Well, you see the result. Apart from this drama, lots of debate and speculation whether we are already in AGI territory, because it is all just a black box and no one knows what exactly was in the training data to be able to judge the quality of the output.
That is way too much AI priesthood for me, just open it for real, if you don't want concentration of power.
My point is this coup against OpenAI (seemingly) wasn't started by people who want to make AI more open. They want to make it inaccessible unless you're in their club. To my reading, that is more starkly opposed to the charter than anything Sam Altman has done. Commercialization = giving wide access. Not total 100% open source access, but wide access nonetheless.
The velocity of release and entwining with MSFT (by the profit side) might then be reasonably seen as a great concern for the board.
The default, in the absence of an OpenAI, is that it gets developed secretly by these organizations, and they get to decide who can use it (hint: it's not you, typical HN reader).
OpenAI were the only ones at least trying to walk this tightrope, and I think they were doing a pretty good job. So what were the real motivations of these three wealthy/elite board members who are taking it upon themselves to decide this issue for the rest of humanity? It's looking less and less likely that safety was the reason.
This is crucial, because safety is a convenient pretext for people whose real motivations are elitist. It's not that they want to slow down AI development; it's that they want to keep it restricted to a tight inner circle.
We have at least as much to fear from elites who think only megacorps and governments are responsible enough to be given access as we do from AI itself. The failures of our elite class have been demonstrated again and again in recent decades--from the Iraq War to Covid. These people cannot be trusted as stewards, and we can't afford to see such potentially transformative technology employed to further ossify and insulate the existing power structure.
OpenAI had the right idea. Keep the source closed if you must, and invest heavily on safety, but make the benefits available to all. The last thing we need is an AI priesthood that will inevitably turn corrupt.