[recovery_mode]

To answer your question, basically all of the current narrative has been driven by Sam and his followers, and whatever else happens, it's been a sickening confirmation of the fears the board had when they fired Sam to begin with. Sam Altman is not capable of honoring the original mission of OpenAI; to ensure AI benefits all of humanity. Sam Altman is only concerned with benefitting himself, and those that are loyal to him.

We all saw it, the false deadlines, the endless media pressure outside the company, the pressure inside the company to make everyone sign some worthless letter before all the facts had time to come out.

Still, the board still has a winning move; just wait it out. In time, cooler heads will prevail.

Look, we still don't know where this is all going, but even what we do know is concerning. This article captures some of the nuance in this situation: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-11-20...

Specifically, the shady dealings with Saudi Arabia, and Sam's pattern of lying and manipulation(See https://www.newcomer.co/p/give-openais-board-some-time-the for more details).

And I think this is why the board's job is so tough. There isn't a smoking gun here. Rather, Sam's vision for OpenAI is much different from the board's. The board believes in their mission, to ensure AI benefits all of humanity. Meanwhile, Sam has been treating OpenAI like yet another startup, the exact thing OpenAI was founded to counter.

We'll get the full details in time, but my guess is we're going to hear about a gradual breakdown in communication, sleight lies, omissions, and half truths, all of which impeded the boards ability to oversee the for-profit company, and thus caused them to lose trust in Sam's ability to lead.

I guess the alternative is to believe that 4 rational human beings colluded, risking their lives and integrity to oust Sam from OpenAI. Maybe that is what happened? Ilya certainly didn't mind backtracking when he saw the cost of the cure, but he's a smart guy, he didn't just side with the board because they tricked him. Based on everything I've read about Sam, I think it's just as likely he played fast and loose, and got burned in the process.

[Adrig]

This makes sense, but why can I only find this opinion in a HN comment? Why isn't the board explicit and owning this position? Why the "research faction" was radio silent? It would shift the debate around 2 opposing views for the future of AI, not who's incompetent.

[MaxHoppersGhost]

I think the board is so in over their head they don't know what to do and are running scared. The whole reason they got into this mess is because they didn't know what they were doing, so they definitely won't be able to dig out of it without some help.

[0xEF]

I was wondering this, myself. I think there's a two-fold reason for this, but please take the following opinion as just an opinion from where I'm standing.

1. We don't usually side with The Board™ in these types of stories. Company boards are typically, from an outside perspective, in place to protect the interests of shareholders, which in turn are typically viewed as profit-seeking puppet masters. This is such a meme that it makes it into our tv shows and movies regularly, further reinforcing the belief that The Board™ = Evil. A story where the board is actually trying to uphold some ethical stance as a core value is foreign to the accepted and collective understand of how things work.

2. Sam Altman, much like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has an army of sycophants at his disposal, and understands how to use them. We forget that people get swept up in the magic and promise of someone else's perceived "genius" regardless of our intelligence. Being human, we want a savior or role model of sorts to stand behind, and further being human, we're willing to gaslight ourselves about such a person, ignore their questionable aspects, and get pretty irrational about our devotion to their cause. This is not exclusive to people with less education or whatever, but something we all do to some degree, and people like Sam understand this. So, his narrative gets a much much louder shout while also appearing to evade any real scrutiny.

In the end, we may have become so negative in our worldview that we are collectively subject to these kinds of cognitive traps, which is disturbing in and of itself.

Again, just my opinion as to why the audience seems to not be on the "The board is the good guy!" train.