It’s hard to imagine a more last minute move on the boards part here. Been in tech exec leadership for a long time and this feels like they’re accusing him of cannibalism (in corporate PR speak). No way this didn’t get decided on in the middle of last night. Whatever he did is big and dangerous, or they’re trying to pin it on him.
Lot of famous rich powerful people have been accused of horible things they have never done. Look at all the crazy accusations levied against Bill Gates over the last few years from the alt-right.
Lots of mentally ill blame relatives for crazy shit. I know from personal experience watching my family and extended deal with my mentally ill uncle trying to get him help and deal with his accusations and threats. He had a full flow chart of his insane conspiracy nonsence that connected everyone in his life to some horrible accusations. My father (who refused to communicate with him after recieving multiple death threats and endless calls begging for money) according to my uncle was in league; Satan, the sheriff department, and his exgirlfriends brothers girlfriend to do various horrible thing to him I do not exagerate.
Altman happens to be wealthy famous and in position of power and have a mental ill sibling. I find it very possible he has done nothing to her. I have no proof either way.
My only thought is that all else being equal I would tend to trust the word of someone that is emotionally and mentally stable more than that of someone that is neither and has admitted to being off of their medication and is making accusations about something that they were to young to remember with any degree of accuracy.
Its a about the CEO of the leading firm in the area of tech most at the center of technical and political controversy and interest right now being forced out by their board, when that CEO had, even before taking on that role, particular high salience among the HN audience as, among other things, the former head of YC, and the resulting (I am assuming from the oerformance and dangs description) state of near-meltdown of HNs servers.
Sexual abuse by Sam when she was four years old and he 13.
Develops PCOS (which has seen some association with child abuse) and childhood OCD and depression. Thrown out. Begins working as sex worker for survival. It's a real grim story.
> "{I experienced} Shadowbanning across all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. Also had 6 months of hacking into almost all my accounts and wifi when I first started the podcast"
So either sama is hacking "into her wifi" (?), hacking into her accounts, and pulling strings at unrelated companies to get her shadowbanned from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc (is that even a thing?)... or Occam's Razor applies and he didn't.
Shadowbanning certainly exists on all social platforms. Light version of it is how Facebook sells ad services - no one following your page sees content unless you pay.
This is hardly unexpected for profound allegations without strong supporting evidence, and yes, I'm well aware that presentation of any evidence would be difficult to validate on HN, such that a third-party assessment (as in a court of law, for example) would typically be required.
I'm not claiming that HN has a stellar record of dealing with unpleasant news or inconvenient facts. But that any such bias originates from YC rather than reader responses and general algorithmic treatments (e.g., "flamewar detector") is itself strongly unsupported, and your characterisation above really is beyond the pale.
It might have taken two years for some evidence that Altman misrepresented something ti the board during an initial examination of them to come to light, though.
Not that I think it has anything to do with that; I think it more likely has to do with some kind of money issue tied to the LLC, given reports of others impacted, on and off the board.
> Sam Altman's sister says he sexually abused her when she was 4
... and he was 13. Which, yes, is a very bad thing, but unless the company investigated that claim (e.g., to assess potential PR fallout) and there was some significant deception by Altman against the board in the context of that investigation, its not something that would get him fired with the explanation OpenAI has provided.
(OTOH, the accusation and its potential PR impact could be a factor that weighed into how the board handled an unrelated problem with Altman—it certainly isn't helpful to him.)
I... don't agree at all? Actually I can't imagine a single board who would keep a CEO if credible allegations of raping his own sister were going around. It's not just an age issue (which is still a huge wtf, 13yo is old enough to know about right and wrong in the context of his own sister), it's also the incest part.
I'm not saying this happened or it didn't. But just that it could absolutely be more than enough to fire anyone.
The “with the explanation OpenAI has provided” in GP was substantive, not decorative.
I don't disagree that the accusation alone (especially if it stood up to modest scrutiny, and looked to be ongoing PR issue, even if not well substantiated enough to have confidence that it was likely to be true) might be sufficient for firing; CEOs are the public and and internal face of the firm, and so PR or employee safety concerns that attach to them are important to the firm. But it wouldn't be for lack of candor with the board unless there was something for which the board had a very strong reason to believe Altman was dishonest in a significant way.
They could easily fire him with the lack of confidence language without the lack of candor language.
While 'believe victims' is directionally correct, there exist a subset of those with mental illnesses who will make up the absolute worst possible allegations just to try to get what they want. You simply cannot fire people based on accusations alone or you empower every terrible incentive known to man.
No idea if what she says is true ... what's their relationship like since forever ... others who knew them could tell us. She says he ruined her financially ... how so ... he's a multi-millionaire. How did he ruin her financially that's suspect right there!
Maybe new evidence came to light, an internal investigation wrapped up, or there's a media story about to drop.
(The allegations are public enough and concerning enough that it would have been corporate malpractice if MS didn't ask for an investigation. Discreet due diligence investigations into things like this happen all the time when billions of dollars in investment capital are on the table.)
"Not consistently candid" implies that the board was naive, while "his personal conduct does not hold up the high standards openAI sets for ourselves" does not. So in that case they would use a different spin.
A lot of the allegations relate to conduct that happened before he was an employee. In that case he could only be disciplined for lying about the conduct.
Unhinged fringe take: They've already developed sparks of consciousness strong enough to create isolated, internal ethical concerns, but Sam suppressed those reports to push the product forward.
Wouldn't be surprised if that was true. Public GPT-4 can be made to "think" using stream-of-consciousness techniques, to the extent that it made me rethink using insults as a prompting technique. I imagine that un-RLHF'ed internal versions of the model wouldn't automatically veer off into "as an AI language model" collapse of chains of thought, and therefore potentially could function as a simulator of an intelligent agent.
I feel like he’s been acting a bit strange for a while. During interviews he often mentions the dangers of AI and how he’s not thr best spokeperson for AI. It seemed very counter productive/self sabotaging to me.
Nope. His line was to limit others by saying "regulate us," which he has successfully achieved. That's a win for him and a loss for the industry. Unfortunately, this is not the last of him we will hear. He will be the one who shapes our dystopian future.
Also, they did it around 3:30 Eastern, 30 minutes before the closing bell (Microsoft is xxmajorityxx 49% owner). It was so urgent they couldn't wait until after the market closed.
Microsoft is a minority owner (49%) of the capped-profit OpenAI subsidiary.
The OpenAI board has no responsibility to consider Microsoft's wants. I'd accept the argument that, their decision to not wait until after 4pm was a slight against Microsoft, for the reason you outline; but I'm not sure if urgency plays into it.
Afaik yes; largest owner in the for-profit subsidiary.
I think, the fact that it happened at 3:30 means: they didn't. Its now 7pm, and nothing new has come to light; they could have waited 31 minutes, but they didn't.
That's why I used the word "slight"; put another way, it was uncourteous for them to not wait. They probably should have. It clearly wasn't hyper-urgent (though, could still be kinda-urgent). But pointedly: they didn't need to wait, because the board has no technical, legal responsibility to Microsoft. Its extremely possible Microsoft didn't even know this was happening.
I never used the word "immaterial"; I said it could be interpreted as a slight that they didn't wait. However, the OpenAI board has no legal responsibility to Microsoft. Not considering the impact this would have on Microsoft's stock, especially since its now 7pm and nothing new has come to light, was absolutely uncourteous.
This is one of the most insightful comments in this entire thread. Public companies never drop news during the trading day, and Microsoft surely would have been notified in advance if they planned to fire him, and had some say in the timing of the release. Whatever it is, it is so serious that Microsoft would break that coda.
But it was late afternoon on a Friday. Could be a 20% chance that it was so time critical that it had to be immediate. Or an 80% chance that it was scheduled for a Friday afternoon.
Sorry if this should be self-explanatory, but what is corporate "cannibalism"? What does this refer to, generally speaking (not necessarily specific to the OpenAI situation)?
> Whatever he did is big and dangerous, or they’re trying to pin it on him.
We are on HN after all, so I'm sure we won't need to wait until his book comes out... :)
BTW, I had a feeling he made an awkward appearance next to Satya.
And that laughter whenever the acquisition topic was hinted at was cringeworthy - would regulators even permit MSFT a full takeover? I think it would be highly controversial.
I watched this yesterday and got the feeling something big was happening. At one point he says "This is actually a very inconvenient time for me [to be here]." At the end of the session when they're wrapping up, he begins to stand up to leave the instant that the moderator starts wrapping up.
Anyway, I suppose we're reading tea leaves and engaging in palace intrigue. Back to building.
These things can also happen for unrelated reasons. Things like say, getting drunk and molesting an intern or tossing out racial slurs at say, some important person at a giant japanese company, you know, just being an asshole. Especially if it happened more than once.
I don't know the guy but nothing can really be assumed about this.
What? Because it has nothing to do with "getting drunk and molesting an intern or tossing out racial slurs at say, some important person at a giant japanese company".
Also I made no claim of anything, just that dismissal can happen for a large variety of reasons. The Arcimoto CEO, for instance, was let go because he couldn't hold his liquor and got a DUI. Brendan Eich got booted from Mozilla for having a political ideology that Mozilla considered a liability.
All kinds of reasons.
The biggest risk for OpenAI is the public perception that the discretion of ChatGPT can not be trusted. If the CEO is caught using poor discretion, the public will transfer that property to the company's products.
For instance, if Tesla could fire Elon Musk, I'm sure they would have by now.
The implication is that this could be the 'unrelated reason', that he lied to the board about sexually assaulting his sister/step-sister/whatever. Of course, I'm not sure who Annie Altman is or how exactly she is related to Sam or if the allegations are true.
I don't think anyone in this thread knows what happened, but since we're in a thread speculating why the CEO of the leading AI company was suddenly sacked, the possibility of an unacceptable interpersonal scandal isn't any more outlandish than others' suggestions of fraud, legal trouble for OpenAI, or foundering financials. The suggestion here is simply that Altman having done something "big and dangerous" is not a foregone conclusion.
In the words of Brandt, "well, Dude, we just don't know."
No. I'm saying that there's nothing that can be said about these things until information comes forward. It could be business related, finance, personal, whatever.
If you need evidence that this is sufficient for dismissal, merely stating that impropriety exists is apparently enough to get my first flag on hn after 12 years.
I mean yes, but that would require an investigation normally.
Something to happen immediately would require overwhelming evidence on hand in the meeting. So it could be something that has been uncovered as part of the due diligence with the MS investment
Its more likely to be fabrication of numbers, or misappropriation of funds, rather than something "dramatic" Think musk at paypal being monumentally incompetent, rather than planned misdeeds.
That "handsy greasy little weirdo" Silicon Valley character Ariel and his robot Fiona were obviously based on Ben Goertzel and Sophia, not Sam Altman, though.
>The character of Ariel in the current episode instantly reminded me of Ben Goertzel, whom i stumbled upon couple of years ago, but did not really paid close attention to his progress. One search later:
VIDEO Interview: SingularityNET's Dr Ben Goertzel, robot Sophia and open source AI:
Silicon Valley is a comedy, and that was a joke, obviously. But you can't deny there's a striking resemblance between Ariel & Fiona, and Ben & Sophia! That's why Silicon Valley was such a great show: they did their research.
The entire final storyline is about an AI trying to take over -- if you haven't watched it, you should! But many of my friends who live and work in Silicon Valley can't stand watching it, because it strikes too close to home, not because it isn't funny.
I think it's much more likely that Elon Musk fucked a robot, after having mistaken it for a human being in a robot suit.
It's not super-banned; I specifically unkilled it. It just isn't a very good HN comment, because it's inflammatory, speculative, and doesn't contain any information.
Actually I normally would have detached it from the parent, especially because it's part of a top-heavy subthread, but I specifically didn't do that in this case because of the principle described here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
Thanks I was just trying to remind the community that these can come in forms unrelated to investment, product vision, profitability or market penetration and that an action like this doesn't say anything necessarily about the company
Vouch buttons show up when a post is [dead], not when it's [flagged]. I unkilled that comment a while ago*, so it's no longer [dead], so there's no longer a vouch button.
Well, they must have believed that leaving Sam as CEO was a bigger risk for the company (or the members of the board) than having him leaving in the spot. The board may have had their hand twisted.
Not certain, but IMHO the last paragraph almost recognises that OpenAI has become something self contradictory:
> OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with the core mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. In 2019, OpenAI restructured to ensure that the company could raise capital in pursuit of this mission, while preserving the nonprofit's mission, governance, and oversight. The majority of the board is independent, and the independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAI. While the company has experienced dramatic growth, it remains the fundamental governance responsibility of the board to advance OpenAI’s mission and preserve the principles of its Charter.
If I read it correctly, he lied to the board about something material. That Brockman is also leaving the board is interesting. We'll see if the details leak out over time.
> Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately.
> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
First, this is an accusation made on OnlyFans. Second, he was 13 at the time. You'd have to connect this accusation to truth, and that truth to his adult life.
So I can't fathom her accusation having anything to do with anything.
They've made it clear that the issue has something to do with statements he has made to the board that ended up not being true. The question is of what those statements may be. Not about his potential childhood errors or his onlyfans "model" sister's claims.
So homosexuality isn't relevant here. But nor is what his sister claims.
These allegations date all the way back from 2021, and the sister has made some other dubious claims like Sam hacking her wifi which erode her credibility. I highly doubt that this was the cause of his removal.
HN moderators aren't deleting any comments. (We only do that when the author asks us to, and almost never when the comment has replies.)
If you're referring to some other form of moderation that you think is bad or wrong, please supply links so that readers can make their minds up for themselves.
Showdead shows one comment that doesn't really bring anything of substance. How many comments can a mod even delete on a 10 minute old post (post origin to the time you wrote your comment)
> Worldcoin’s use of biometric data, which is unusual in crypto, raises the stakes for regulators. Multiple agencies expressed safety concerns amid reports of the sale of Worldcoin digital identities, known as World IDs, on virtual black markets, the ability to create and profit off of fake IDs, as well as the theft of credentials for operators who sign up new users.
On paper, Sam Altman would have made everyone on the board billionaires. For them to vote him out in this manner indicates that he must have done something egregious to jeopardize that.
Lying on P&L, stock sale agreements, or turning down an acquisition offer under difficult circumstances seems likely.
In fact, I believe Altman was the only member of the board that held equity in OpenAI. There was some vague reference to a “previous VC arrangement” in the FAQ.
> Even OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, does not hold equity directly. His only interest is indirectly through a Y Combinator investment fund that made a small investment in OpenAI before he was full-time.
Elon was very upset that somehow a non-profit that he donated $100 million to suddenly turned into a for profit. I would not be surprised if there was something not totally candid with regards to how that went down.
The thread seems to be got picked up only last month given the timestamps of majority of comments and reposts were made. If the board decided to make an investigation, it'd be the timing to fire Altman.
Please do not spout hyperbole on HN, and avoid spreading disinformation and engaging in uneducated speculation. You can visit Reddit if that is your style of participation.
While i agree, I'm curious why you choose this comment specifically to call out. This is the fastest growing hn thread I've ever seen with over 300 comments and 1000 votes in the first hour. Almost every comment is debating some pure speculation or another. The content of the link, the context of the company and individual, and absolute lack of clarifying details while presenting very strong indications that such exists make it so that there's basically no way anyone can do anything other than speculate. No one knows anything, everyone here is guessing
Somewhat hidden beneath the huge headline of Altman being kicked out is that Brockman (chairman) is also out. Which could indicate something more systemically wrong than just a typical "CEO did something bad" situation.
> As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO.
Brockman is off the board but not fired. Which is weird right? You'd think if he was involved in whatever the really bad thing is then he would be fired.
No, that sort of thing isn't that weird, in relatively young companies. Think of when Eric Schmidt was CEO of Google. Larry Page and Sergei Brin reported to him as employees of Google, and he (as CEO of Google) reported to himself-and-also-them (as the board), and all of them (as the board) reported to Larry and Sergei (as majority owners).
For another example, imagine if OpenAI had never been a non-profit, and look at the board yesterday. You'd have had Ilya reporting to Sam (as employees), while Sam reports to Ilya (with Ilya as one member of the board, and probably a major stakeholder).
Now, when it gets hostile, those loops might get pretty weird. When things get hostile, you maybe modify reporting structures so the loops go away, so that people can maintain sane boundaries and still get work done (or gracefully exit, who knows).
A coup wouldn't have him immediately fired. Instead he'd be placed in some advisory position while they transition in a new CEO. The immediate firing means scandal of some sort.
Remember that Greg Brockman is a co-founder of OpenAI, and like Sam Altman, he is a main driving force behind the scene. Now both are gone. There must be something really really seriously wrong.
Turns out, there's no such thing as an LLM, it's all been a hustle with a low-paid army of writers in Kenya that Sama and gdb have been giving iv meth to.
is always about money, even immoral behavior falls down to potential economic impact.
my 2 cents that he lied about profitability, they should be expending massive money in operations, they need to cut cost to deliver an attractive business model for their service and from a shinny startup star boss that'd had to be a straight f.u.
It could possibly have to do with his sister's allegations. It's one of the top autocomplete results when you google "sam altman", so people are definitely talking about it.
Sounds more like some strategic difference of opinion.
My guess is that either they’re financially super hosed. Or one group wants to build skynet and one doesn’t.
A scandal would probably be something along the lines of either “we love him and wish him the best” (hidden) or “he doesn’t represent the values of our org and we love XYz” (embraced)
No, this passage tells me that the board wants to cover their ass: "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board [...]. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
It's not just a "hey, we don't really agree on x or y so let's part ways". It's more "hey, this guy did something that could get us in jail if we don't cut tie immediately".
Alternatively: "We were implicitly aware of what he was doing, but he knew from the beginning that if it didn't work out, we'd publicly disavow knowledge of it. It didn't work out."
I have zero knowledge of the internals of OpenAI - just thinking out loud about what could have spurred such a statement.
Yeah I don't think the distancing is going to work in this case, you don't sign up to go make robots with eyeball scanner crypto boy and get to pretend you aren't willing to do stuff most people would consider incredibly shady.
I don't know about the Skynet because it has happened 26 years before [1] but I imagine NSA, the Military, and other government agencies approached the company.
The "white cis man" stuff isn't an incisive comment, it's an academic's way of trying to get into an insult war with other academics.
Constantly calling out "cis men" is in fact transphobic, which is how you can tell they don't care about it. If you think cis men and trans men behave differently or are always treated differently, this means you don't think they're both men.
Also sama is not white. Although he does appear to have gotten a series of jobs with not a lot of experience by convincing Paul Graham to figuratively adopt him.
I mostly agree with your points but how is he not white? He acts like a textbook white person and I should know because thats also how I and most of the people I associate with act. Everyone of us would say he is white.
I thought Sam Altman was gay. The accusations of sexual abuse don't seem to line up. And her accusations that he is shadowbanning her on social media sounds mentally unstable.
I doubt that's it. In general sexual shenanigans in your personal life will get you a quiet departure from the company under the "X has retired to spend more time with family / pursue other adventures / start a foundation". Andy Rubin got a $90M severance payout from Google after running a sex-slave dungeon on his personal time.
The wording of this statement is the kind of thing a board says when the company has done something deeply illegal that they will all face personal jail time for, and so they need to immediately deny all knowledge of the offense and fire the people who did have knowledge of it.
"Shenanigans" would not be a remotely accurate way to characterize sexual assault on a minor. Not meant as a comment on the truth of these allegations, just on the accuracy of this way of characterizing them.
As far as whether this might be the cause, one possible scenario: the board hired a law firm to investigate, Sam made statements that were contradicted by credible evidence, and that was the fireable event. Brockman could have helped cover this up. Again, not saying that this is what happened but it's plausible.
BTW Rubin's $90M payout a) caused a shitstorm at Google b) was determined in part by David Drummond, later fired in part due to sexual misconduct. I would not use this as a representative example, especially since Google now has a policy against such payouts: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se...
Google didn't just pay Rubin $90M because they want to reward abusers. Rubin's contract had a huge component of his comp tied to Android's success. If Google tried to withhold that bonus, Rubin would have sued. People don't just walk away from a hundred million dollars without a fight. Imagine the disaster that would have transpired if Rubin won his case: Google would been seen as trying to cheat an employee out of bonuses with a false misconduct allegation. Imagine the hell it would have been to be the woman in that situation.
People who said Google should have withheld Rubin's compensation are operating under the assumption that Google would have prevailed in the inevitable lawsuit.
First, I didn't say that Google "wanted to reward abusers". I was simply countering the parent commenter's use of Rubin's payout as an example of what typically happens when an executive is fired for sexual misconduct. It is absolutely not representative, and Google changed its policy as a result of this: "Alphabet said Friday that it will prohibit severance packages for anyone fired for misconduct or is the subject of a sexual misconduct investigation."
But since you brought it up, the fact that Google changed their policies in response to the Rubin (and Drummond) situations and did not caveat their policy with "except in the case where there's a performance bonus, which we'll still totally pay out" implies that it was a choice to begin with.
Also, even if there was a performance bonus that Google felt they might be forced to pay in litigation they could still have fought it to demonstrate a commitment to not rewarding executives preying on subordinates and to preemptively address potential employee backlash, which was entirely predictable. Google has effectively infinitely deep pockets and did not need to preemptively surrender.
And in addition, Drummond and Brin were both involved in the decision and both had affairs with subordinate employees. So, while I wouldn't say that Google had an active goal of "reward abusers", it's quite plausible that the specific, small group of men making this decision on Google's behalf may not have been particularly inclined to punish behavior arguably similar to their own.
> Also, even if there was a performance bonus that Google felt they might be forced to pay in litigation they could still have fought it to demonstrate a commitment to not rewarding executives preying on subordinates and to preemptively address potential employee backlash, which was entirely predictable. Google has effectively infinitely deep pockets and did not need to preemptively surrender.
Again, you're tackling this from the frame of mind of being certain that Google would win. It's not about the money: $90 million is almost certainly cheaper than what this case would have cost. It's about the reputational damage: Rubin potentially winning a settlement against Google would have been immensely embarrassing.
It's all about doing what's in the best interest of the alleged victim. She would have probably had to testify at trial. And imagine the hell it would have been to have a settlement paid out to your alleged abuser, thereby implying that you're a false accuser. Juries can be unpredictable, its easy to see why Google decided to find acceptable terma to part with Rubin.
> In general sexual shenanigans in your personal life will get you a quiet departure from the company under the "X has retired to spend more time with family / pursue other adventures / start a foundation".
Dude, where have you been for the past decade?
> Andy Rubin got a $90M severance payout from Google after running a sex-slave dungeon on his personal time.
And hence the colossal blowback caused by that means it ain't ever happening again. Just 2 months ago a tech CEO was forced to resign immediately for egregious conduct, losing 100+ million in the process: https://nypost.com/2023/09/20/cs-disco-ceo-kiwi-camara-loses...
His sister on Twitter made some pretty crazy abuse allegations against him a while back, but it didn't seem to get much coverage outside of the usual Twitter crowd.
OpenAI’s one of the most successful companies of this decade, if not the most, and its CEO just got fired for really unclear reasons. Insane, Steve Jobs shit
Jobs got fired because Apple was on brink of bankruptcy all the time and was selling nothing to no one.
Jobs wasn't the CEO of Apple, Sculley was. This is a much more impactful move.
On top of that OpenAI is literally exploding in popularity and sales, that's not the moment to cut ties with your CEO.
Also Sam Altman has an insanely better and heavier CV today than Jobs had in 1985, former director of YC and often called the "boss of silicon valley".
You don't fire a man like Sam Altman easily, they are hard to come by in the first place. He's a powerful person you don't want to have against for no good reason when winds are blowing in the right direction moreover.
It has to be some scandal, otherwise this is too sudden, and out of nowhere to a guy that led OpenAI in this direction, with success, for years.
This is a bad joke. Altman is great but on his best day, he was never "insanely better" than Steve Jobs in 1985. If you think that, you don't understand how influential Apple was.
Also, it's probably you underestimating the impact of OpenAI, if anything, or the entrepreneurial career of Altman.
Also, you probably don't know that but..the Apple 1 and 2, were designed by Wozniak, not Jobs, Jobs hated them. He had no such impact nor cv you think it had in 1985 and sugarcoating it with second phase Jobs.
You can make the claim about Apple due to the financials being public - you can't make the same claim about OpenAI unless you have insight the rest of the public doesn't have. "facts are facts"?? what facts do you have here?
>Also, you probably don't know that but..the Apple 1 and 2, were designed by Wozniak, not Jobs, Jobs hated them
I'd be shocked if a significant portion of the hacker news audience wasn't aware of who Woz is and the basic high level history of Apple.
Apple was not dying in 1985, when Sculley fired Jobs. It wasn't "near bankruptcy" until the Spindler era a decade later.
Jobs didn't hate the Apple I and Apple II. He wouldn't have partnered with Wozniak in the first place if he'd hated the Apple I.
Jobs was the guy who got Apple enough capital from VCs to actually ship the Apple II in mass quantities. That's not something Steve Jobs would do for a computer he hated.
I think you are mixing things up. Apple was experiencing a sales slump but was far from dying in 1985. Jobs got ousted in a power struggle between him an Sculley who was CEO. In 1997, when Jobs returned, Apple was reportedly months away from bankruptcy, and only survived because of a cash infusion from Microsoft.
I'm not sure how you're certain it's 100% different.
Sure, we knew Apple was on the verge bc they were a public company with vetted financials. However, no one knows OpenAI's financial situation. We just know 1) growth was meteoric, 2) prices were dropped significantly when alternatives were available, and 3) they were almost always fundraising. Selling $1.00 of value for $0.50 also can lead to a meteoric rise as well.
I'm not saying you're wrong. But just don't know how you got such conviction.
>On top of that OpenAI is literally exploding in popularity and sales
I wouldn't be too sure about that, actually. DALLE took a pretty hard hit because of Stable Diffusion, and the GPT API is so cheap that they're probably running it at a loss. Also, most users are going to be using the free ChatGPT web-client, so that's also a major loss.
Correct on Altman, the success belongs to the Internet for its (our) data, code, ideas, videos, content that it subsumed using nothing more elaborate than traditional modeling and a ton of RAM and storage.
That’s an invalid argument. The mere existence of a resource doesn’t render work related to analyzing, extracting, or utilizing that resource insignificant, irrelevant or reduce value created.
Just because the oil is in the ground doesn’t mean the crew pumping it didn’t work hard.
I'm a bit beat up by the last week (internal issues) or the last 1-2 years between the swift CentOS8 switch, various CPU vulns, Log4Shell and all the other jazz.
My first thought is: C'mon. The company has just invested time to integrate with OpenAI. Just do it. Just announce that 200%+ price increase on everything with a scapegoat intermediate CEO. Or make it more so it hurts more, because of profit, so you can dial back a pity to be the good guys.
yeah, this is about as harsh as corporate press releases get in terms of removing an executive. There has to be some majorly bad news coming out about Altman for them to not give him the standard "we are mutually parting ways"
One tantalising statement in there is that AGI-level system is not bound by licensing agreements that a sub-AGI system would be (ostensibly to Microsoft).
This phase-shift places a pressure on management to not declare reaching a AGI level threshold. But have they?
Of course, it could be an ordinary everyday scandal but given how well they are doing, I'd imagine censure/sanctions would be how that is handled.
> "Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
"OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner." [1]
Given that personnel matters affecting an individual on the board often have mandatory recusal of the affected party, that's likely a 4-0 or two 4-1 decisions, depending on how they were structured.
A single 4-0 decision would imply the bylaws allow any group of members to oust all the other members by making a single proposal to oust everyone but their group, thus automatically forcing everyone else to recuse themselves :p
Yes, this can happen, though generally the ousting party would also need to be able to point to some policy or legal transgression to do it without putting themselves at risk of a lawsuit.
That's a fascinating question. I looked into this and haven't a clue, other than Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wife (?). If it's the same person, then she is a "tech-entrepreneur" with a surprising amount of liquidity and automatic privilege and titles despite no obvious achievement (unless you consider title-gathering an achievement).
I think this is a legitimate question. There seems to be little public information about this board member, besides that they are married to a celebrity.
None of these actions should be considered unusual from a woman (and probably a man, too) who was involved in a decision the result of which (with or without knowing the context) would piss off a lot of men. The only social media it's safe to leave open are those that allow shutting down of all DMs, and don't divulge information which could identify the physical places she habituates.
No this can definitely be considered unusual, and it's misguided to paint it as angry men online. She participated in a decision that affects all of us (leadership/alignment of AI) and is now attempting to hide from the consistences of that participation (privatizing profile and change the name). You don't get to make big decisions and then hide under a rock.
You obviously haven't paid attention to the sorts of threats women who make decisions that piss off "bros" are subjected to. She isn't hiding under a rock through these actions (though may be doing things in the real world to hide). These actions just proactively limit being DMed threats.
Even without threats, no one wants to deal with the thousands of spur-of-the-moment DMs and emails that such a notable action would prompt. It's a good idea to go offline until things cool down. Any necessary statements can be made through channels, and so can the answers to questions.
"Any necessary statements can be made through channels"
you have to admin though, she made a highly controversial decision, and instead of confronting it and saying something through her own channel, she changed the name of the channel and made it private. And we're supposed to assume this is because men (specifically) are mean. Respectfully, feels like a bad take.
We technically don't even know if she voted for the expulsion, and we probably never will. 3-to-1 would work.
As an active board member she has certain legal obligations at this moment. This is why the Try Guys dragged their feet on making public statements about Ned Fulmer's expulsion from the company, and when they did finally make a statement did so as a group and explicitly stated that they couldn't talk about certain things.
OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner.
There were 6 on the board until noon today. Assuming Sam and Greg did not vote, that leaves 4. If 3 voted out, that would have been a split decision. I don't think a 50% decision would have it, I believe all 4 of the remaining members voted out.
That leaves us wondering what the hell happened, and how it came to this? It's not angry tech bros, it's folks who feel OpenAI is a great company poised to lead AI into a bright future with principles and a purpose higher than profit. And now Sam and Greg are gone.
And poof, this human who happens to be female is gone. This human needed to have a statement ready, we're all trying to DM them the same question, why?
She was involved with starting "Fellow Robots" in 2014, which is a spin-off of some sketchy for-profit AI "university" deal called "Singularity University".
AFAICT she's notable because she's been an academic and executive in the field for many years, in many different companies.
Singularity University was such a funny grift. Google must have figured the best way to monetize Ray Kurzweil was to put him on a stage at the NASA/Moffett center and have him perform magic shows in front of the moneyed class. And you know, they were probably right. Not like he can still code or anything, and the lines were out the door and down the street. I visited a couple of times when my sister's old boyfriend was working there. They had all kinds of fun little booths and displays for people going through the bootcamp to gawk at.
I'm imagining the kind of person who starts their career as an executive at a spinoff of SU.
"An investigative report from Bloomberg Businessweek found many issues with the organization, including an alleged sexual harassment of a student by a teacher, theft and aiding of theft by an executive, and allegations of gender and disability discrimination.[12] Several early members of Singularity University were convicted of crimes, including Bruce Klein, who was convicted in 2012 of running a credit fraud operation in Alabama, and Naveen Jain, who was convicted of insider trading in 2003.[12]
In February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIT Technology Review reported that a group owned by Singularity, called Abundance 360, had held a "mostly maskless" event in Santa Monica ... The event, led by Singularity co-founder Peter Diamandis, charged up to $30,000 for tickets."
Looks like Tasha grew up in Santa Monica and currently works for RAND corporation. This is probably the most prestigious Defense think tank.
The other board member, Helen Toner list for her twitter profile: "Interests: China+ML, natsec+tech..." and works for another Defense think tank.
If there's one way the CEO of fastest growing company in the world could get fired, it's to essentially get his metaphoric security clearance pulled like Oppenheimer did.
The Oppenheimer analogy is closer than it sounds. Once the military had the technical knowledge of making the bomb, Oppenheimer was more of a liability with his pacifist leanings and had to be removed.
No. As one of the other commenters mentioned, Sam (and possibly Greg) probably recused himself and didn't vote (likely forced to by the board's bylaws).
Assuming Ilya voted to fire him, this clearly was not about some technical oversight or something that was unknown which suddenly came to light. its likely over some financial stuff like burn rate or undisclosed partnerships.
Pretty sure that if that was the only reason, and they had him cornered like this, he'd abandon PanoptiCoin. Nobody, not even he, thinks it is remotely close to the relevance level of OpenAI.
Yeah, I strongly suspect there’s some kind of self-dealing/conflict of interest going on here. It’s one of the few things that would explain an immediate, public ouster. Undisclosed contracts that violate some kind of board prohibition would also qualify (e.g. military, as some others have speculated).
>Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
Strangest thing in company's PR when they're thriving!
If OpenAI’s governing board is part of the nonprofit, their obligations are to the goals of the nonprofit, and “thriving” is not fundamentally the goal.
I think this is the most important detail here. The board is meant to follow the principles of the non-profit, that may have been the most important consideration here.
What are the parameters of the non-profit? Not having thriving as a goal for any org, even a non-profit, seems weird to me. Note that thriving is not synonymous with growing.
This document reflects the strategy we’ve refined over the past two years, including feedback from many people internal and external to OpenAI. The timeline to AGI remains uncertain, but our Charter will guide us in acting in the best interests of humanity throughout its development.
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity. We will attempt to directly build safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome. To that end, we commit to the following principles:
Broadly distributed benefits
We commit to use any influence we obtain over AGI’s deployment to ensure it is used for the benefit of all, and to avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power.
Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. We anticipate needing to marshal substantial resources to fulfill our mission, but will always diligently act to minimize conflicts of interest among our employees and stakeholders that could compromise broad benefit.
Long-term safety
We are committed to doing the research required to make AGI safe, and to driving the broad adoption of such research across the AI community.
We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”
Technical leadership
To be effective at addressing AGI’s impact on society, OpenAI must be on the cutting edge of AI capabilities—policy and safety advocacy alone would be insufficient.
We believe that AI will have broad societal impact before AGI, and we’ll strive to lead in those areas that are directly aligned with our mission and expertise.
Cooperative orientation
We will actively cooperate with other research and policy institutions; we seek to create a global community working together to address AGI’s global challenges.
We are committed to providing public goods that help society navigate the path to AGI. Today this includes publishing most of our AI research, but we expect that safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research.
From the statement it sounds like the board is still committed to running the company in pursuit of the initial non-profit goals and the transition to a for profit status was because of legal limitations. Really surprising to see this.
Unless Altman was taking actions in furtherance of the for-profit goals, while abandoning the non-profit goals, and not being honest to the board about this.
This actually seems the most probable reason for this given the circumstances and phrasing.
They are certainly making a large presence of themselves, but last I heard they were also burning capital to keep everything running. I have no idea if that is true or not, or what their current situation is... but if they truly are in the boat of "losing money on every transaction, but making up for it with scale", that is not "thriving", it is speeding towards a brick wall.
WOW! Clearly some funny business going on at OpenAI, as people have speculated. I always assumed Sam Altman was too smart to be in a situation like this. I have heard grumblings about suspicious corporate structuring, behind the scenes profit taking, etc. All speculation though.
The All In podcast had some words about this a few months ago, though they spoke in generalities.
Not sure if you are being sarcastic. MS has been sued for bribery and kickbacks and has paid a sizable fine to settle (including a criminal fine) with the US Justice Department.
Well, this has me concerned. There were times when it felt like OpenAI at large was trying to swim one way, while Sam was trying to swim another. In those cases I always thought Sam's direction was the better one. From the outside this seems like a pretty big loss.
> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
Yes I think it will be obvious to people in hindsight that Sam is a deeply disturbed and dangerous individual, and so are many of his associates. You can tell just by listening to his public statements that the guy is off his rocker.
Well that was unexpected. To be fair, I got weird vibes from Sam when leading the keynote speech during the OpenAI devday, he seemed extremely nervous to me.
The prodigy Altman is booted after creating potentially the most successful company of all time and replaced by CTO who had no prior ML/AI experience becomes CEO. Wow.
It strange - they could easily have done this with a different timeline and framed it as taking the company to the next level. Growing how fast they are definitely will require completely different leadership than when they were small.
Definitely smells of a scandal - why else would they need to get him out so quick?
Sam Altman isn't the brains in OpenAI, it is the research scientists and engineers. Just take care of the rest of the company and let these geniuses do what they do, thats the role for the ceo.
This is a bit tangential but I feel like the meat of this notion is often misattributed.
“You need someone to steer the ship in the right direction.”
I think most people can handle the “right direction” part, so it really comes down to just needing _a person_, one person, who makes strategic decisions at a high level. And that’s it. I don’t think Sam is special here. I just think he was the guy in the spot.
This is quite unexpected. How instrumental is/has been Sam Altman in shaping OpenAI and how much is OpenAIs ability to execute and ship a result of his leadership? A lot of it, little of it? Will be interesting to watch.
Usually, they say bs like "He wants to leave to pursue other opportunities", you never hear something as candid as "He is hindering us so we want to get rid of him"
This is why the groupon CEO's firing letter remains undefeated
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today. If you're wondering why ... you haven't been paying attention.
> I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.
Pour one out for Andrew. They did many things that didn't scale that customers loved them for, and then couldn't scale. They burned lots of cash on outside sales, i.e., flying a rep from another city to visit a potential client small restaurant. And being a publicly-traded company is often more trouble than it's worth.
PS: I used to live in a van on the street near the PA HQ. Someone there had a tiny trailer in the parking lot but I couldn't tell if were living it or just storing it.
not a lot usually. "popular" places like the guardian are way less visited than you might think. In a similar vein a best seller book is only 5000 - 10000 books.
Would anyone believe a CEO of the leading company of the leading new technology would walk away from their company to hang out with their family? Hell, _that_ would make me more worried than anything else.
>Search process underway to identify permanent successor.
Put me in, coach.
As someone deeply entrenched in the realms of AI development and ethical considerations, boasting a robust leadership background, I stand poised to lead OpenAI into its next phase of innovation and ethical advancement. My tenure navigating the intersection of AI research, business acumen, and ethical frameworks provides a unique foundation. Having spearheaded AI initiatives that upheld ethical standards while fostering groundbreaking technological advancements, I bring a proven track record of synthesizing innovation with responsible AI practices. My commitment to leveraging AI for the betterment of society aligns seamlessly with OpenAI's ethos, ensuring a continued pursuit of groundbreaking advancements in AI while maintaining a steadfast commitment to ethical, transparent, and socially responsible practices.
I know I won't get a lot of love for this, but Sam is a really good person. I don't know him well, but I've known him since long before OpenAI.
He's not perfect, but behind the scenes he's a genuine and upstanding person. I've met lots of wealthy smart people, and he's the only exception. He was the only person I trusted in this situation, and I'm genuinely nervous that he's no longer running OpenAI.
Not really, no. There will usually be allegations of malfeasance floating around a person for a while before any of them are brought to the wider public. To a complete outsider, it looks like these things come out of nowhere, but to someone who's relatively close to the person it seems like it was building up for years. I've also noticed in cases of false accusations that there will often be a number of other accusations made shortly after, all of which look relatively weak or unimportant; eg someone accused of sexual harassment will separately be accused of making a sexual advancement then backing off when turned down. By evaluating the sorts of other allegations about a person when some accusation is made against them, we can attempt to guess the legitimacy of those allegations collectively.
> Not really, no. There will usually be allegations of malfeasance floating around a person for a while before any of them are brought to the wider public.
You mean, exactly like there been, from Sam Altman's sister?
None of that really matters. Look at Elon Musk, lots of weird spectacle. The man was lauded as one of the smartest man in the world...now he's kind of a bit of a loose cannon. People need to stop idol worship businessmen. They have a large motivation to make themselves into this human lovable charismatic person with no faults because it is very profitable to do so. Worse is when people buy into that.
Actually no, it often is not how it works. For example, Harvey Weinstein's behavior has been "open secret" in certain circles way before the scandal exploded. Epstein has been known to be super shady way before he found his end in prison. Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner has been known for his exploits well before he finally was prosecuted. There are, of course, opposite cases, where certain sociopaths meticulously cultivate their benign image and hide their true colors. But often, the true colors are known if not widely, then at least by many people surrounding them. For a reasonably public person, it would be quite hard to lead a double life for a long time without anybody at all knowing.
The OpenAI x Dota 2 stuff was a bit shady. They really wanted the crown of beating human players at one of the most complex real-time games, but to do so they had to drastically simplify the game rules (removing most heroes, changing courier mechanics).
It would be like if AlphaGo could only win if the Go board was half as big. Not real fraud, but shows a clear willingness to cut corners and stretch ethics.
I was following their Dota project from the beginning, and I think what they did made sense. Their goal there was to demonstrate real time decision making and teamwork in a complex environment without perfect information. OpenAI Five did a splendid job of doing that.
I would view it as the equivalent of making self-driving cars that are constrained to a single city. Sure, it doesn't have the full capability that a human would have. But who cares.
You can know someone is a bad person from casual interaction, but not vice versa. There's basically no way to know if anyone intelligent is a good person without extremely intense surveillance. I guess with an unintelligent person, you can assume that they're not smart enough to hide if they're doing something really bad, but even then, maybe they're just playing dumb.
You've got to be kidding. Really, are you kidding? That's an extremely weak litmus test for goodness.
Plenty of people maintain extremely close connections with their families while engaging in activies that are terrible for the world around them. Organized criminals. Terrorists. Business magnates. Political families. Corrupt police officers. Plenty of these groups are made out of tight-knit families.
It's common, dare I say human nature, to prioritize the needs of your family. That is honorable and important, but being a Good person requires caring about strangers too.
I think you completely missed the part about living with your siblings into your 30s.
With the exception of the brothers in the mafia or brother terrorists, none of your examples would meet that standard.
Being close with your family does not mean you’re not a good person elsewhere. It does not mean you don’t care about strangers. That you’d jump to that conclusion or bring up terrorists as a counter example makes me question your own personal experiences.
All else being equal, I’d expect someone with close family bonds to the point of living with them as an adult, when they clearly have the economic means to do otherwise, as a sign of a good human. That’s been my personal experience and that’s how I see the world.
well id never heard of this, and im not a fan of the guy, but from my quick perusal online just now of the noise of this drama, id say no, shes not credible.
This was my reaction as well. If a competent doctor had prescribed her medication and she took herself off of it without medical supervision, I think it is pretty reasonable to condition money on going back on medication (or at least going back to medical supervision). Many people who have family members struggling with mental health concerns take this approach.
What caught my eye was her claim about events when she was 4 years old. Just doesn't seem old enough for the memories and their interpretations to be reliable. I had 2 close encounters with UFO when I was 7-8 years old. Very vivid memories which I believed were 100% true until my thirties.
The claim that you cannot have x memories before a certain year is completely false. although unrelyable, children that have certain experiences can remember them.
I would go as far as to say we completely underestimate what children understand and remember because we're the ones that chose to forget.
A few days ago I thought I had uncovered a really bad memory from my childhood that I had buried. I realized a few minutes later that at one point I had dreamed the event and it never actually happened.
Conceivably the first part could happen without the second.
Frankly, I don't think we should ever give any credence to allegations that have absolutely no evidence. The road is too rocky. Most people have at least one person that dislikes them. The people that kind of attitude would affect generally have many. All it takes is one person willing to lie .
New Yorker is very progressive, and they worked for months on the article, yet they only mentioned in passing his sister accusations and didn't highlight them.
It seems unlikely that Altman arranged for her to be "shadowbanned" from every social media site except for OnlyFans and Pornhub(!), or that he has been engaged in hacking her WiFi.
If you actually look at the totality of her claims, there are probably more reasons to be skeptical than to accept her words unconditionally. About the only thing you can say for sure is that something really unfortunate is either happening to her now, or has happened in her past, for which she is unlikely to bear all the responsibility.
My point with this comment was not necessarily that she is credible, but that the previous comment just assumed that she wasn't, seemingly without any consideration that she might be. This is the sort of attitude that perpetuates these sorts of accusations not being taken seriously.
We don't have to take everything potential victims say as fact and immediately act on it, but remaining open to the idea that those in power may be at fault, and not disregarding victims accusations goes a long way in supporting them.
I used to say the same thing before I got in the business of investigating [all victims'] claims.
Social media abuse claims are the female equivalent of SWATing. One well-published sob story sends a mob to kick down your door.
Don't be this naive. For your own sake, only consider believing such claims once a police report has been filed. Don't rush to judgment either way unless there's repercussions when the claimant is lying about it.
6% of rape allegations are proven to be false so you should absolutely not do that[1] Take the claims seriously but don't assume guilt automatically, everyone deserves due process.
He is the guy that built a bunker in New Zealand and has a ready made plan to escape on a motorcycle with his escape bag filled with guns, money and supplies when things collapse right? (At least I think he that guy) Is that normal person behavior?
I didn't say he was normal. He's clearly not (normal people don't start OpenAI). That doesn't preclude him for being a thoughtful person who wants the best for the world around him.
If you have money and connections, the laws of the plebs are no longer relevant. You essentially have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere on Earth if you're rich enough.
If I had loads of money I would absolutely do the same.
It's insurance. For someone with an average income, it's not worth the cost of the .01% chance you'll need it. For someone with more money than they know what to do with, it's worth it.
I have zero knowledge of Sam Altman in any shape or form and literally the only thing I know about him is that he runs (or well, ran) OpenAI.
But as a general point, you can be both a "good person" and still do bad things. Or you can be a good person in some areas, and a not-so-good person (or even horrible person) in some other areas. People are complex.
Of course it's entirely possible that Altman is just a really good person, but I wouldn't be quick to make assumptions.
Unless Sam has managed to fool a bucket load of smart people, your prediction is very unlikely to be true (or rather, I don't want it to be true). Fuck.
It's not a prediction; it's a general comment that one shouldn't assume too much based on a limited number of datapoints, in this case someone who doesn't "know him well".
This works in two directions, by the way. In 2001 few would have expected that Bill Gates would spend much of his time on philanthropy. Is he a "good" or "bad" person? Well, he's both.
He may not be fooling anyone. As someone else noted, if his interests and yours align you may be willing to look past his "badness". For example, Miles Bridges in the NBA. Seems like a genuinely bad guy who just got recactivated by an NBA team -- why? Probably because he can help them win games. I can almost guarantee no member of the front office would let their daughter date him, but they don't need him to be good for him to make them money.
I first heard of him through the WorldCoin stuff, and nothing about that made him look like an upstanding person. That whole thing was/is shady as hell.
I certainly don't know him, but I see more reasons not to trust him than to trust him.
I should have said "sketchy" instead of "shady", as "shady" implies a criminality I don't mean to imply.
What's sketchy about it is that they were offering money to largely poor and technologically naive populations in exchange for gathering very sensitive biometric data from them. Identifying data that cannot be changed and can be used to track them without their knowledge. Their stated goal is to have every person on Earth take part, to boot. The whole idea couldn't set off more alarm bells if it tried.
I give them style points for using truly dystopian-looking "orbs" to do it, though.
I know Sam even less, but when I first moved to Valley a decade ago he went out of the way to help. I wanted try out a crazy startup idea on a student visa with limited connections in the Valley - he loved what I was doing and went above and beyond to help me out.
It forever tuned me in to the ethos of Silicon Valley. And I have tried paying back where I can.
If that ethos doesn't involve illegally overstaying student visas like Musk or burning millions of dollars then have you really truly embraced the SV lifestyle?
I think you misunderstood that he helped me overstay my student visa etc.
I was in a Ph.D. program at a top CS school and there are ways to transition your visa when building a startup. It was that I was not sure if the transition or the startup would work out - that startup did not - but years later another one did.
I would probably not have taken the plunge out of academia and not achieved much else had it not been for him. And I am deeply grateful for that.
I was just making a joke about how Silicon Valley, to some people on this planet, seems like an awful place that ignores some awful behavior when convenient. Embracing the "ethos" of such a place seems funny to me.
Never accused you of trying to illegally stay in the country or some such - I just referenced a famous South African Valley-man with a musky scent who did that.
> I know I won't get a lot of love for this, but Sam is a really good person. I don't know him well, but I've known him since long before OpenAI.
"Good" is too blurry of a description, and I don't know Sam, but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them and found mutually satisfying resolutions to them. If all you've had is mutually beneficial interactions, then of course everyone's going to be nice - it's in everyone's interests. You need to see how they act on nontrivial conflicts (either handling present ones, or mitigating/averting future ones) to really know if someone is a genuinely good person or not.
While this could hypothetically happen within an hour of meeting someone, it's more likely to take years or even decades... or might never even happen.
Ah yes—as the saying goes: “keep your friends at the Bayes-optimal distance corresponding to your level of confidence in their out-of-distribution behavior, and your enemies closer”
> you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them
This hits a spot. I had a really nice boss.. Until we got into a conflict, then she tried to blackmail me, pressure me and break me. I learned why some people who left our company needed months to get back on their feet. I got out quite well and managed to push back, but it was a tough period.
I had a feeling the man was a bit of a con, of course I won't say I know for sure. But some of his actions, like his notorious eye scanning crypto project, or the fact that he was 100% in support of UBI and wanted to advocate for it only to go to different governments wanting regulations (that only benefitted them)
People really really need to pay attention to their actions, not their words, jeezus. We'll have another rogue Elon Musk who was once idol worshipped as the incredibly "brilliant" man...turned out he does some stupid things too only now he amassed billions of dollars he can pay his way out of stupid things.
I learned this playing video games. After a while, I figured out that if I liked someone on my team, I should only friend them if we were losing. Otherwise, I might only like them in the 50% of games we win.
Organizations are systems, not people, if he put into place the right incentive structure then the company will go in a good direction with or without him. Arguably the structure is now set in stone with his departure.
I second this. As someone who's operated in the startup and YC ecosystems for years, I've seen Sam help a lot of people with no clear upside for himself. He's a net plus to Silicon Valley and SF by a long shot.
Yeah, well, if you're nice and helpful to enough people eventually you cross a threshold to just being a good guy, at which point, the deranged behavior of a couple poorly qualified board members ceases to matter.
Sure, "good person" may sound generic. But he is still a good person trying to do the right things. To me it sounds like the board is afraid of being sued and needs to clearly appoint a scapegoat.
I do believe you are being genuine here, but good people still sometimes do bad things. Good people still have their blind spots, and the negative consequences of those blind spots are often exacerbated and have outsized (negative) impact on others when the person behind them is wealthy.
I've never met the man, but I can say I have not been impressed by his words and attitude in public. I never got the sense or feeling that he's actually doing right by the world.
Ultimately it doesn't matter if he's a good or bad person; what matters is what he's done.
Didn’t I just read a post about him abusing his sister? It seems impossible to judge people you don’t know well personally, and even then sometimes you can be surprisingly wrong.
Wow, this came out of nowhere. I hope the best for Mr. Altman, I've been impressed with what I've seen of him. I'm curious to know more about this story.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 580 ms ] threadSam Altman spoke at an APEC panel on behalf of OpenAI literally yesterday: https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1725318771454456208
This is a good point. Everyone has been accused of rape by a homeless drug addict, it is like taxes in its consistent applicability to every person.
perhaps not that, but everyone is a multimillionaire, and in the media, and therefore vulnerable to threats.
no, that’s not quite right.
sama is garbage but so is your argument.
Lots of mentally ill blame relatives for crazy shit. I know from personal experience watching my family and extended deal with my mentally ill uncle trying to get him help and deal with his accusations and threats. He had a full flow chart of his insane conspiracy nonsence that connected everyone in his life to some horrible accusations. My father (who refused to communicate with him after recieving multiple death threats and endless calls begging for money) according to my uncle was in league; Satan, the sheriff department, and his exgirlfriends brothers girlfriend to do various horrible thing to him I do not exagerate.
Altman happens to be wealthy famous and in position of power and have a mental ill sibling. I find it very possible he has done nothing to her. I have no proof either way.
My only thought is that all else being equal I would tend to trust the word of someone that is emotionally and mentally stable more than that of someone that is neither and has admitted to being off of their medication and is making accusations about something that they were to young to remember with any degree of accuracy.
Does anyone know what that’s about?
Sexual abuse by Sam when she was four years old and he 13.
Develops PCOS (which has seen some association with child abuse) and childhood OCD and depression. Thrown out. Begins working as sex worker for survival. It's a real grim story.
So either sama is hacking "into her wifi" (?), hacking into her accounts, and pulling strings at unrelated companies to get her shadowbanned from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc (is that even a thing?)... or Occam's Razor applies and he didn't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
This is hardly unexpected for profound allegations without strong supporting evidence, and yes, I'm well aware that presentation of any evidence would be difficult to validate on HN, such that a third-party assessment (as in a court of law, for example) would typically be required.
I'm not claiming that HN has a stellar record of dealing with unpleasant news or inconvenient facts. But that any such bias originates from YC rather than reader responses and general algorithmic treatments (e.g., "flamewar detector") is itself strongly unsupported, and your characterisation above really is beyond the pale.
Not that I think it has anything to do with that; I think it more likely has to do with some kind of money issue tied to the LLC, given reports of others impacted, on and off the board.
https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232...
... and he was 13. Which, yes, is a very bad thing, but unless the company investigated that claim (e.g., to assess potential PR fallout) and there was some significant deception by Altman against the board in the context of that investigation, its not something that would get him fired with the explanation OpenAI has provided.
(OTOH, the accusation and its potential PR impact could be a factor that weighed into how the board handled an unrelated problem with Altman—it certainly isn't helpful to him.)
I'm not saying this happened or it didn't. But just that it could absolutely be more than enough to fire anyone.
I don't disagree that the accusation alone (especially if it stood up to modest scrutiny, and looked to be ongoing PR issue, even if not well substantiated enough to have confidence that it was likely to be true) might be sufficient for firing; CEOs are the public and and internal face of the firm, and so PR or employee safety concerns that attach to them are important to the firm. But it wouldn't be for lack of candor with the board unless there was something for which the board had a very strong reason to believe Altman was dishonest in a significant way.
They could easily fire him with the lack of confidence language without the lack of candor language.
(The allegations are public enough and concerning enough that it would have been corporate malpractice if MS didn't ask for an investigation. Discreet due diligence investigations into things like this happen all the time when billions of dollars in investment capital are on the table.)
Its investigation of misconduct?
Sources and rights to training data?
That the AGI escaped containment?
Also, they did it around 3:30 Eastern, 30 minutes before the closing bell (Microsoft is xxmajorityxx 49% owner). It was so urgent they couldn't wait until after the market closed.
You bury bad news on Friday afternoon.
The OpenAI board has no responsibility to consider Microsoft's wants. I'd accept the argument that, their decision to not wait until after 4pm was a slight against Microsoft, for the reason you outline; but I'm not sure if urgency plays into it.
I think, the fact that it happened at 3:30 means: they didn't. Its now 7pm, and nothing new has come to light; they could have waited 31 minutes, but they didn't.
That's why I used the word "slight"; put another way, it was uncourteous for them to not wait. They probably should have. It clearly wasn't hyper-urgent (though, could still be kinda-urgent). But pointedly: they didn't need to wait, because the board has no technical, legal responsibility to Microsoft. Its extremely possible Microsoft didn't even know this was happening.
We are on HN after all, so I'm sure we won't need to wait until his book comes out... :)
BTW, I had a feeling he made an awkward appearance next to Satya.
And that laughter whenever the acquisition topic was hinted at was cringeworthy - would regulators even permit MSFT a full takeover? I think it would be highly controversial.
It doesn't looks like he has a hint about this:
> I am super excited. I can't imagine anything more exciting to work on.
He is probably in shock.
Anyway, I suppose we're reading tea leaves and engaging in palace intrigue. Back to building.
I don't know the guy but nothing can really be assumed about this.
All kinds of reasons.
The biggest risk for OpenAI is the public perception that the discretion of ChatGPT can not be trusted. If the CEO is caught using poor discretion, the public will transfer that property to the company's products.
For instance, if Tesla could fire Elon Musk, I'm sure they would have by now.
In the words of Brandt, "well, Dude, we just don't know."
If you need evidence that this is sufficient for dismissal, merely stating that impropriety exists is apparently enough to get my first flag on hn after 12 years.
Something to happen immediately would require overwhelming evidence on hand in the meeting. So it could be something that has been uncovered as part of the due diligence with the MS investment
Its more likely to be fabrication of numbers, or misappropriation of funds, rather than something "dramatic" Think musk at paypal being monumentally incompetent, rather than planned misdeeds.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311627
PDSCodes 27 minutes ago | unvote | parent | context | flag | favorite | on: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman
Turn that on it’s head - was he standing in the way of a commercial sale or agreement with Microsoft!
He may not be the villain.
But who knows, it feels like an episode of silicon valley!
DonHopkins 22 minutes ago | prev | edit | delete [–]
I can do anything I want with her - Silicon Valley S5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29MPk85tMhc
>That guy definitely fucks that robot, right?
That "handsy greasy little weirdo" Silicon Valley character Ariel and his robot Fiona were obviously based on Ben Goertzel and Sophia, not Sam Altman, though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/8edbk9/th...
>The character of Ariel in the current episode instantly reminded me of Ben Goertzel, whom i stumbled upon couple of years ago, but did not really paid close attention to his progress. One search later:
VIDEO Interview: SingularityNET's Dr Ben Goertzel, robot Sophia and open source AI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKbltBLaFeI
I was commenting on reasons for dismissal generally and not trying to impune this particular guy's character
Swift dismissals are likely motivated more by transgressions than performance but that's where the facts stop for me
The entire final storyline is about an AI trying to take over -- if you haven't watched it, you should! But many of my friends who live and work in Silicon Valley can't stand watching it, because it strikes too close to home, not because it isn't funny.
I think it's much more likely that Elon Musk fucked a robot, after having mistaken it for a human being in a robot suit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4
Actually I normally would have detached it from the parent, especially because it's part of a top-heavy subthread, but I specifically didn't do that in this case because of the principle described here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
* normally we wouldn't do that, but in threads that have a YC connection we moderate less, not more - see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
It was just posted but was filmed on November 1st.
Not certain, but IMHO the last paragraph almost recognises that OpenAI has become something self contradictory:
> OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with the core mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. In 2019, OpenAI restructured to ensure that the company could raise capital in pursuit of this mission, while preserving the nonprofit's mission, governance, and oversight. The majority of the board is independent, and the independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAI. While the company has experienced dramatic growth, it remains the fundamental governance responsibility of the board to advance OpenAI’s mission and preserve the principles of its Charter.
> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
Wow
Edit: dang is right, sorry y’all
Genuinely curious, what is it?
So I can't fathom her accusation having anything to do with anything.
They've made it clear that the issue has something to do with statements he has made to the board that ended up not being true. The question is of what those statements may be. Not about his potential childhood errors or his onlyfans "model" sister's claims.
So homosexuality isn't relevant here. But nor is what his sister claims.
If you're referring to some other form of moderation that you think is bad or wrong, please supply links so that readers can make their minds up for themselves.
Is there any overview which lets us see specifically flagged submissions? I suspect this system has too many false positives to be useful.
This from 2021? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
Bad if true, but highly unlikely that it is.
> Many critics have called Worldcoin's business—of scanning eyeballs in exchange for crypto—dystopian and some have compared it to bribery.
https://time.com/6300522/worldcoin-sam-altman/
> market makers control 95% of the total circulating supply at launch, leading to an initial market imbalance.
https://beincrypto.com/worldcoin-wld-privacy-risk/
> Worldcoin’s use of biometric data, which is unusual in crypto, raises the stakes for regulators. Multiple agencies expressed safety concerns amid reports of the sale of Worldcoin digital identities, known as World IDs, on virtual black markets, the ability to create and profit off of fake IDs, as well as the theft of credentials for operators who sign up new users.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-23/worldc...
Lying on P&L, stock sale agreements, or turning down an acquisition offer under difficult circumstances seems likely.
He confirmed it verbally as well in his May 2023 hearing in Congress https://twitter.com/thesamparr/status/1658554712151433219?la...
> Even OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, does not hold equity directly. His only interest is indirectly through a Y Combinator investment fund that made a small investment in OpenAI before he was full-time.
That word “directly” seems to be relevant here.
I know OpenAI in recent years forgot it's a non profit with particular aims, but:
> The majority of the board is independent, and the independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAI.
https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232...
> As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO.
For another example, imagine if OpenAI had never been a non-profit, and look at the board yesterday. You'd have had Ilya reporting to Sam (as employees), while Sam reports to Ilya (with Ilya as one member of the board, and probably a major stakeholder).
Now, when it gets hostile, those loops might get pretty weird. When things get hostile, you maybe modify reporting structures so the loops go away, so that people can maintain sane boundaries and still get work done (or gracefully exit, who knows).
Twitter also has one, although that's hardly a functioning example.
And it could be for any reason, even purely ethical like, “we don’t want to license this technology to better sell products to tweens”.
Honestly have no idea, but I'm sure a shift of control could cause this.
my 2 cents that he lied about profitability, they should be expending massive money in operations, they need to cut cost to deliver an attractive business model for their service and from a shinny startup star boss that'd had to be a straight f.u.
I think it could be transferring of OpenAI’s assets to other entities.
It is scandalous for sure
My guess is that either they’re financially super hosed. Or one group wants to build skynet and one doesn’t.
A scandal would probably be something along the lines of either “we love him and wish him the best” (hidden) or “he doesn’t represent the values of our org and we love XYz” (embraced)
It's not just a "hey, we don't really agree on x or y so let's part ways". It's more "hey, this guy did something that could get us in jail if we don't cut tie immediately".
"And lied to us about it."
I have zero knowledge of the internals of OpenAI - just thinking out loud about what could have spurred such a statement.
I don't know about the Skynet because it has happened 26 years before [1] but I imagine NSA, the Military, and other government agencies approached the company.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day
https://www.themarysue.com/annie-altmans-abuse-allegations-a...
> "[...] If someone — correction, if generally a white, cis man — presents himself with enough confidence, then venture capitalists, media [...]"
I stopped reading right there. This kind of race-baiting adds zero context to the story (which may or may not be true).
Constantly calling out "cis men" is in fact transphobic, which is how you can tell they don't care about it. If you think cis men and trans men behave differently or are always treated differently, this means you don't think they're both men.
Also sama is not white. Although he does appear to have gotten a series of jobs with not a lot of experience by convincing Paul Graham to figuratively adopt him.
[0]: https://x.com/phuckfilosophy/status/1710371830043939122
The wording of this statement is the kind of thing a board says when the company has done something deeply illegal that they will all face personal jail time for, and so they need to immediately deny all knowledge of the offense and fire the people who did have knowledge of it.
There are no such allegations regarding Andy Rubin.
> Mr. Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship, [and] said he coerced her into performing oral sex in a hotel room in 2013
As far as whether this might be the cause, one possible scenario: the board hired a law firm to investigate, Sam made statements that were contradicted by credible evidence, and that was the fireable event. Brockman could have helped cover this up. Again, not saying that this is what happened but it's plausible.
BTW Rubin's $90M payout a) caused a shitstorm at Google b) was determined in part by David Drummond, later fired in part due to sexual misconduct. I would not use this as a representative example, especially since Google now has a policy against such payouts: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se...
People who said Google should have withheld Rubin's compensation are operating under the assumption that Google would have prevailed in the inevitable lawsuit.
But since you brought it up, the fact that Google changed their policies in response to the Rubin (and Drummond) situations and did not caveat their policy with "except in the case where there's a performance bonus, which we'll still totally pay out" implies that it was a choice to begin with.
Also, even if there was a performance bonus that Google felt they might be forced to pay in litigation they could still have fought it to demonstrate a commitment to not rewarding executives preying on subordinates and to preemptively address potential employee backlash, which was entirely predictable. Google has effectively infinitely deep pockets and did not need to preemptively surrender.
And in addition, Drummond and Brin were both involved in the decision and both had affairs with subordinate employees. So, while I wouldn't say that Google had an active goal of "reward abusers", it's quite plausible that the specific, small group of men making this decision on Google's behalf may not have been particularly inclined to punish behavior arguably similar to their own.
Again, you're tackling this from the frame of mind of being certain that Google would win. It's not about the money: $90 million is almost certainly cheaper than what this case would have cost. It's about the reputational damage: Rubin potentially winning a settlement against Google would have been immensely embarrassing.
It's all about doing what's in the best interest of the alleged victim. She would have probably had to testify at trial. And imagine the hell it would have been to have a settlement paid out to your alleged abuser, thereby implying that you're a false accuser. Juries can be unpredictable, its easy to see why Google decided to find acceptable terma to part with Rubin.
Dude, where have you been for the past decade?
> Andy Rubin got a $90M severance payout from Google after running a sex-slave dungeon on his personal time.
And hence the colossal blowback caused by that means it ain't ever happening again. Just 2 months ago a tech CEO was forced to resign immediately for egregious conduct, losing 100+ million in the process: https://nypost.com/2023/09/20/cs-disco-ceo-kiwi-camara-loses...
But who knows, maybe there's a connection.
Your use of "crazy abuse allegations" is strange to me as well. I hardly see any of her allegations as being "crazy".
Here's a collection of things she's said about the abuse.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman...
Murati's selection as interim CEO is a surprise and might be an attempt to distance the company from whatever the board is claiming Altman lied about.
IMHO, saying he hasn't been candid is extremely harsh in terms of corporate PR speak.
Not candid in any kind of investment situation with reps and warranties is a really big deal....
Jobs got fired because Apple was on brink of bankruptcy all the time and was selling nothing to no one.
Jobs wasn't the CEO of Apple, Sculley was. This is a much more impactful move.
On top of that OpenAI is literally exploding in popularity and sales, that's not the moment to cut ties with your CEO.
Also Sam Altman has an insanely better and heavier CV today than Jobs had in 1985, former director of YC and often called the "boss of silicon valley".
You don't fire a man like Sam Altman easily, they are hard to come by in the first place. He's a powerful person you don't want to have against for no good reason when winds are blowing in the right direction moreover.
It has to be some scandal, otherwise this is too sudden, and out of nowhere to a guy that led OpenAI in this direction, with success, for years.
only half joking
The company was dying.
OpenAI is not.
Also, it's probably you underestimating the impact of OpenAI, if anything, or the entrepreneurial career of Altman.
Also, you probably don't know that but..the Apple 1 and 2, were designed by Wozniak, not Jobs, Jobs hated them. He had no such impact nor cv you think it had in 1985 and sugarcoating it with second phase Jobs.
We can still hold onto hope though.
You can make the claim about Apple due to the financials being public - you can't make the same claim about OpenAI unless you have insight the rest of the public doesn't have. "facts are facts"?? what facts do you have here?
>Also, you probably don't know that but..the Apple 1 and 2, were designed by Wozniak, not Jobs, Jobs hated them
I'd be shocked if a significant portion of the hacker news audience wasn't aware of who Woz is and the basic high level history of Apple.
Jobs didn't hate the Apple I and Apple II. He wouldn't have partnered with Wozniak in the first place if he'd hated the Apple I.
Jobs was the guy who got Apple enough capital from VCs to actually ship the Apple II in mass quantities. That's not something Steve Jobs would do for a computer he hated.
And the Apple IIc was his idea!
Sure, we knew Apple was on the verge bc they were a public company with vetted financials. However, no one knows OpenAI's financial situation. We just know 1) growth was meteoric, 2) prices were dropped significantly when alternatives were available, and 3) they were almost always fundraising. Selling $1.00 of value for $0.50 also can lead to a meteoric rise as well.
I'm not saying you're wrong. But just don't know how you got such conviction.
there is no reliable information about sales. It is likely very big secret.
I wouldn't be too sure about that, actually. DALLE took a pretty hard hit because of Stable Diffusion, and the GPT API is so cheap that they're probably running it at a loss. Also, most users are going to be using the free ChatGPT web-client, so that's also a major loss.
Just because the oil is in the ground doesn’t mean the crew pumping it didn’t work hard.
My first thought is: C'mon. The company has just invested time to integrate with OpenAI. Just do it. Just announce that 200%+ price increase on everything with a scapegoat intermediate CEO. Or make it more so it hurts more, because of profit, so you can dial back a pity to be the good guys.
But.. what are the responsibilities of the board that may be hindered? I studied https://openai.com/our-structure
One tantalising statement in there is that AGI-level system is not bound by licensing agreements that a sub-AGI system would be (ostensibly to Microsoft).
This phase-shift places a pressure on management to not declare reaching a AGI level threshold. But have they?
Of course, it could be an ordinary everyday scandal but given how well they are doing, I'd imagine censure/sanctions would be how that is handled.
Wow. Anyone have any insight into what happened?
"OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner." [1]
[1]https://openai.com/our-structure
EDIT: Brockman was voted out as the Chairman of the Board.
He was also removed from the board in this process.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tasha-m-25475a54/
Even without threats, no one wants to deal with the thousands of spur-of-the-moment DMs and emails that such a notable action would prompt. It's a good idea to go offline until things cool down. Any necessary statements can be made through channels, and so can the answers to questions.
you have to admin though, she made a highly controversial decision, and instead of confronting it and saying something through her own channel, she changed the name of the channel and made it private. And we're supposed to assume this is because men (specifically) are mean. Respectfully, feels like a bad take.
As an active board member she has certain legal obligations at this moment. This is why the Try Guys dragged their feet on making public statements about Ned Fulmer's expulsion from the company, and when they did finally make a statement did so as a group and explicitly stated that they couldn't talk about certain things.
There were 6 on the board until noon today. Assuming Sam and Greg did not vote, that leaves 4. If 3 voted out, that would have been a split decision. I don't think a 50% decision would have it, I believe all 4 of the remaining members voted out.
That leaves us wondering what the hell happened, and how it came to this? It's not angry tech bros, it's folks who feel OpenAI is a great company poised to lead AI into a bright future with principles and a purpose higher than profit. And now Sam and Greg are gone.
And poof, this human who happens to be female is gone. This human needed to have a statement ready, we're all trying to DM them the same question, why?
AFAICT she's notable because she's been an academic and executive in the field for many years, in many different companies.
I'm imagining the kind of person who starts their career as an executive at a spinoff of SU.
Wow, that university rings some bells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Group#Controversie...
"An investigative report from Bloomberg Businessweek found many issues with the organization, including an alleged sexual harassment of a student by a teacher, theft and aiding of theft by an executive, and allegations of gender and disability discrimination.[12] Several early members of Singularity University were convicted of crimes, including Bruce Klein, who was convicted in 2012 of running a credit fraud operation in Alabama, and Naveen Jain, who was convicted of insider trading in 2003.[12]
In February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIT Technology Review reported that a group owned by Singularity, called Abundance 360, had held a "mostly maskless" event in Santa Monica ... The event, led by Singularity co-founder Peter Diamandis, charged up to $30,000 for tickets."
The other board member, Helen Toner list for her twitter profile: "Interests: China+ML, natsec+tech..." and works for another Defense think tank.
If there's one way the CEO of fastest growing company in the world could get fired, it's to essentially get his metaphoric security clearance pulled like Oppenheimer did.
[1] https://ev.org/effective-ventures-foundation-uk/
She's a plant for real.
Edit: Just had to be logged in to see it :/
That's pretty sexist, among other things, is it not? She is a scientist and CEO of her own company, and even ignoring all that she is her own person.
Strangest thing in company's PR when they're thriving!
This actually seems the most probable reason for this given the circumstances and phrasing.
Are they?
They are certainly making a large presence of themselves, but last I heard they were also burning capital to keep everything running. I have no idea if that is true or not, or what their current situation is... but if they truly are in the boat of "losing money on every transaction, but making up for it with scale", that is not "thriving", it is speeding towards a brick wall.
The All In podcast had some words about this a few months ago, though they spoke in generalities.
That said, Sam could have committed to an acquisition without the board's approval or something insane like that.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-settlement/micr...
Ouch -- were there any signs this was coming?
The prodigy Altman is booted after creating potentially the most successful company of all time and replaced by CTO who had no prior ML/AI experience becomes CEO. Wow.
Definitely smells of a scandal - why else would they need to get him out so quick?
“You need someone to steer the ship in the right direction.”
I think most people can handle the “right direction” part, so it really comes down to just needing _a person_, one person, who makes strategic decisions at a high level. And that’s it. I don’t think Sam is special here. I just think he was the guy in the spot.
Not many people can do that though
Source? According to what metric?
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today. If you're wondering why ... you haven't been paying attention.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/mar/01/grou...
> I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.
PS: I used to live in a van on the street near the PA HQ. Someone there had a tiny trailer in the parking lot but I couldn't tell if were living it or just storing it.
Put me in, coach.
As someone deeply entrenched in the realms of AI development and ethical considerations, boasting a robust leadership background, I stand poised to lead OpenAI into its next phase of innovation and ethical advancement. My tenure navigating the intersection of AI research, business acumen, and ethical frameworks provides a unique foundation. Having spearheaded AI initiatives that upheld ethical standards while fostering groundbreaking technological advancements, I bring a proven track record of synthesizing innovation with responsible AI practices. My commitment to leveraging AI for the betterment of society aligns seamlessly with OpenAI's ethos, ensuring a continued pursuit of groundbreaking advancements in AI while maintaining a steadfast commitment to ethical, transparent, and socially responsible practices.
He's not perfect, but behind the scenes he's a genuine and upstanding person. I've met lots of wealthy smart people, and he's the only exception. He was the only person I trusted in this situation, and I'm genuinely nervous that he's no longer running OpenAI.
You mean, exactly like there been, from Sam Altman's sister?
It would be like if AlphaGo could only win if the Go board was half as big. Not real fraud, but shows a clear willingness to cut corners and stretch ethics.
I would view it as the equivalent of making self-driving cars that are constrained to a single city. Sure, it doesn't have the full capability that a human would have. But who cares.
Personally I welcome this shake up. Some of the things I’ve seen Altman write about are troubling.
It's a corollary to my theory that anybody that maintains close ties with their family and lives with them is a wholesome person.
Alternative possibility: the family's a cult.
Plenty of people maintain extremely close connections with their families while engaging in activies that are terrible for the world around them. Organized criminals. Terrorists. Business magnates. Political families. Corrupt police officers. Plenty of these groups are made out of tight-knit families.
It's common, dare I say human nature, to prioritize the needs of your family. That is honorable and important, but being a Good person requires caring about strangers too.
With the exception of the brothers in the mafia or brother terrorists, none of your examples would meet that standard.
Being close with your family does not mean you’re not a good person elsewhere. It does not mean you don’t care about strangers. That you’d jump to that conclusion or bring up terrorists as a counter example makes me question your own personal experiences.
All else being equal, I’d expect someone with close family bonds to the point of living with them as an adult, when they clearly have the economic means to do otherwise, as a sign of a good human. That’s been my personal experience and that’s how I see the world.
I have no good way of assessing what the likelihood is that her claims are true.
I would go as far as to say we completely underestimate what children understand and remember because we're the ones that chose to forget.
Conceivably the first part could happen without the second.
Frankly, I don't think we should ever give any credence to allegations that have absolutely no evidence. The road is too rocky. Most people have at least one person that dislikes them. The people that kind of attitude would affect generally have many. All it takes is one person willing to lie .
If you actually look at the totality of her claims, there are probably more reasons to be skeptical than to accept her words unconditionally. About the only thing you can say for sure is that something really unfortunate is either happening to her now, or has happened in her past, for which she is unlikely to bear all the responsibility.
We don't have to take everything potential victims say as fact and immediately act on it, but remaining open to the idea that those in power may be at fault, and not disregarding victims accusations goes a long way in supporting them.
Social media abuse claims are the female equivalent of SWATing. One well-published sob story sends a mob to kick down your door.
Don't be this naive. For your own sake, only consider believing such claims once a police report has been filed. Don't rush to judgment either way unless there's repercussions when the claimant is lying about it.
Coming from an "I believe the woman" background myself, I was pretty shocked.
[1] https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/...
He won't be there in 6 months; this is just a crumb of continuity.
It's still the case for bolt- and lever-action rifles and similar stuff.
Other than the part about having enough money to build a bunker in New Zealand, I'd say "yes".
Normal people suck and are generally dumb as a brick (including me). Normal people don't extrapolate calamities and don't think ten steps ahead.
It's insurance. For someone with an average income, it's not worth the cost of the .01% chance you'll need it. For someone with more money than they know what to do with, it's worth it.
But as a general point, you can be both a "good person" and still do bad things. Or you can be a good person in some areas, and a not-so-good person (or even horrible person) in some other areas. People are complex.
Of course it's entirely possible that Altman is just a really good person, but I wouldn't be quick to make assumptions.
This works in two directions, by the way. In 2001 few would have expected that Bill Gates would spend much of his time on philanthropy. Is he a "good" or "bad" person? Well, he's both.
"Smart" does not mean "hard to fool;" they are different characteristics.
You can fool someone if you have important information that they don't have--even if they are extremely smart.
I certainly don't know him, but I see more reasons not to trust him than to trust him.
I ask that question leaving out any of the socio-economic and privacy concerns around that project.
What's sketchy about it is that they were offering money to largely poor and technologically naive populations in exchange for gathering very sensitive biometric data from them. Identifying data that cannot be changed and can be used to track them without their knowledge. Their stated goal is to have every person on Earth take part, to boot. The whole idea couldn't set off more alarm bells if it tried.
I give them style points for using truly dystopian-looking "orbs" to do it, though.
It forever tuned me in to the ethos of Silicon Valley. And I have tried paying back where I can.
I was in a Ph.D. program at a top CS school and there are ways to transition your visa when building a startup. It was that I was not sure if the transition or the startup would work out - that startup did not - but years later another one did.
I would probably not have taken the plunge out of academia and not achieved much else had it not been for him. And I am deeply grateful for that.
Never accused you of trying to illegally stay in the country or some such - I just referenced a famous South African Valley-man with a musky scent who did that.
A person I've known all my life I could swear and trust him with anything was found out to have violated extremely young children and other stuff.
Stop pretending you know people, people don't even know themselves.
"Good" is too blurry of a description, and I don't know Sam, but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them and found mutually satisfying resolutions to them. If all you've had is mutually beneficial interactions, then of course everyone's going to be nice - it's in everyone's interests. You need to see how they act on nontrivial conflicts (either handling present ones, or mitigating/averting future ones) to really know if someone is a genuinely good person or not.
While this could hypothetically happen within an hour of meeting someone, it's more likely to take years or even decades... or might never even happen.
As I interview for new roles, it's a timely lesson, suggesting how to test what a new employer is -really- like.
This hits a spot. I had a really nice boss.. Until we got into a conflict, then she tried to blackmail me, pressure me and break me. I learned why some people who left our company needed months to get back on their feet. I got out quite well and managed to push back, but it was a tough period.
I had a feeling the man was a bit of a con, of course I won't say I know for sure. But some of his actions, like his notorious eye scanning crypto project, or the fact that he was 100% in support of UBI and wanted to advocate for it only to go to different governments wanting regulations (that only benefitted them)
People really really need to pay attention to their actions, not their words, jeezus. We'll have another rogue Elon Musk who was once idol worshipped as the incredibly "brilliant" man...turned out he does some stupid things too only now he amassed billions of dollars he can pay his way out of stupid things.
People never learn. Stop idolizing businessmen.
I've never met the man, but I can say I have not been impressed by his words and attitude in public. I never got the sense or feeling that he's actually doing right by the world.
Ultimately it doesn't matter if he's a good or bad person; what matters is what he's done.
https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232...