Cleared of malfeasance, Altman's unpopular firing may be undone—if he's interested.
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Breaking: Sam Altman reportedly in talks for potential return as OpenAI CEO
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I wonder if Sam will attempt to negotiate more control over the board to prevent a similar thing from ever happening again.
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If the board truly cares about safe and responsible development of AGI, like they claim. They should never let Sam Altman near any AGI project, LLM or otherwise.
He's another crypto libertarian who'd rather you give up regulated banking and go for things like Worldcoin instead. All of his talk about "regulating" LLMs and AGI-research is just him trying to make sure he is able to skate past the slow regulation while other players can't, the same spiel that crypto-grifters had at the height of their "oh please regulate us" moments.
He's another crypto libertarian who'd rather you give up regulated banking and go for things like Worldcoin instead. All of his talk about "regulating" LLMs and AGI-research is just him trying to make sure he is able to skate past the slow regulation while other players can't, the same spiel that crypto-grifters had at the height of their "oh please regulate us" moments.
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Sounds to me like “ohh shit, all the smart people are about to quit”
Edit: also Microsoft suing them into nonexistence.
Edit: also Microsoft suing them into nonexistence.
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I have absolutely no idea what happened here and am not about to take anyone’s side in the aftermath but I do feel confident saying there’s not a ghost of a chance he’d come back without massive concessions to prevent something similar. The resignation of the entire remaining board is only the first step and it goes up from there.
What an absolutely bizarre story.
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And we should trust this management make safe AGI? Of course there will be no such thing as a safe and responsible AGI, but still
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Interesting turn of events given the numerous comments all but accusing him of stealing or sexual harassment in the other articles with zero actual evidence of either. Too much idle gossip when it turns out to be boring corporate intrigue that went sideways. The tabloid mentality sure is strong these days.
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From his previous behavior it appears that Altman believes in "Move fast and break things". That's not OK if the things that get broken are people, particularly anything related to their jobs, money, and anything else that isn't ephemeral. And it's not OK with a seriously unproven technology like AI.
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well, it's advisable that in taking that risk, firstly, that you not miss, but more importantly, it's of primary importance that he not get up again
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The whole OpenAI governance structure makes this whole thing even more inscrutable. Hopefully the board keeps to their founding ideals whatever the outcome.
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Disappointing if true. I read through the other two threads and they made it sound like the nonprofit board was in the right here.
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Not surprising. Microsoft lost more than 2% of their value the moment this news came out. And if they don't calm the investors down by Monday morning, it will probably get worse.
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Either he was fired for good reason and the board is spineless and coward in wanting him back or he wasn't fired for good reason and the board is just plain incompetent.
In any case the board should fire itself.
In any case the board should fire itself.
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No matter the result there will be some fundamental issues that result in something fundamentally broken as an outcome. Only turning back time would fix this snafu.
I don't have a particularly positive view on Sam but the board doesn't sound like it operated entirely above-board either (pun intended). What a mess all around.
If anything I am somewhat relieved that Msft seems to be getting involved. While entirely selfish for them - there is severe risk towards their investment - I certainly would prefer nadella having some purview over it vs startup tech bros. (Not full owhership, but clearly an adult in the room is needed(
I don't have a particularly positive view on Sam but the board doesn't sound like it operated entirely above-board either (pun intended). What a mess all around.
If anything I am somewhat relieved that Msft seems to be getting involved. While entirely selfish for them - there is severe risk towards their investment - I certainly would prefer nadella having some purview over it vs startup tech bros. (Not full owhership, but clearly an adult in the room is needed(
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That is spectacularly stupid. Like, beyond comprehension. You cannot go from “he so egregiously failed in his duty of candour to the board we felt it necessary to immediately fire him“ on Friday to “let’s get him back” on Saturday. At least not if you want to be taken seriously.
Remember folks, the people running this organisation (both the board and the executives involved) believe themselves to be creating technology of humanity-level significance and that the rest of us should trust them to be stewards of it.
Turns out if you put LessWrong-ites in control of something they consider important it descends into farce. What a shocker.
Remember folks, the people running this organisation (both the board and the executives involved) believe themselves to be creating technology of humanity-level significance and that the rest of us should trust them to be stewards of it.
Turns out if you put LessWrong-ites in control of something they consider important it descends into farce. What a shocker.
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One has to wonder how much Satya Nadella had in this about face.
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You will hear the names of Musk and Thiel before weekend is over as part of this story.
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I was going to make a joke like this but I was already pre-Ninja'd by several commentors. Dammit! I'll have to stay on Ars 24-7-365 now and refresh every 30 seconds if I want to be the Ninja.
Be. The. Ninja.
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Yes, the thing is that you generally don't fire your superstar CEO overnight unless they've done something really bad. Apparently this could be the one case where they haven't?
This is honestly even weirder and, if anything, sends confusing signals to anyone who wants to be involved with the company. Frankly I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole after this drama.
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Does anyone else have the unpleasant suspicion that the upshot of this episode will involve some combination of the weakening of the position of the nonprofit oversight org vs. the guys moving fast and breaking things and/or the replacement of some of the only moderately alarming people with the very worst VC brodom has to offer?
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Altman is a jackass and I would shed no tears for his absence, but it should have been obvious to the board that there would be tremendous backlash to this, especially from people with hold over their purse strings. I had respect for making an obviously unpopular decision to stick to their principles, but rapidly backpedaling on it just makes them look like fools.
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Like I said, not if you want to be taken seriously. I put it to you that taking the board of the non-profit that has self-appointed itself a firebreak against the technology they themselves purport to be too dangerous to be allowed to be controlled by private enterprise or state level actors seriously after reverse-ferretting on a dramatic leadership change predicated on terms, essentially, of honesty in their dealings with that same board on the back of a massive, multi-billionaire dollar company wanting them to is indeed…Quite difficult.
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I’m just shocked Microsoft doesn’t have a representative on the board given the size of their investment
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If Microsoft were smart, they'd spin up a new department/division with Altman at the head, then just openly post for candidates without communicating with anyone over at OpenAI and let all the employees that want to jump ship do so (no active poaching, so harder for OpenAI to sue there). Microsoft gets the talent without needing to be a minority owner in the company. They currently have ~$111B in cash holdings, so they should be able to throw money at it and have something at least as big/effective as OpenAI fairly quickly if they're able to get the talent to jump ship.
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I can swear I can hear the voice of John Cleese as a reporter in a Monty Python skit.
"And in other news, the CEO that was sacked yesterday has now been un-sacked."
"And in other news, the CEO that was sacked yesterday has now been un-sacked."
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I don't believe this reporting from the Verge. It's an article about what the Board is thinking, but rather than getting comment from the Board they have comment from Sam Altman about what he's thinking, investors (non-profits are not accountable to investors and it's obvious why they wouldn't like this!), and "senior employees". All Sam or Microsoft need to do as part of this media pressure campaign against the non-profit Board was get one or two of Sam's recruits who were willing to leave OpenAI for him, to instead speak anonymously to the Verge and say that the Board is in negotiations. If they're willing to leave the largest company in tech (as has been claimed by much other reporting), I think it strains credibility to think they wouldn't either lie or exaggerate for the VC boss who holds their loyalty.
In general, even aside from this specific thing, I feel like tech media has at least some responsibility to attempt to account for the disparity in media savvy and media connections between the venture capitalist side led by Sam (& supported by Microsoft) and the non-profit Board. People deserve to have the news reported critically if there's reason to think parties involved are attempting to use media as a pressure campaign.
In general, even aside from this specific thing, I feel like tech media has at least some responsibility to attempt to account for the disparity in media savvy and media connections between the venture capitalist side led by Sam (& supported by Microsoft) and the non-profit Board. People deserve to have the news reported critically if there's reason to think parties involved are attempting to use media as a pressure campaign.
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