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A comment on Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board about AI breakthrough. Parent comment

Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by gexla on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @09:48PM (#38388621)
Seems like the board's mission went off the rails long ago and it acted late. Some snippets from the OpenAI website...

"Investing in OpenAI Global, LLC is a high-risk investment"

"Investors could lose their capital contribution and not see any return"

"It would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI Global, LLC in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world"

These are some heavy statements. It's fine to accept money from private investors who really do believe in that mission. It seems like you can't continue with the same mission if you're taking billions from public companies which have investors who are very much interested in profit. It's like putting your head in the sand with your hand out.

One of the board members seemed to believe that destroying OpenAI could still be inline with the mission. If that's the case, then they should have accepted slow progress due to funding constraints and killed the idea of creating the for-profit.

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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by Xelynega on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @10:24PM (#38388863)
Could it be possible that the board was just naive and believed that they would be able to control a capped-profit arm, but the inevitable mechanisms of capital eventually took over once they let them in?
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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by toddmorey on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @10:33PM (#38388915)
I can't find these quotes (especially the post-AGI world quote) on their site.
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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by gexla on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @10:57PM (#38389075)
Sorry, should have linked to it. You can find it in a purple box on this page...

https://openai.com/our-structure

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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by NotYourLawyer on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @10:38PM (#38388953)
>It seems like you can't continue with the same mission if you're taking billions from public companies which have investors who are very much interested in profit.

Why not? Public companies contribute to charities all the time.

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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by gexla on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @11:01PM (#38389103)
If the stories from media and elsewhere were correct, then current and future investors (Microsoft, Thrive Capital) were pressuring OpenAI to bring back Sam. They wouldn't be doing that if they were giving to charity?
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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by rowls66 on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @11:03PM (#38389120)
Not at the scale involved here.
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Re:Sam Altman's ouster was precipitated by letter to board a... by maxglute on Thursday November 23, 2023 @12:41AM (#38389724)
>should have accepted slow progress

Sure, should have. I think indicators in the last year have pointed to the domain developing much faster than anticipated, with Ilya seemingly incredulous at how well models he spend his career developing, suddenly started working and scaling incredibly well. If they thought billions of "donations" would sustain development in commercial capabilities X within constraints of the mission, but got X^10 way outside constraints, and their explicit goal was to to make sure X^10 doesn't arrive without Y^10 in consideration for safety, it's reasonable for hard liners to reevaluate, and if forces behind the billions get in the way, to burn it all down.

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