[1] https://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/corgs/fairchild.h...

Wasn't a key enabler of early transitor work that required capital investment was modest?

SotA AI research seems to be well past that point.

They were simple in principle but expensive at scale. Sounds like LLMs.

My understanding was that practical results were indicating your model has to be pretty large before you start getting "magic."

Microsoft gobbles up all talent from OpenAI as they just gave everyone a position.

So we went from "Faux NGO" to, "For profit", to "100% Closed".

Going from OpenAI to Microsoft means ceding the upside: nobody besides maybe Altman will make fuck-you money there.

I’m also not sure as some in Silicon Valley that this is antitrust proof. So moving to Microsoft not only means less upside, but also fun in depositions for a few years.

You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/characters/nm0000422

What might have been tens or hundreds of millions in common stakeholder equity gains will likely be single digit millions, but at least much more likely to materialize (as Microsoft RSUs).

Did not expect to see this whole thing still escalating! WOW! What a power move by MSFT.

I'm not even sure OpenAI will exist by the end of the week at this rate. Holy moly.

But don't be surprised if Shear also walks before the week is out, if some board members resign but others try to hold on and if half of OpenAI's staff ends up at Microsoft.

Seems a bit of a lose-lose for MSFT and OpenAI, even if best that MSFT could do to contain the situation. Competitors must be happy.

Competitors should be fearful. OpenAI was executing with weights around their ankles by virtue of trying to run as a weird "need lots of money but cant make a profit" company. Now they'll be fully bankrolled by one of the largest companies the world has ever seen and empowered by a whole bunch of hypermotivated-through-retribution leaders.

The leaders may be motivated by retribution, but I'm sure none of leaders or researchers really want to be a division of MSFT rather than a cool start-up. Many developers may chose to stay in SF and create their own startups, or join others. Signing the letter isn't a commitment to go to MSFT - just a way to pressure for a return to status quo they were happy with.

Not everyone is going to stay with OpenAI or move to MSFT - some developers will move elsewhere and the knowledge of OpenAI's secret sauce will spread.

“Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.”

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html

https://images.openai.com/blob/142770fb-3df2-45d9-9ee3-7aa06...

Microsoft can absorb all the employees and switch them into the new AI subsidiary which basically is an acqui-hire without buying out everyone else's shares and making a new DeepMind / OpenAI research division inside of the company.

So all along it was a long winded side-step into having a new AI division without all the regulatory headaches of a formal acquisition.

Microsoft is a substantial shareholder (49%) in that for-profit subsidiary, so the value of Microsoft's asset has presumably reduced due to OpenAI's board decisions.

OpenAI's board decisions which resulted in these events appear to have been improperly conducted: Two of the board's members weren't aware of its deliberations, or the outcome until the last minute, notably the chair of the board. A board's decisions have legal weight because they are collective. It's allowed to patch them up after if the board agrees, for people to take breaks, etc. But if some directors intentionally excluded other directors from such a major decision (and formal deliberations), affecting the value and future of the company, that leaves the board's decision open to legal challenges.

Hypothetically Microsoft could sue and offer to settle. Then OpenAI might not have enough funds if it would lose, so might have sell shares in the for-profit subsidiary, or transfer them. Microsoft only needs about 2% more to become majority shareholder of the for-profit subsidiary, which runs ChatGPT sevices.

Far from certain. One, they still control a lot of money and cloud credits. Two, they can credibly threaten to license to a competitor or even open source everything, thereby destroying the unique value of the work.

> without all the regulatory headaches of a formal acquisition

This, too, is far from certain.

This too is far from certain. The funding and credits was at best tied to milestones, and at worst, the investment contract is already broken and msft can walk.

I suspect they would not actually do the latter and the ip is tied to continual partnership.

But stranger things have happened. One day I may be very very VERY surprised.

The point here is that if a country collapses, then you got bigger problems than the loss of whatever stored currency you got. Even if your money is in the hypothetically useful crypto, you got far bigger problems that the money you own is useless to you, you need to survive.

But aside from that extreme scenario, money is not the same thing.

Another way to think of it:

There is nothing in the world that would prevent the immediate collapse of crypto if everyone who owns it just decided to sell.

If everyone in the world stops accepting the US Dollar, the US can still continue to use it internally and manufacture goods and such. It'll just be a collapse of trade, but then even in that scenario people can just exchange the dollar locally for say gold, and trade gold on the global market. So the dollar has physical and usable backing. Meanwhile crypto has literally nothing.

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency

Bitcoin has nothing in and of itself.

Also private currency like script was awful, please don't take the worst financial examples in history and claim that bitcoin is similar as an argument as to why it is valid.

I don't understand what is "in and of itself" in an ordinary currency of an ordinary, small country.

> INTERNAL economical crisis is what causes the collapse of currency

Which is why it is very unlikely to happen with bitcoin.

> But just because the rest of the world doesn't recognize it, doesn't mean it is worthless, it simply converts.

Can't you say exactly the same about bitcoin?

what the actual fuck =O

Maybe someone thinks Sam was “not consistently candid” about mentioning one of the feature bullets in latest release was dropping d'Angelo's Poe directly into the ChatGPT app for no additional charge.

Given dev day timing and the update releasing these "GPTs" this is an entirely plausible timeline.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/10/poes-ai-chatbot-app-now-le...

If you made a comment recently about de jure vs de facto power, step forward and collect your prize.

What do I win? Hahaha.

Ilya's role is a Chief Scientist. It may be fair to give at least some benefit of doubt. He was vocal/direct/binary, and also vocally apologized and worked back. In human dynamics – I'd usually look for the silent orchestrator behind the scenes that nobody talks about.

Do we know why Murati was replaced?

I don't think she actually had anything to do with the coup, she was only slightly less blindsided than everyone else.

So her move wasn't stupid at all. She obviously knew people working there respected the leadership of the company.

If 550 people leave OpenAI you might as well just shut it down and sell the IP to Microsoft.

Do you not trust Microsoft's public statement that jobs are waiting for anyone that decides to leave OpenAI? Considering their two decade adventure with Xbox and their $72bln in profits last year, on top of a $144bln in cash reserves, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is able (and willing) to match most comp packages considering what's at stake. Maybe not everyone, but most.

Actually for MS this might be much better cause they would get direct control over them without the hassle of talking to some "board" that is not aligned with their interests.

The board is going to be overseeing a company of 10 people as things are going.

I don't know if it was 3 or 4 in the end, but it may very well have been possible with just 3.

I wonder if it will take 20 years to learn the whole story.

Now he’s trying to save his own skin. Sam will probably take him back on his own technical merits but definitely not in any position of power anymore

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die

Just because you are a genius in one domain does not mean you are in another

What’s funny is that everyone initially “accepted” the firing. But no one liked it. Then a few people (like greg) started voting with their feet which empowered others which has cumulated into this tidal shift.

It will make a fascinating case study some day on how not to fire your CEO

Employees are the most affected stakeholders here and the board utterly failed in their duty of care towards people that were not properly represented in the board room. One thing they could do is to unionize and then force that they be given a board seat.

Joining a corporate behemoth like Microsoft and all the complications it brings with it will mean a massive reduction in the freedom and innovation that Sam is used to from OpenAI (prior to this mess).

Or is Microsoft saying: Here is OpenAI², a Microsoft subsidiary created juste for you guys. You can run it and do whatever you want. No giant bureaucracy for you guys.

Btw: we run all of OpenAi²s compute,(?) so we know what you guys need from us there.

we won it but you can run it and do whatever it is you want to do and we dont bug you about it.

Satya is way smarter than that, I wouldn't be shocked if they have complete free reign to do whatever but have full resources of MS/Azure to enable it and Microsoft just gets % ownership and priority access.

This is a gamble for the foundation of the entire next generation of computing, no way are they going to screw it up like that in the Satya era.

Well.. he requires tens of billions from msft either way. This is not a ramen-scrappy kind of play. Meanwhile, Sam could easily become CEO of Microsoft himself.

At that scale of financing... This is not a bunch of scrappy young lads in a bureaucracy free basement. The whole thing is bigger than most national militaries. There are going to be bureaucracies... And Sam is is able to handle these cats as anyone.

This is a big money, dragon level play. It's not a proverbial yc company kind of thing.

Let this be a lesson to both private and non-profit companies. Boards, investors, executives... the structure of your entity doesn't matter if you wake any of the dragons:

1. Employees 2. Customers 3. Government

If all those employees leave and microsoft reduce their credits it's game over.

>When we all unexpectedly learned of your decision

>12. Ilya Sutskever

Wow, this is a soap opera worthy of an Emmy.

The stakes being heightened only decreases the likelihood the OpenAI profit sharing will be worth anything, only increasing the stakes further…

Or possibly some misinformation. It does seem very strange, and more than a little confusing.

I have to keep reminding myself that information ultimately sourced from Twitter/X threads can't necessarily be taken at face value. Whatever the situation, I'm sure it will become clearer over the next few days.

Poor ChatGPT, it doesn't know that it cannot function if OpenAI goes bust.

This situation's drama is overwhelming and it seems like its making HN's servers meltdown.

Ilya votes for and stands behind decision to remove Altman, Altman goes to MS, other employees want him back or want to join him at MS and Ilya is one of them, just madness.

On the margin, I think the only real possible win here is for a competitor to poach some of the OpenAI talent that may be somewhat reluctant to join Microsoft. Even if Sam'sAI operates with "full freedom" as a subsidiary, I think, given a choice, some of the talent would prefer to join some alternative tech megacorp.

I don't know that Google is as attractive as it once was and likely neither is Meta. But for others like Anthropic now is a great time to be extending offers.

All respect to the engineers and their technical abilities, but this organization has demonstrated such a level of dysfunction that there can't be any path back for it.

Say MS gets what it wants out of this move, what purpose is there in keeping OpenAI around? Wouldn't they be better off just hiring everybody? Is it just some kind of accounting benefit to maintain the weird structure / partnership, versus doing everything themselves? Because it sure looks like OpenAI has succeeded despite its leadership and not because of it, and the "brand" is absolutely and irrevocably tainted by this situation regardless of the outcome.

For starters it allows them to pretend that it's "underdog v. Google" and not "two tech giants at at each others' throats"

My biggest frustration with larger orgs in tech is the complete misalignment on delivering value: everyone wants their little fiefdom to be just as important and "blocker worthy" as the next.

OpenAI struck me as one of the few companies where that's not being allowed to take root: the goal is to ship and if there's an impediment to that, everyone is aligned in removing said impediment even if it means bending your own corner's priorities

Until this weekend there was no proof of that actually being the case, but this letter is it. The majority of the company aligned on something that risked their own skin publicly and organized a shared declaration on it.

The catalyst might be downright embarrassing, but the result makes me happy that this sort of thing can still exist in modern tech

They weren't attracted to OpenAI by money alone, a chance to actually ship their lives' work was a big part of it. So regardless of what the stated goals were, it'd never be surprising to see them prioritize the one thing that differentiated OpenAI from the alternatives

They just haven't gotten big or rich enough yet for the rot to set in.

That in itself is not critical in mid to long term, but how fast they figure out WTF they want and recover from it.

The stakes are gigantic. They may even have AGI cooking inside.

My interpretation is relatively basic, and maybe simplistic but here it is:

- Ilya had some grievances with Sam Altman's rushing dev and release. And his COI with his other new ventures.

- Adam was alarmed by GPTs competing with his recently launched Poe.

- The other two board members were tempted by the ability to control the golden goose that is OpenAI, potentially the most important company in the world, recently values 90 billion.

- They decided to organize a coup, but Ilya didn't think it'll go that much out of hand, while the other three saw only power and $$$ by sticking to their guns.

That's it. It's not as clean and nice as a movie narrative, but life never is. Four board members aligned to kick Sam out, and Ilya wants none of it at this point.

“You are fanciful, mon vieux,” said M. Bouc.

“It may be so. But I could not rid myself of the impression that evil had passed me by very close.”

“That respectable American LLM?”

“That respectable American LLM.”

“Well,” said M. Bouc cheerfully, “it may be so. There is much evil in the world.”

Too many people quit too quickly unless OpenAI are also absolute masters of keeping secrets, which became rather doubtful over the weekend.

Also when I said "cooking AGI" I didn't mean an actual superintelligent being ready to take over the world, I mean just research that seems promising, if in early stages, but enough to seem potentially very valuable.

Anyway, their actions speak for themselves. Also calling the likes of GPT-4, DALL-E 3 and Whisper "normal things" is hilarious.

Do you mean offering to hire them? I haven't seen any source saying they've hired a lot of people from OpenAI, just a few senior ones.

But I heard it usually take 5~ days to show there anyway.

Two projects rather than one. At a moderate price. Both serving MSFT

This instability can only mean the industry as a whole will move forward faster. Competitors see the weakness and will push harder.

OpenAI will have a harder time keeping secret sauces from leaking out, and just productivity must be in nose dive.

A terrible mess.

The hype surrounding OpenAI and the black hole of credibility it created was a problem, it's only positive that it's taken down several notches. Better now than when they have even more (undeserved) influence.

In that reading Altman is head clown. Everyone is blaming the board, but you're no genius if you can't manage your board effectively. As CEO you have to bring everyone along with your vision; customers, employees and the board.

Bought-out executives eventually join MS after their work is done or in this case, they get fired.

A variant of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. The OpenAI we knew, was going to die one way or another the moment they accepted MS's money.

The board as currently constituted isn't some random group of people - Altman was (or should have been) involved in the selection of the current members. To extent that they're making bad decisions, he has to bear some responsibility for letting things get to where they are now.

And of course this is all assuming that Altman is "right" in this conflict, and that the board had no reason to oust him. That seems entirely plausible, but I wouldn't take it for granted either. It's clear by this flex that he holds great sway at MS and with OpenAI employees, but do they all know the full story either? I wouldn't count on it.

That's a good bet. 10 months ago Microsoft's newest star employee figured he was on the way to "break capitalism."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-agi-break-capitalis...

There is no concrete definition of intelligence, let alone AGI. It's a nerdy fantasy term, a hallowed (and feared!) goal with a very handwavy, circular definition. Right now it's 100% hype.

I find it harder to imagine a future where AGI (even if it's not superintelligent) does not have a huge and fundamental impact.

AI means "artificial intelligence", but since everyone started bastardizing the term for the sake of hype to mean anything related to LLMs and machine learning, we now use "AGI" instead to actually mean proper artificial intelligence. And now you're trying to say that AI + applying it generally = AGI. That's not what these things are supposed to mean, people just hear them thrown around so much that they forget what the actual definitions are.

AGI means a computer that can actually think and reason and have original thoughts like humans, and no I don't think it's feasible.

Computers have been gathering and applying information since inception. A calculator is a form of intelligence. I agree "AI" is used as a buzzword with sci-fi connotations, but if we're being pedantic about words then I hold my stated opinion that literally anything that isn't biological and can compute is "artificial" and "intelligent"

> AGI means a computer that can actually think and reason and have original thoughts like humans, and no I don't think it's feasible.

Why not? Conceptually there's no physical reason why this isn't possible. Computers can simulate neurons. With enough computers we can simulate enough neurons to make a simulation of a whole brain. We either don't have that total computational power, or the organization/structure to implement that. But brains aren't magic that is incapable of being reproduced.

For all intents and purposes the glorified software of the near future will appear to be people but they will not be and they will continue to have issues that simply don't make sense unless they were just really good at acting - the article today about the AI that can fix logic errors but not "see" them is a perfect example.

This isn't the generation that would wake up anyway. We are seeing the creation of the worker class of AI, the manager class, the AI made to manage AI - they may have better chances but it's likely going to be the next generation before we need to be concerned or can actually expect a true AGI but again - even an AI capable of original and innovative thinking with an appearance of self identity doesn't guarantee that the AI is an AGI.

I'm not sure we could ever truly know for certain

>I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.

and everyone else seems fine with Sam and Greg. It seems to be mostly the other directors causing the clown show - "Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology's Helen Toner"

The most organized and professional silicon valley startup.

The majority of people don't know or care about this. Branding is only impacted within the tech world, who are already criticial of OpenAI.

It's been a busy weekend for me so I haven't really followed it if more has come out since then.

It's not clear if they thought they could have their cake--all the commercial investment, compute and money--while not pushing forward with commercial innovations. In any case, the previous narrative of "Ilya saw something and pulled the plug" seems to be completely wrong.

Like Rosko's Basilisk, it's not of the nature of AI, it's of the nature of human beings.

Altman was training an AI Altman to counsel him, sharing his stated beliefs. Translated to AGI, that means training a paranoid superintelligence with a persecution complex and the belief that the first superintelligent AI will conquer the world and rule everything. The board got wind and FREAKED OUT.

And then they discovered it was all nothing. A glorified ChatGPT4 that, rather than being coaxed to act reassuring, had been coaxed to act creepy. No evil superbrain at all. Nothing to see.

So either they were justified… because they were sitting on an evil supercomputer, and they were the baddies, and were responsible for the direction the training had taken… or they looked like clowns because they believed their own hype and had legally endangered their company by their panicky firing and frantic damage control.

And all the while, it'd be over one of the boogeymen of AGI: the evil superintelligence being trained to take over the world. So, whether they were justified or they were panicking and acting like fools, they still could not explain why they did what they did. Shame, and guilt, and the suspicion that even if the bad end didn't turn up this time… who's to say what will happen next time someone diverts a bunch of compute resources and tries to create HAL-9000?

Altman's Basilisk. If you believe it's so zero-sum that the first one to AGI and superintelligence will rule or destroy the world, you will intentionally try to produce an intelligence that does just that… even if that isn't really very intelligent behavior at all.

I'd think all this more amusing if these people weren't dead serious. It's like crypto all over again, except that in this case their attitudes aren't grooming a herd of greater fools, they're seeding the core attitudes superhuman inference engines will have.

Nothing dictates that superhuman synthetic intelligence will adopt human failings, yet these people seem intent on forcing them on their creations. Corporate control is not helping, as corporations are compelled to greater or lesser extent to adopt subhuman ethics, the morality of competing mold cultures in petri dishes.

People are rightly not going to stop talking about these things.

Like, why would an AGI take over the world? How does it perceive power? What about effort? Time? Life?

I find it easier to believe that an AGI, even one as evil as Hitler, would simply hide and wait for the end of our civilization rather than risk its immortal existence trying to take out it's creator

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The most awesome fic I could come up so far is: Elon Musk, in running a crusade to send humanity into chaos out of spite for being forced to acquire Twitter. Through some of his insiders in OpenAI, they use an advanced version of ChatGPT to impersonate board members in conversation with each other in private messages, so they individually believe a subset of the others is plotting to oust them from the board and take over. Then, unknowingly they build a conspiracy among a themselves to bring the company down by ousting Altmann.

I can picture Musk's maniac laughing as the plan unfolds, and he gets rid of what would be GPT 13.0, the only possible threat to the domination of his own literal android kid X Æ A-Xi.

Almost literally- this is the slowest I've seen this site, and the number of errors are pretty high. I imagine the entire tech industry is here right now. You can almost smell the melting servers.

Because using only one is pretty cool.

It's a technical limitation that I've been working on getting rid of for a long time. If you say it should be gone by now, I say yes, you are right. Maybe we'll get rid of it before Python loses the GIL.

I'm going to chalk that up as another metric of Twitter's slide to irrelevance: this should be registering there if it's melting the HN servers, but nada. AI? Isn't that a Spielberg movie? ;)

And a sink in the other hand.

Us humans, even the AI assisted ones, are terrible at thinking beyond 2nd level consequences.

Based on those posts from OpenAI, Ilya cares nothing about humanity or security of OpenAI, he lost his mind when Sam got all the spotlights and making all the good calls.

Ilya sees two options; A) OpenAI with Sam's vision, which is increasingly detached from the goals stated in the OpenAI charter, or B) OpenAI without Sam, which would return to the goals of the charter. He chooses option B, and takes action to bring this about.

He gets his way. The Board drops Sam. Contrary to Ilya's expectations, OpenAI employees revolt. He realizes that his ideal end-state (OpenAI as it was, sans Sam) is apparently not a real option. At this point, the real options are A) OpenAI with Sam (i.e. the status quo ante), or B) a gutted OpenAI with greatly diminished leadership, IC talent, and reputation. He chooses option A.

[0]Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

>Ilya cares nothing about humanity or security of OpenAI, he lost his mind when Sam got all the spotlights and making all the good calls.

???

I personally suspect Ilya tried to do the best for OpenAI and humanity he could but it backfired/they underestimated Altman, and now is doing the best he can to minimize the damage.

Now he’s trying to save his own skin. Sam will probably take him back on his own technical merits but definitely not in any position of power anymore

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die

Just because you are a genius in one domain does not mean you are in another

What’s funny is that everyone initially “accepted” the firing. But no one liked it. Then a few people (like greg) started voting with their feet which empowered others which has cumulated into this tidal shift.

It will make a fascinating case study some day on how not to fire your CEO

In this case recognizing the need for a new board, that adheres to the founding principles, makes sense.

Why did Ilya sign the letter demanding the board resign or they'll go to Microsoft then?

The top researchers on the other hand, espcially those who have shown an ability to successfully innovate time and time again (like Ilya), are much harder to recreate.

I'm split at this point, either Ilya's actions will seem silly when there's no AGI in 10 years, or it will seem prescient and a last ditch effort...

In a sense, sure, but I think mostly not: The motives are still not quite clear but Ilya wanting to remove Altman from the board but not at any price – and the price is right now approach the destruction of OpenAI – are completely sane. Being able to react to new information is a good sign, even if that means complete reversal of previous action.

Unfortunately, we often interpret it as weakness. I have no clue who Ilya is, really, but I think this reversal is a sign of tremendous strength, considering how incredibly silly it makes you look in the publics eye.

I'm not joking.

This whole weekend feels like a big pageeant to me, and a lot doesn't add up. Also remember that Altman doesn't hold equity in OpenAI, nor does Ilya, and so their way to get a big payout is to get hired rather than acquired.

Then again, both Hanlon's and Occam's razor suggest that pure human stupidity and chaos may be more at fault.

If I were one of their competitors, I would have called an emergency board meeting re:accelerating burn and proceeded in advance of board approval with sending senior researchers offers to hire them and their preferred 20 employees.

Maybe for another, longer lived example, see AIG.

It is a great time to be a lobbyist.

Where is OpenAI talent going to go?

There's a list and everyone on that list is a US company.

Nothing to worry about.

Maybe to Quora guy, Maybe the RAND Corp lady? All speculation.

But then, I would expect MS to have done their due diligence.

So, basically, I guess I’m just interested to know what were the reasons why the board decided to oust their CEO out of the blue on a Friday evening.

I was surprised to find that that wasn't apparently the case. (Although the reason for Sam Altman's dismissal is still obscure.) It's kind of shocking. Whether or not the allegations are true, they haven't made Altman radioactive, and that's insane.

The fact that we're not talking about it on HN is also pretty wild. The few times it has been mentioned folks have been quick to dismiss the idea that he might have been fired for having done some really creepy things, which is itself pretty creepy.

What?

I wrote some notes on how to support someone who is grieving. This is from a book called "Being There for Someone in Grief." Some of the following are quotes and some are paraphrased.

Do your own work, relax your expectations, be more curious than afraid. If you can do that, you can be a powerful healing force. People don't need us to pull their attention away from their own process to listen to our stories. Instead, they need us to give them the things they cannot get themselves: a safe container, our non-intrusive attention, and our faith in their ability to traverse this road.

When you or someone else is angry, or sad, feel and acknowledge your emotions or their emotions. Sit with them.

To help someone heal from grief, we need to have an open heart and the courage to resist our instinct to rescue them. When someone you care about is grieving, you might be shaken as well. The drama of it catches you; you might feel anxious. It brings up past losses and fears of yourself or fears of the future. We want to take our own pain away, so we try to take their pain away. We want to help the other person feel better, which is understandable but not helpful.

Avoid giving advice, talking too much, not listening generously, trying to fix, making demands, disappearing. Do see the other person without acting on the urge to do something. Do give them unconditional compassion free of projection and criticism. Do allow them to do what they need to do. Do listen to them if they need to talk without interruptions, without asking questions, without telling your own story. Do trust them that they don't need to be rescued; they just need your quiet, steady faith in their resilience.

Being there for someone in grief is mostly about how to be with them. There's not that much you can "do," but what can you do? Beauty is soothing, so bring fresh flowers, offer to take them somewhere in nature for a walk, send them a beautiful card, bring them a candle, water their flowers, plant a tree in honor and take a photo of it, take them there to see it, tell them a beautiful story about the thing that was lost from your memory, leave them a message to tell them “I’m thinking of you”. When you’re together with them in person, you can just say something like "I'm sorry that you're hurting," and then just kind of be there and be a loving presence. This is about how to be with someone for the grief message of a loss of a person. But all the same principles apply in any situation of grief, and there will be a lot of people experiencing varying degrees of grief in the startup and AI ecosystems in the coming week.

Who is grieving? Grieving is generally about loss. That loss can be many different kinds of things. OpenAI former and current team members, board members, investors, customers, supporters, fans, detractors, EA people, e/acc people, there’s lots of people that experienced some kind of loss in the past few days, and many of those will be grieving, whether they realize it or not. And particularly, grief for current and former OpenAI employees.

What are other emotional regulation strategies? Swedish massage, going for a run, doing deep breathing with five seconds in, a zero-second hold, five seconds out, going to sleep or having a nap, closing your eyes and visualizing parts of your body like heavy blocks of concrete or like upside-down balloons, and then visualize those balloons emptying themselves out, or if it's concrete, first it's concrete and then it's kind of liquefied concrete. Consider grabbing some friends, go for a run or exercise class together. Then if you discuss, keep it to emotions, don’t discuss theories and opinions until the emotions have been aired. If you work at OpenAI or a similar org, encourage your team members to move together, regulate together.

Ilyas wanted to stop Sam getting so much credit for OpenAI, agreed to oust him, and is now facing the fact that the company he cofounded could be gone. He backtracks, apologizes, and is now trying to save his status as cofounder of the worlds foremost AI company.

Sadly, i see nefarious purposes afoot. With $MSFT now in charge, i can see why ads in W11 aren't so important. For now.

The investors (Microsoft and the Saudi’s) stepped in and gave a clear message: this technology has to be developed and used only in ways that will be profitable for them.

Open source (read, truly open source models, not falsely advertised source-available ones) will march on and take their place.

Without full buy in they are not going to be able to control it for long once ideas filter into society and once researchers filter into other industries/companies. At most it just creates a model of behaviour for others to (optionally) follow and delays it until a better funded competitor takes the chains and offers a) the best researchers millions of dollars a year in salary, b) the most capital to organize/run operations, and c) the most focused on getting it into real peoples hands via productization, which generates feedback loops which inform IRL R&D (not just hand wavy AGI hopes and dreams).

Not to mention the bold assumption that any of this leads to (real) AGI that plausibly threatens us enough in the near term vs maybe another 50yrs, we really have no idea.

It's just as, or maybe more, plausible that all the handwringing over commercializing vs not-commercializing early versions LLMs is just a tiny insignificant speedbump in the grandscale of things which has little impact on the development of AGI.

Open source (read, truly open source models, not falsely advertised source-available ones) will march on one way or another and take its place.

I am holding out hope that a breakthrough will create a disruptive LLM/AI tech, but until then...

”That thing you did — we won’t say it here but everyone will know what we’re talking about — was so bad we need you to all quit. We demand that a new board never does that thing we didn’t say ever again. If you don’t do this then quite a few of us are going to give some serious thought to going home and taking our ball with us.

The vagueness and half-threats come off as very puerile.

At most all we have is some rumours that some board members were unhappy with the pace of commercialization of ChatGPT. But even if they didn't make the ChatGPT store or do a bigo-friendly devday powerpoint, it's not like AI suddenly becomes 'safer' or AGI more controlled.

At best that's just an internal culture battle over product development and a clash of personalities. A lot of handwringing with little specifics.

1. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_...

Will they do the good guy thing and match everyones packages?

2. All those employees quit, most of whom go to MSFT. But they don’t keep their tech and have to start all their projects from scratch. MSFT is eventually able to buy OpenAI for pennies on the dollar.

3. Same as 2, basically just shuts down or maybe someone like AMZN buys it.

Just imagine of Microsoft attempted to orchestrate such a coup of Apple, attempting to seize control of Apple’s board by tortuously interfering with their employees… the courts would not look kindly on that.

If OpenAI actually has evidence of wrongdoing by Altman & Microsoft which warranted his removal (and I don’t know) then I could certainly see emergency injunctions being issued that put a halt to Microsoft’s AI business.