[martythemaniak]

Yep, this is the most likely explanation now. There's only four people:

- McCauley: Doesn't seen to have a high profile or the standing required to initiate and drive this

- Toner: Fun to speculate she's a government agent to bring down OpenAI, but in reality also doesn't seem to have the profile and motive to drive this.

- Sutskever - he was the #1 suspect over the weekend, has the drive, profile and motivation to pull this off, but now (Monday) deeply regrets it.

- D'Angelo - has the motive, drive, and profile to do this.

Best guess: Quora is a ZIRP Shitco and is in trouble, Poe is gonna get steamrolled by OAI and Adam needs a bailout. Why not get rid of Sam, get bought out by OAI and become its CEO? So he convinces Ilya to act on some pre-existing concerns, then uses Ilya's credibility to get Toner and McCauley onboard. It's really the only thing that makes sense anymore.

[ianhawes]

I think this is exactly what happened Thursday and Friday. Plus, Adam D'Angelo has a bit of a reputation[0] as being a backstabber.

Continuing the saga over the weekend, you would assume that Ilya regrets the coup and can vote to re-appoint Sam as CEO, BUT that leaves McCauley and/or Toner as wildcards.

In a Sam-returning scenario, all of the nobodies on the board have to resign. Presumably, D'Angelo offers an alternative solution that appoints Emmett Shear as CEO and gives McCauley and Toner a viable way to salvage (LOL) OpenAI and also allow them to keep their board seats.

I look forward to this Netflix series.

[0] https://twitter.com/justindross/status/1725670445163458744

[tucnak]

What do you mean fun to speculate? I think there's no doubt that Toner is not for real and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology smells fine, too, I mean their mission is quite literally "Providing decision-makers with data-driven analysis on the security implications of emerging technologies." And it's not even much of a secret that she's reportedly wielding "influence comparable to USAF colonel"[1]. What's unknown is what role she— as a government agent— played in exploiting Sutskever and the board and to what exact end?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38330158#38330819

[Apocryphon]

I thought the speculation was that McCauley was the government agent, not Toner?

[tucnak]

Not that I'm aware, please share if there's useful input! Have you read the thread that I linked to? This particular communication had me convinced, look up OP.

[Apocryphon]

She works for the RAND Corporation...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309920

I've read the thread you linked to, it sure sounds interesting but I have insufficient knowledge to weigh in either way. And the rebuttal about the abundance of USAF Colonels also makes sense.

[tucnak]

I believe that her military rank or equivalent thereof is inconsequential; for one, I would agree that it's nothing terribly impressive. What is telling, however, is the surrounding discourse, how the AI safety circles assess these people and their motivation; it is absolutely clear that these AI people are completely aware of it, moreover you get AI startup CEOs actively _bragging_ about meeting the spooks and their agents. And this signal is so much more telling than anything else you would be able to pick up, IMO.