If employees would have voted Sam out, you'd take that as a shiny example of the proletariat exercising the power for the good of human kind, hammer, sickle and all that.

I always find it funny when people understand democracy to mean "other people that should vote my way, otherwise they are imoral and should be re-educated".

First, I'm actually quite libertarian and capitalist -- although not necessarily so when it comes to companies working on powerful AI (or fighter jets for that matter). Here are some comments of mine from other discussions if you don't believe me:

* Expressing skepticism about unions in Sweden -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38308184

* Arguing against central planning, with a link to a book detailing how socialism always fails -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38303195

* I often push back against the "greedy corrupt American plutocrats" narrative which you see all over HN. Here are a few examples -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37541805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37962796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38456106

And by the way, here is a comment I made the other day making essentially the point you are making, that in a democracy everyone is entitled to their opinion, even the dastardly Elon Musk: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38261265 And I also argue in favor of freedom of speech here, for whatever that's worth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37713086

Point being, I'm not sure our disagreement lies where you think it does.

The purpose of the board is that they're supposed to be disinterested representatives of humanity, supervising OpenAI. The employees aren't chosen for being disinterested, and it seems quite likely that they are, in fact, interested, per my link.

From the perspective of human benefit (or from the perspective of my own financial stake in OpenAI, given that their charter says their "primary fiduciary duty is to humanity"), I prefer a small group of thoughtful, disinterested people over a slightly larger group whose interest is systematically biased relative to the interest of me or the average person. Which is more likely to produce a fair trial: a jury of 12 randomly chosen citizens, or a jury of 1200 mafiosos?

When their charter says

"primary fiduciary duty is to humanity"

I don't think that means it intends to pay a financial dividend to each and every person on the planet. I think it means that if it is successful at AGI, that in itself will expand the economy enough to have the same effect.

"Rising tide lifts all boats" type logic.

Sure, but I think my point still stands

> pay a financial dividend to each and every person on the planet

I think it could mean this, in the context of Altman's other project (WorldCoin) which despite all its controversy is ostensibly intended as a vehicle for distributing an AGI-funded Universal Basic Income (UBI) to all of humanity.

    Introducing Worldcoin
    a potential path to AI-funded UBI.

https://worldcoin.org/cofounder-letter