I don't believe there is a way to lock it. But if you really want to clear the comments, you can use the API to recurse and delete all the comments--this is a quick Nodejs snip from Bing Chat with Octokit:
https://gist.github.com/extremeheat/1042a8a933f0987b265a70d4...
I just deleted it. I'll figure out what to do with all of the emails about all of the comments later. Probably something fun with sentiment analysis and large language models.
95+% of the company disagrees as made obvious by publicly signing with their own real names documents saying that they'll quit unless Sam returns. I don't see much evidence this "OpenAI" message actually represents the views of people at OpenAI; it may not have even been written by employees.
Not signing the letter might mean the company falls apart, and most of these employees have millions worth of shares that they were about to have an option to sell in a new funding round.
Well, that only shows that those 95% of folks are truly either religious fanatics or are just in it all for money [1]. No fucks given about moral principles.
(although there's or course a third possibility of them just being bright but too naive to STILL not see the sham that Sam has played for years and manipulated [2] them into believing it)
There's no way the current episode doesn't damage reputation of everyone involved. On the flip side, there's nothing more revealing about powerful people in just how they defend (or attack) other powerful people, while useful idiots scurry around.
I believe people are flagging it because it is not apparent that it is actually from anyone at OpenAI. Not that it couldn’t be, but there are reasons to be suspicious.
I have issues with language like ”…As you have now witnessed what happens when you dare stand up to Sam Altman.”
This is worded like they are following a messiah and anything said after that is now tainted with worship speak. I get that they have concerns but this isn’t the way.
I'm a little confused by your comment. The line in question isn't saying "Now you have angered our messiah," it's saying "Now you see what we've had to deal with for years; sucks, right?"
It's just not language I would come to expect from board members and/or statements from the board to employees or any form of official communication. A better phrasing and one that wouldn't invoke worship speak would be "The challenges we face are due to the pop-star like treatment of Sam Altman". I agree the meaning behind it is as you describe. "See what we have to deal with now..." but using words like "dare" invokes conflict before a point is even taken.
If they strongly believe in what they're saying, they should come forward. If you hide behind an pseudonym, credibility takes a big hit. It's not like we're under a dictatorship and they're going to disappear if they do so.
You have almost every single employee vouching for Sam, people outside the company vouching for him, an anon letter is paper thin as far credibility goes.
And ofc, any employee that got pushed out is going to have an axe to grind. Losing out on 900k+/year has to sting. At that compensation and in a startup, performance, disagreeing and comitting are key to the success of the venture. You should expect attrition to be high (though how did author of the letter get to 50%? who knows)
The board is hiding, one of which has a direct competitor to a recently launched product so obv. conflict of interest, the employees are calling bs, Ilya himself turned, etc. This is just stupid.
Some others have put this perfectly, given what has transpired so far, how do they expect to align an agi? You'd expect resignations based on that alone.