OpenAI fires Altman

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Cmaier

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arstechnica.com

OpenAI fires CEO Sam Altman, citing less than “candid” communications

"The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com

"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 blog reads, in part. "The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
 
Huh … I wonder what it was that he actually did, like what did he mislead them on that was bad enough to do this? While I’m not personally familiar with the dynamics, my impression is that boards don’t like to fire publicly popular CEOs who are also founders unless it’s something major.
 
My Twitter timeline was full of AI-bros (that I don't follow, but Twitter puts in my timeline anyway) trying to come up with "explanations" as to what happened in a way that made Sam Altman look like a misunderstood genius. It was pretty fun to watch.
 
Andropov said:
My Twitter timeline was full of AI-bros (that I don't follow, but Twitter puts in my timeline anyway) trying to come up with "explanations" as to what happened in a way that made Sam Altman look like a misunderstood genius. It was pretty fun to watch.
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Out of curiosity, like what? I mean no one actually knows what he did though right? Apparently after being removed as president but “still at the company” Brockman has fully quit now too.

www.theverge.com

Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI

Mira Murati will be the interim CEO.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
dada_dave said:
Out of curiosity, like what? I mean no one actually knows what he did though right? Apparently after being removed as president but “still at the company” Brockman has fully quit now too.

www.theverge.com

Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI

Mira Murati will be the interim CEO.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
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Things like hypothesizing that OpenAI had achieved a “breakthrough” (like Artificial General Intelligence) recently and that this “breakthrough” had triggered the creation of two “factions” in the board: Altman and the other fired guy, pushing for development speed, and the other people in the board, pushing for doing things safety-first (whatever this means).
I think this was based solely on some news that yesterday Microsoft forbid use of ChatGPT to their employees or something like that. I can’t find the tweet now.
 
Andropov said:
Things like hypothesizing that OpenAI had achieved a “breakthrough” (like Artificial General Intelligence) recently and that this “breakthrough” had triggered the creation of two “factions” in the board: Altman and the other fired guy, pushing for development speed, and the other people in the board, pushing for doing things safety-first (whatever this means).
I think this was based solely on some news that yesterday Microsoft forbid use of ChatGPT to their employees or something like that. I can’t find the tweet now.
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This seems to be the explanation being floated by the press this morning. A power struggle between profit-folks and non-profit folks, some new breakthrough not being treated safely, etc.
 
The Pivot podcast made a special episode for this. I was distracted listening but pretty sure they brought up a notion that Altman was involved in a separate project that was potentially a conflict of interest with OpenAI. The announcement by the board was so vague all anyone can do is speculate but this is certainly dramatic.

 
Edd said:
The Pivot podcast made a special episode for this. I was distracted listening but pretty sure they brought up a notion that Altman was involved in a separate project that was potentially a conflict of interest with OpenAI.
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That honestly makes more sense than “an incredible breakthrough that splits the board”. I mean who knows but I’d put my money on something like that first before reaching for the “true AGI is right around the corner” hype.
 
theorist9 said:
www.nytimes.com

Microsoft Hires Sam Altman Hours After OpenAI Rejects His Return (Published 2023)

The announcement capped a tumultuous weekend for OpenAI, after Mr. Altman made a push to reclaim his job as C.E.O. of the artificial intelligence company.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Good for him; Microsoft will treat him well, as he will treat them. And perhaps OpenAI will become more open. More ML please! Our future awaits.

I won’t be getting popcorn to watch the legal nonsense, but I will bring salt. Hopefully someone has butter.
 
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dada_dave said:
And we still don’t know what the actual causes belli was of all this clownery … which again makes me think less than it was some incredible breakthrough and more that it was something really prosaic and/or really dumb
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It appears more and more likely that the issue was that the board wanted to focus on the original non-profit mission of the company, and wasn’t happy with Altman’s focus on the for-profit subsidiary.
 
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