505 of 700 OpenAI employees tell the board to resign.
505 of 700 OpenAI employees tell the board to resign.
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295 comments
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It's supposed to be a nonprofit benefiting humanity, not a pay day for owners or workers. The board isn't making money off of it.
Giving microsoft control is a bad idea. (duh?)
Giving a single person control is a bad idea, per sam altman.
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My take on what happened (we are now at step 8):
- Sam wants to push for more & quicker profit with MS and VC backing, but board resists, constant conflicts
- Sam aligns with MS, hatch a plan on how to gut OpenAI for its know-how, ppl, and tech, leaving the non-profit part bleeding out in the gutter
- Sam & MS set a trap: Sam crosses some red lines, maybe taking commercial decisions without board approval. Potentially there was also some whispering in key ears (e.g, Ilya) by seemingly helpful advisors/VCs to push & pull at the same time on both sides
- Board has enough after Sam doesn’t back down, fires him & other co-founder guy
- MS and VCs go full attack to discredit board. After some info gathering, they realize they have been utterly fucked
- Some chaos, quick decision of appointing/replacing ppl, trying to manage the fire, even talking to Sam (btw this might have been a fallback option for MS, that the board reinstates him with more control and guardrails, weakening the power of the non-profit)
- Sam joins MS, masks are off
- Employees on the sinking ship revolt, even Ilya realizes he was manipulated/fucked
- OpenAI dead, key ppl join MS, tech and rest of the company bought for scraps. Non-profit part dead. Capitalist victory
Source: subjective interpretation/deduction based on the available info and my experience working as a management consultant for 10 years (dealing with lot of exec politics, though nothing this serious)
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You're wrong on point #1. This isn't being done per Sam Altman for commercial purposes. It's being done per Microsoft in an attempt to remove the OpenAI board completely. Facebook recently shutdown its AI Ethics division.
All of this is happening in conjunction with each other. Large corporations are trying to privatize AI and using key personnel in the industry to make it seem like a good thing. This wasn't just Sam Altman. Whoever drafted the letter demanding the board steps down is working with Microsoft to do this.
More than likely, that group went around spreading doomsday to the other employees in an attempt to scare them into fleeing the company.
Sam Altman is just a pawn.
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Facebook recently shutdown its AI Ethics division.
Meta is the only player that's releasing its models to public. Ironically, it is the one being the most ethical in the AI space right now.
"AI Ethics" teams in the Silicon Valley are nothing but rent-seeking doomer cults that leech off on the effort of others and hold back progress with bullshit gatekeeping. There was not a single positive contribution Facebook's AI "ethics" team ever made.
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This is exactly my thoughts on it too, unfortunately.
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This is precisely the take I've been coming to on this. It fits all the fuckery going on. You can rest assured there is nothing in writing that can back this up, but one day there will be an unrelated lawsuit where it all comes out.
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You might very well be correct. The thing that people need to remember is that just because something involves conspiracy doesn't mean that it's false. The more people required to be involved in a conspiracy is typically what makes it false. I think it is very within human nature. Especially those of programmers who have traditionally been better treated and paid than most other workers. To side with the profit motive against actual altruism. It's the tech bro thing to do. I'm going to wait and see what happens. Not take any sides. Even though typically I'm always for supporting the workers.
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They have a for profit arm in addition to the non profit.
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More like a for profit arm ruled by an non profit head.
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295 comments