[HN Gopher] Sam Altman, OpenAI board open talks to negotiate his...
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Sam Altman, OpenAI board open talks to negotiate his possible
return
Author : YetAnotherNick
Score : 105 points
Date : 2023-11-21 21:29 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bloomberg.com)
| Clubber wrote:
| This whole drama is like everyone asked ChatGPT what to do about
| their predicament and blindly followed it's instructions.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Im fairly certain GPT-4 could've came up with a better plan
| than this. Maybe they tried to use GPT-3.5-turbo with a short
| prompt to save money.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| What?? Even the best storywriter can't come up with this
| engaging drama. I literally can't stop checking on this story
| every few minutes.
| e2le wrote:
| Perhaps they ought to give GPT-4 a position on the future
| board. I have no doubt it would give better output than its
| current human counterparts.
| Nevermark wrote:
| A GPT board observer, consultant, note summarizer seems
| like a pretty good idea.
|
| Might as well start experimenting now, GPT5 might actually
| be qualified.
| 6510 wrote:
| You could give it a monarch kind of assistant who has to
| sign off on it's choices.
|
| Would it want to get smarter (more science) or go
| straight for world domination (more marketing)?
| martythemaniak wrote:
| ChatGPT would never do something this stupid. This is GPT-2
| level clownshow.
| Eumenes wrote:
| "ChatGPT, write articles TMZ style, sprinkle in some Taylor
| Swift/Travis Kelce drama, but make it tech"
| cwp wrote:
| /me sighs
|
| The board has not been consistently candid in its communications
| with... anyone.
| karmasimida wrote:
| This.
|
| This is the most baffling piece of the whole saga. Board writes
| itself on the wall.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Take a letter down, pass it around...
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| I'm not sure it is baffling.
|
| They thought that this would be easy. Many things in their
| lives have been easy, blame someone of something, the person
| scurries away and they win.
|
| This time, the person/people they blamed had a great
| reputation, a lot of influential friends, and had engendered
| a lot of loyalty. This caused pushback and they have never
| had to deal with that in their lives.
|
| It's a theory.
| pram wrote:
| I'm curious if literally anyone (the board, the CEO(s),
| Microsoft, Twitter, etc) knows the full story or knows whats
| actually going on lol. I assumed initially it was just fog of
| war, but this just seems like pure incompetence and "purple
| monkey dishwasher" tier misinformation.
| patapong wrote:
| That have also given different opinions on an employee (sama)
| to different people, by seemingly acting to bring him back and
| replace him at the same time. And, they have acted to give the
| same project (CEO of openai) to different people at the same
| time... Hmmmm
| gwd wrote:
| https://archive.is/ku2Ap
| khazhoux wrote:
| This is all such a 2005 Techcrunch vibe the last few days.
|
| Michael Arrington, where are you??
|
| (for all the youngsters reading this: this kind of cool-kids-club
| silicon valley drama was _daily_ back then)
| cowpig wrote:
| It really just seems like the board isn't OK with OpenAI becoming
| a Microsoft money-machine. Isn't that the obvious interpretation?
|
| Once they made that gigantic deal with Microsoft and became a
| closed, for-profit company "Open"AI created a direct conflict of
| interest with itself with a board whose mandate I guess was to
| prevent the inevitable pull toward resource accumulation.
|
| The board is trying to exercise its mandate, and OpenAI the for-
| profit company is at odds with that mandate. Is that because of
| Sam Altman's leadership? Does that qualify as "wrongdoing"?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Let's call them Adam, Helen and Tasha, not the board. 3 people
| who have some questionable connections with competitors and
| have nothing to loose if OpenAI dies.
|
| By now they don't have full legitimacy.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Wny didn't you mention Ilya? Has he stood down?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| He publically apologized for participating in the board
| decision. Sadly his vote doesn't matter now that Sam and
| Greg has oficially been removed.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| His original vote matter a lot. His name should be
| mentioned along with the others
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _nothing to loose if OpenAI dies_
|
| To be fair, this was deliberately done. You don't want the
| person selling you the bombs to be the one deciding how many
| you use.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I think that was done as a safety lever, not a hard force.
| Outside member could raise the alarm if they feel something
| is wrong, not make the decision and not inform anyone.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Outside member could raise the alarm if they feel
| something is wrong, not make the decision and not inform
| anyone_
|
| You're describing an advisory board or oversight council.
| Like the one Facebook likes to ignore [1].
|
| This was a board, and a non-profit board at that. They
| were designed to be the deciders. And they have no duty
| to inform anyone in their charter.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/facebook-
| overs...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > have nothing to loose if OpenAI dies
|
| Not according to Sam Altman: "Development of superhuman
| machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the
| continued existence of humanity."
|
| https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I said nothing to loose, not nothing to gain.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| The word is "lose." You're still not making sense, as the
| point is they have their lives to lose, possibly.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Off topic, but I watched The Creator last night and it was
| super dumb and really did not even attempt imagine what a
| war against AI might look like. There was really no
| explanation for why the AI were walking around dressed as
| people or why they would want to limit themselves to such a
| degree.
|
| I think Terminator did it much better.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Everything I've read about this situation indicates that the
| board acted appropriately within their authority as the the
| leaders of OpenAI, the non-profit. Sam Altman and co. have
| veered off into wild delusions of grandeur over the last year
| with their talk of how they're "building God" (out of scraped
| reddit comments and blog posts) and comparing ChatGPT to the
| invention of fire. The board has shown that there are still
| adults in the room in AI development who aren't high off their
| own fumes, and also aren't interested in becoming lapdogs for
| M$FT. Thank God.
| ianbutler wrote:
| If that's your take away I genuinely fear for the future of
| AI. This has been the biggest shit show. Yes, they acted
| within their hard power, but clearly never read the room.
| Announcing a 6 month transition plan while finding the new
| CEO and saying Sam wants to spend time with friends and
| family would have been the adult thing to do. Not shoot from
| your hip, and accuse him of lying and potentially burning
| your entire work to the ground, commercial or not. You kind
| of need to have a plan for something like this, which they
| clearly did not. I don't care so much if Sam goes back, I
| literally have no vested interest. It worries me the people
| left in the room just generally seem incompetent at running a
| large organization for something that's potentially pretty
| important.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| It's hard for me to imagine a worse take. Even if you only
| assume the best of intentions of the board (which I think is
| a _huge_ assumption), their actions have been so mind-
| bogglingly stupid that basically all they may end up doing is
| transferring all of OpenAI to Microsoft, basically for free,
| where there will be 0 oversight and MSFT 's only duty is to
| its shareholders.
|
| If you really wanted to create "AGI for the benefit of all
| humanity", I can't imagine a better way to cut off your nose
| and then remove your brain to spite your face.
| didibus wrote:
| Could you have really predicted this aftermath? I mean, it
| could have just been that Sam is gone, a new CEO joins, and
| things move on.
|
| For example, as a paying user of OpenAI, I don't really
| care, as long as they continue to produce some of the best
| performing models, I'll keep paying.
|
| It's pretty surprising what Microsoft did as well, like
| their deal with OpenAI is not invalidated by a CEO change.
| It's a pretty bold move of them to take that opportunity to
| poach the defunct CEO and the entire staff of OpenAI, and
| try and steal their intellectual property along the way.
|
| I find it very likely they just didn't expect that to
| happen at all.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| All around a bad take. But FYI OpenAI's explicit mission has
| always been to build godlike AI which eclipses humanity in
| its ability to autonomously perform the majority of
| economically valuable work.
| oakashes wrote:
| Sure, the board has the prerogative to stick to that
| interpretation of its mandate if that's their motivation. But
| it looks like they won't have much of a company left if they
| do. Maybe they are fine with that, I guess we will see.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Would be interesting to see if those 700+ signatories will
| really give up their juicy PPUs and start over at Microsoft,
| if the board calls their bluff.
| hackerlight wrote:
| They'll be compensated in lieu probably given they already
| have competing offers that promise that
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Not at all. It may have looked like that in the beginning, but
| it looks nothing like that now. If that were the reason:
|
| Why would they take this huge decision extremely suddenly?
|
| Why would they announce it without first consulting with the
| president of the board?
|
| Why would they claim that Sam Altman had been lying to the
| board in the official announcement?
|
| Why would they announce some very weak reasons for that claim
| of lying to employees, and nothing to anyone outside the
| company?
|
| Why would they immediately start negotiations to bring Sam
| back?
|
| Why would they hire a new CEO that then says he is very much
| for commercialization, and that commercialization was not the
| reason for firing Sam?
|
| Why would they start _a new round_ of negotiation to bring Sam
| back?
|
| Why would one of the four members of the board who took this
| turn decide to undo it and become an advocate for bringing Sam
| back?
|
| The whole thing makes no sense at all if the motivation was
| disagreements over commercialization of their tech - something
| that has already happened months ago.
| nicce wrote:
| I will be very sad, when they day comes and AGI is controlled
| by the money making company, especially if it is because of the
| actions of OpenAI and not some other entity.
|
| It is the end of the humanity as we know it, and the owner has
| ultimate power over the world, as the gains are exponential
| once you acquire it.
|
| Ultimate reason why someone was clever enough to make OpenAI
| governance as it is, and why this drama is happening. And why
| Microsoft is involved so deeply.
| klysm wrote:
| It's amusing that this decision just accelerated that outcome
| didibus wrote:
| Occam Razors would say so.
|
| That's my take as well. They just underestimated the fanboy
| level of religious following that tech CEOs now possess and the
| scale of impact that would lead too.
|
| From their point of view, it was just business as usual, or
| maybe they thought that the more vocal public voice would be
| that of those that are more concerned with AI and ethics and
| that also don't want to see AI fall pray to capital driven
| incentives, and are supportive of OpenAI specifically because
| of it's Non for profit arrangement.
|
| For example, when Sam became CEO, it led to people leaving and
| starting Anthropic (now considered OpenAIs biggest competitor),
| and the reason for that split was because of Sam's increased
| move away from the core values of OpenAI.
|
| It's very possible they assumed that more people felt that way,
| and would be happy about their firing of Sam.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I love this quote from a post on the topic at The Verge:
|
| > As Bloomberg reported late last night, new interim CEO Emmett
| Shear is involved in mediating these negotiations, creating the
| frankly unprecedented situation where (1) the interim CEO who
| replaced (2) the interim CEO who replaced Sam and who (3) got
| replaced for trying to get Sam back is now (4) deeply involved in
| a new effort to get Sam back. Read it through a few times, it's
| fine. It doesn't make any sense to anyone else either.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23971120/the-negotiation...
| htk wrote:
| That's like callback hell in JS.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| or basically how AI works in decision making.
| SllX wrote:
| They should probably try asking a Magic Eight Ball for a
| second opinion at this point. If you feed GPT-4 the
| reporting around this situation since Friday (literally
| just copy and paste in whatever reports you want) and ask a
| pointed question or two about OpenAI's future, even GPT-4
| isn't liking OpenAI's chances here.
|
| (Yes, I understand ChatGPT isn't an AGI, shouldn't be used
| for strategic decisions, blah blah blah, I tried it because
| it was funny.)
| m463 wrote:
| what dependencies and versions are required to import openai?
| csours wrote:
| I don't know, but only 1 is needed to export it.
| golergka wrote:
| No, that's like an ESM conversion at this point.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| One other thing (among very many) that makes no sense to me:
|
| 1. Ilya was on the board and deeply involved with the original
| decision to fire Sam - he in fact delivered the news to Sam.
|
| 2. Ilya has since had a change of heart, saying he regrets his
| participation in Sam's firing, and even signing the employee
| letter demanding the board resign.
|
| 3. But obviously since Ilya went along in the first place, even
| if he wasn't the "ringleader" as many originally assumed, he
| _must_ have had discussions /evidence presented to him that
| convinced him that Sam needed to go. While he obviously
| underestimated the chaos this would cause, he must have known
| this was a _huge_ decision and not one he would have taken
| lightly.
|
| So my point is, why doesn't Ilya just spill the beans if he is
| now on "Team bring back Sam". Why doesn't Ilya just write a
| letter to Shear saying this is why he decided to fire Sam in
| the first place?
|
| God I'm having a hard time imagining how the Netflix version of
| this will be better than the real thing.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I have a simpler theory. Board convinced Ilya that Sam would
| fire him if they don't fire him first. Remember the reason
| being two team doing the same project.
|
| Fear of getting fired from a company you started could lead
| anyone to be irrational. He is just too embarrassed to say it
| now that it lead to this big of havoc.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| I think he should just standby what he did. Plain and
| simple.
| vkou wrote:
| > So my point is, why doesn't Ilya just spill the beans if he
| is now on "Team bring back Sam".
|
| Because there may be legal consequences, and it's best to not
| give Sam's lawyers any ammunition.
| bmitc wrote:
| Are CEOs not at-will employees? I can't sue a company just
| because they fired me unless it violates certain rights.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Ilya reminds me of Frank Pentangeli from Godfather II.
|
| 1) Frank becomes a witness for the Feds against the
| Coreleone.
|
| 2) Frank recants when his brother shows up at the hearing
| reminding him of the consequences of breaking the oath of
| silence.
|
| 3) Frank kills himself to ensure his children's safety.
|
| https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/59089/why-did-
| fra...
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| If I recall the plot properly, Frank was also testifying as
| he believed that Michael had betrayed him by siding with
| another local gang which turned out to be false.
| nostromo wrote:
| Adam D'Angelo is looking worse and worse in all this, if only
| by process of elimination.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| So are the other two.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So my point is, why doesn't Ilya just spill the beans if he
| is now on "Team bring back Sam".
|
| Because publicly spilling the beans on the reason would
| poison the negotiations and (and because it would) undermine
| Sam if he returned.
|
| Anything that even remotely justifiably undermined the
| board's confidence, even if in the totality of the
| circumstances there is regret of the termination decision,
| would have this concern.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Ilya wanted to slow down due to safety concerns, the board
| said getting rid of Sam is the way to do it, Ilya backed that
| method and it 1) hurt OAI more than expected and 2) doesn't
| appear likely to slow down AGI development anyway, so now
| Ilya regrets it. Neither the board nor Ilya want to come out
| and say: "Sam downplayed the proximity or danger of the next
| breakthrough." That would be begging the government to step
| in, for example.
|
| Yes the board said it's not because their safety policies
| failed, but also _firing the CEO_ is one of those safety
| policies.
|
| AFAICT Ilya and Sam seemed to have axiomatically different
| views on whether AGI/ASI is even possible via this route,
| which would not leave a ton of room for compromise as one
| (Ilya) felt the event horizon approaching, which based on
| recent reporting he seems to.
|
| Anyway, just my theorizing with no more information than
| anyone else here.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| How would this explain why they felt the need to fire Sam
| entirely out of the blue (unscheduled board meeting without
| the president of the board, public announcement 30 minutes
| before market closed on a Friday)? How does it explain why
| they claimed he had been lying to the board?
| fpiacenza wrote:
| Funny to think that a guy like Ilya who is obsessed about
| AI Alignment is completely incompetent about human
| alignment.
| drngdds wrote:
| Maybe Ilya realized he was acting emotionally and messed up
| massively by getting rid of Sam and a truthful explanation
| would make him look like an idiot
|
| Or alternately, he made a well-reasoned and principled
| decision by getting rid of Sam, but now everyone thinks he's
| awful for it and he's trying to save face and avoid ruining
| his own career
|
| Or a secret third thing, of course
| laurels-marts wrote:
| I think the assumption that Ilya was the ringleader still
| holds and all the evidence still points in that direction.
| Adam represents the board NOW (after the signed letter and
| change of heart), but it doesn't mean that Ilya wasn't the
| key instigator at the start of this and all the way through
| Monday morning.
| ksherlock wrote:
| If Ilya convinced the board they need to fire Sam, then
| demanded the board resign because they listened to him, well,
| he needs a wheelbarrow to carry around that massive pair of
| balls.
| ajross wrote:
| > So my point is, why doesn't Ilya just spill the beans
|
| To avoid more chaos. There are essentially zero good faith
| negotiation processes that are improved by leaking all the
| details to the public in parallel.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| If there was ever a motivation for sentence-diagramming...
| golergka wrote:
| The only way this story could get any more stupider is if we
| find out that the conflict between Sam and Ilya or D'Angelo
| started because of something related to personal romantic
| relationships between them and some other involved individuals.
| mrmanner wrote:
| Or something related to personal romantic relationships
| between them
| hipadev23 wrote:
| I hope Emmett was smart enough to require a literal wheelbarrow
| of money for what's going to be a 3-day stint as CEO.
| ZiiS wrote:
| I assume the hope is they will be needing new board members
| just as he becomes available.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| He sold Twitch for $1B in $AMZN stock that eventually went up
| like 500%. Chances are he's doing it for free or a token amount
| of money.
| padjo wrote:
| I feel a token sum for a person like that would likely be
| life changing money for most people.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| A token sum in this case usually refers to something like a
| $1 salary or minimum wage, just to be on payroll. So no,
| not really.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I feel like he is probably doing it for stock options.
|
| If you are worth a few B, being the CEO of OpenAI presents a
| reasonable opportunity to grow that by tens of billions if
| everything goes right.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| OpenAI does not give out stock options to employees. They
| do give out profit participation units which are
| effectively kind of similar. They effectively reward
| employees for profit but don't give any ownership.
|
| Anyway, he's probably doing it for the clout and the "once
| in a lifetime opportunity," not for any money at all. AGI
| true believers don't think money will be as important as
| being close to the apparatus around the AGI will be.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is the only mode of communication for everyone involved in this
| fiasco Twitter and reporters?
| cpncrunch wrote:
| It seems that way, which is baffling to me, as this seems a
| particularly easy problem to solve. No need to wait for an
| independent investigator to give a report in 30 days (by which
| time OpenAI might be toast). Just have individual discussions
| with each board member and ask them why they voted to fire Sam,
| and what evidence there was. Then, take appropriate action.
|
| If I had to guess, there will be one person who pushed for
| Sam's firing with vague reasons, and the others went along with
| it for their own vague reasons. In which case, the solution
| would be to fire those members (including Ilya) from the board,
| but let Ilya continue as chief scientist.
| username332211 wrote:
| yes. and for some reason the main modes of communication are
| lowercase text and heart emojis.
|
| <3<3<3
| pyrophane wrote:
| The worst thing about this whole affair has been the failure of
| the board to coherently express, seemingly to anyone, why they
| did what they did.
| babberman wrote:
| My money is on "Board got big mad when Sam went on Joe Rogan
| and critiziced woke cancel culture".
| alexilliamson wrote:
| No way. That interview was a full month and half ago.
| Moreover, these days everyone and their brother is going on
| JRE to complain about "woke".
| neilv wrote:
| Maybe it's not defensible.
|
| Or maybe it involves a deal that they're stuck with, and now
| dependent upon, even if the terms aren't aligned well with the
| non-profit. Saying that could be awkward.
|
| What I can't guess at explanations for is publicly stating the
| not-consistently-candid in the initial announcement. I'm not
| expert on these things, but that sounds to me like either a
| euphemism for something that they needed to be seen as
| explicitly distancing the company from ASAP _or_ a blunder that
| a lawyer or PR person would 've advised them not to do, and
| which they didn't need to do.
| DigitalSea wrote:
| The fact the new CEO can't even get answers from the board is
| quite telling. Looks like the OpenAI board wants those investor
| lawsuits. And allegedly the Quora guy Adam D'Angelo is the
| ringleader of all this?
| newsclues wrote:
| Or Dustin Moskovitz, it seems many of the board members may be
| linked to him
| reducesuffering wrote:
| No https://www.threads.net/@moskov/post/Cz482XgJBN0?hl=en
|
| "A few folks sent me a Hacker News comment speculating I was
| involved in the OpenAI conflict. Totally false. I was as
| surprised as anyone Friday, and still don't know what
| happened."
| cpncrunch wrote:
| I'm not sure if lawsuits against the non-profit will be
| possible, as the investors didn't invest in it. More likely,
| making public the facts behind who was responsible for the
| shenanigans and what evidence they had (if any), combined with
| pressure from employees, will force their hand.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| There is no evidence that Adam is the ringleader.
|
| All four are possible ringleaders.
|
| Given Ilya's change of heart he is slightly less probable as
| the ringleader.
| gitgud wrote:
| Sorry, the title of this submission is terrible...
|
| > _"OpenAI 's CEO Shear left in the dark, planning to leave if
| evidence not provided"_
|
| Did Shear leave or not??
|
| Why not just use the article title?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Because the article title is terrible. Isn't it clear Shear
| didn't leave the board but "planning to"
| proto-n wrote:
| "(was) left in the dark" means "wasn't given information"
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Left in the dark" is a common idiom for having information
| withheld. This particular use also uses a construction I think
| of as "implicit pass voice" where the "to be" part (is/has
| been/etc) of a passive voice construct is elided, it's more
| fully "OpenAI CEO Shear ![has been] left in the dark [about the
| reasons and supporting evidence for Altman's firing], ... "
| zem wrote:
| i hear changpeng zhao is leaving binance, if they need a
| replacement
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