflicts of interest.

From the perspective of avoiding an AI race, conflict of interest could very well be a good thing. You're operating under a standard capitalist model, where we want the market to pick winners, may the most profitable corporation win.

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