Microsoft Joins OpenAI's Board With Sam Altman Officially Back As CEO (theverge.com) 14
Sam Altman is officially OpenAI's CEO again after spending four days in exile. Meanwhile, Microsoft is getting a non-voting observer seat on the nonprofit board that controls OpenAI. "OpenAI adding Microsoft to the board as a 'non-voting observer' means that the tech giant will have more visibility into the company's inner workings but not have an official vote in big decisions," reports The Verge.
Altman said in a memo to employees: "I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone's hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry. I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission." From the report: With three of the four board members who decided to suddenly fire Altman now gone, OpenAI's new board consists of chair Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo, the only remaining holdout from the previous board.
In his memo to employees, Altman said that he harbors "zero ill will" towards Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist who initially participated in the board coup and changed his mind after nearly all of the company's employees threatened to quit if Altman didn't come back. "While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI," Altman said. "The fact that we did not lose a single customer will drive us to work even harder for you," he told employees.
Altman said in a memo to employees: "I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone's hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry. I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission." From the report: With three of the four board members who decided to suddenly fire Altman now gone, OpenAI's new board consists of chair Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo, the only remaining holdout from the previous board.
In his memo to employees, Altman said that he harbors "zero ill will" towards Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist who initially participated in the board coup and changed his mind after nearly all of the company's employees threatened to quit if Altman didn't come back. "While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI," Altman said. "The fact that we did not lose a single customer will drive us to work even harder for you," he told employees.
Wow. (Score:2, Troll)
I always thought Sam seemed like a responsible g
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
So Sam Altman did something that concerned the board so much that they fired him. Now all four of the board members that voted him out have been removed themselves. Sam once said: [bloomberg.com]
I always thought Sam seemed like a responsible guy. But whatever happened does suggest that Sam is not really accountable to the safety-focused nonprofit board. And this came soon after OpenAI's core values were changed to this: [openai.com]
The board had the right to fire Altman, and perhaps they should have, but the big problem was in the execution of that task.
Altman was seemingly never notified that he was in risk of dismissal.
Their major investors, including Microsoft who was sinking in billions, were caught completely off-guard.
Even some members of the board were left out of the meeting.
There's only two times you fire a CEO like that, first if they're forced to in order to save the company from major harm (the CEO did or is going to do something inexcusably bad), and the second is if you're executing a coup.
But their disagreement with Altman's actions wasn't serious enough to require a surprise firing. And it wasn't a coup either since they didn't really have a new king in mind. Instead, they seem to have panicked or gotten worked up over the Q* letter and performed a snap firing that lacked legitimacy in the eyes of virtually everyone, including almost all their investors, employees, and even some of the boardmembers who voted to fire.
If you're concerned that Altman doesn't care about AI safety enough then the board did a horrible job, because they discredited the AI-safety side and now Altman is back in charge of OpenAI with more power than ever and the AI-safey camp is purged from the board.
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It is serious because Open AI was co-founded by Elon to hedge humanity being cornered by a closed AI leader. He betrayed the trust of the people, his company mission and humanity. Yes, it’s ok to love money and to control the entire world. But this what Open AI exactly promised to not be.
This may start becoming more common now that it's worked out a couple times. "Do No Evil" probably got Google a shit-ton of well-intentioned talent at the right time. Talent that had to watch their ethical stance erode away underneath them as they continued to work for the company, or leave. And here's another. I know these aren't isolated incidents, but they are the most publicly displayed. It'll probably become a blueprint for talent scavenging among tech companies.
1. "Hey, guise? We're going to start the
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What's the real story of Sam Altman getting fired. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Give it time, We're still busy writing it. Things got a bit lagging behind with that writer's strike.
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I'm waiting for the new season of Silicon Valley to find out.
Don't go public, you lose control (Score:2)
Sam's "power seeking" succeeded in changing OpenAI (Score:2)
Personally I think the corruption and takeover of OpenAI was an important reminder for the world people can't even control themselves and any alignment/safety bullshit these corporations keep spewing about controlling A*I have no credibility.
Where's they go? (Score:2)
Can someone explain how the board members changed? Board members of a nonprofit don't have owners to report to, they don't just magically get exchanged with people of different viewpoints.
(Why do reporters just casually drop facts like this without explaining them? Did they think nobody would ask that question?)