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OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

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Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#931

Post by soufron »

MVissers wrote: post #711
silenced_trope wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major investors whose money is on the line and who are funding the venture, Microsoft, Sequoia, and Khosla, were not given advanced warning or any input in to how this would impact their investment. I would definitely say the board screwed up. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/17/openai-in...

The board of the non-profit (one that fired Sam) has no fiduciary duty to those investors, I believe. Microsoft invested in the for-profit Openai, which is owned by the non-profit. The other ones I don't know. The board has no responsibility to Microsoft whatsoever regarding this. Sam Altman structured it this way himself. Not to say that the board didn't screw up.

Totally true. One can even argue they are forbidden to discuss this with MS. They would be mixing up the interests of the non-profit and its for-profit subsidiary. Legally, it’s only a change of control in the majority shareholder of a company where MS has invested in. They dont have a say, and pressuring them could be higly illegal.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#932

Post by mise_en_place »

hcks wrote: post #920
mise_en_place wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but data scientist is just not the same as a software engineer, or a real scientist. At best you are a tourist in our industry.

Pathetic gatekeeping. Sorry but software engineer are not the same as real engineers.

Yeah it's gatekeeping, to prevent them from fucking up prod.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#933

Post by dcwca »

pk-protect-ai wrote: post #844
nerbert wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, some people compare him to Jobs http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

This is the problem with people: they build icons to worship and turn a blind eye to the crooked side of that icon. Both Jobs and Altman are significant as businessmen and have accomplished a lot, but neither did squat for the technical part of the business. Right now, Altman is irrelevant for the further development of AI and GPT in particular because the vision for the AI future comes from the engineers and scienti…

Right now, Altman may be the most relevant for the further development of AI because the way the technology continues to go to market will be largely shaped by the regulatory environments that exist globally, and Sam leading OAI is in by far thr best position to influence guide that policy. And he has been doing a good job with it.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#934

Post by yanderekko »

barnabee wrote: post #871
mariaangelesjs wrote: post #821

If Altman gets to return, it’s the goodbye of AI ethics within OpenAI and the elimination of the nonprofit. Also, I believe that hiring him back because of “how much he is loved by people within OpenAI” is like forgetting that a corrupt president did what they did. In all honesty, that has precedent, so it wouldn’t be old news. Also, I read a lot of people here saying this is about engineers vs scientists…I believe t…

If "AI ethics" means being run by so-called rationalists and Effective Altruists then it has nothing to do with ethics or doing anything for the benefit of all humanity. It would be great to see a truly open and truly human benefit focused AI effort, but OpenAI isn't, and as far as I can tell has no chance of becoming, that. Might as well at least try to be an effective company at this point.

>If "AI ethics" means being run by so-called rationalists and Effective Altruists then it has nothing to do with ethics or doing anything for the benefit of all humanity.

Many would disagree.

If you want a for-profit AI enterprise whose conception of ethics is dumping resources into an endless game of whack-a-mole to ensure that your product cannot be used in any embarrassing way by racists on 4chan, then the market is already going to provide you with several options.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#935

Post by Max-q »

pk-protect-ai wrote: post #844
nerbert wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, some people compare him to Jobs http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

This is the problem with people: they build icons to worship and turn a blind eye to the crooked side of that icon. Both Jobs and Altman are significant as businessmen and have accomplished a lot, but neither did squat for the technical part of the business. Right now, Altman is irrelevant for the further development of AI and GPT in particular because the vision for the AI future comes from the engineers and scienti…

Aren't your thoughts contradictory? You say Altman is no longer needed because Gpt4 is now very good. Then you describe how horrible the iPhone is now. Steve Jobs has been dead a long time, and without his leadership, the uncompromising user focused development process in Apple was weakened.

How will OpenAI develop further without the leader with a strong vision?

I think Apple is the example confirming that a tech companies need visionary leaders -- even if they are not programmers.

Also, even with our logical brains, we engineers (and teachers) have been found to be the worst at predicting social economic behavior (ref: Freakonomics). To the point where our reasoning is not logical at all.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#936

Post by Max-q »

pk-protect-ai wrote: post #844
nerbert wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, some people compare him to Jobs http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

This is the problem with people: they build icons to worship and turn a blind eye to the crooked side of that icon. Both Jobs and Altman are significant as businessmen and have accomplished a lot, but neither did squat for the technical part of the business. Right now, Altman is irrelevant for the further development of AI and GPT in particular because the vision for the AI future comes from the engineers and scienti…

The claim that Apple equipment is not good on a price performance ratio does not hold water. I recently needed to upgrade both my phone and my laptop. I use Apple products, but not exclusively. Making cross platform apps, I like to use all the major platforms.

I compared the quality phone brands and PC brands. For a 13" laptop, both Samsung and Dell XPS are $4-500 more expensive on the same spec (i7/M2 pro, 32GB, 1TB), and I personally think that the MacBook Pro has a better screen, better touch pad and better build quality than the two others

iOS devices are comparably priced with Samsung models.

It was this way last time I upgraded my computer, and the time before.

Yeah, you will find cheaper phones and computers, and maybe you like them, but I appreciate build quality as well as MIPS. They are tools I use from early morning to late night every day.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#937

Post by soufron »

But what about the legal responsability of Microsoft and investors there?

To explain, it's the board of the non-profit that ousted @sama .

Microsoft is not a member of the non-profit.

Microsoft is "only" a shareholder of its for-profit subsidiary - even for 10B.

Basically, what happened is a change of control in the non-profit majority shareholder of a company Microsoft invested in.

But not a change of control in the for-profit company they invested in.

To tell the truth, I am not even certain the board of the non-profit would have been legally allowed to discuss the issue with Microsoft at all - it's an internal issue only and that would be a conflict of interest.

Microsoft is not happy with that change of control and they favourited the previous representative of their partner.

Basically Microsoft want their shareholder non-profit partner to prioritize their interest over its own.

And to do that, they are trying to impede on its governance, even threatening it with disorganization, lawsuits and such.

This sounds like highly unethical and potentially illegal to me.

How come no one is pointing that out?

Also, how come a 90 billion dollars company hailed as the future of computing and a major transformative force for society would now be valued 0 dollars only because its non-technical founder is now out?

What does it say about the seriousness of it all?

But of course, that's Silicon Valley baby.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#938

Post by epgui »

rcbdev wrote: post #893
mariaangelesjs wrote: post #821

If Altman gets to return, it’s the goodbye of AI ethics within OpenAI and the elimination of the nonprofit. Also, I believe that hiring him back because of “how much he is loved by people within OpenAI” is like forgetting that a corrupt president did what they did. In all honesty, that has precedent, so it wouldn’t be old news. Also, I read a lot of people here saying this is about engineers vs scientists…I believe t…

I have to work with code written by Data Scientists very often and, coming from a classical SWE background, I would not call what the average Data Scientist does full stack software engineering. The code quality is almost always bad. This is not to take away from the amazing things that they do - The code they produce often does highly quantitative things beyond my understanding. Nonetheless it falls to engineers to…

As an actual scientist, I would also not call what “data scientists” do “science”.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#940

Post by alickz »

MVissers wrote: post #711
silenced_trope wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major investors whose money is on the line and who are funding the venture, Microsoft, Sequoia, and Khosla, were not given advanced warning or any input in to how this would impact their investment. I would definitely say the board screwed up. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/17/openai-in...

The board of the non-profit (one that fired Sam) has no fiduciary duty to those investors, I believe. Microsoft invested in the for-profit Openai, which is owned by the non-profit. The other ones I don't know. The board has no responsibility to Microsoft whatsoever regarding this. Sam Altman structured it this way himself. Not to say that the board didn't screw up.

how can a non-profit own a for-profit?

honest question

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