[flylib]

"A source with direct knowledge of the negotiations says that the sole job of this initial board is to vet and appoint a new formal board of up to 9 people that will reset the governance of OpenAl. Microsoft will likely have a seat on that expanded board, as will Altman himself."

https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/172721237871736880...

[jbu]

9 mortal men? Look out for the one ring to rule them all…

[Joeri]

OpenAI's logo is literally a ring made out of chain links...

[have_faith]

Who is Gollum in this cut?

[keepamovin]

Literally it can only be the one person to have not let go of their board seat. Who might that be?

Smeagol D’Angelo

[keepamovin]

Just following up, it's also totally Smeagol-like to make people sign up before they can get any useful answers at Quora. True Gollum move, D'gelo. Thanks for showin' yer true colors!

[Dah00n]

I could see Gollum run around a stage yelling Developers! Developers! Developers! no problem.

[colejohnson66]

Steve Ballmer is Gollum?

[Dah00n]

Eh, well, that wasn't what I meant exactly, but I can see how it could be read that way..

[tempaway511751]

Elon

[yeck]

I was about to say this. Only correct answer.

[robertlagrant]

I don't see how - isn't he pretty against the commercialisation efforts[0]?

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65110030

[ethbr1]

Gollum wasn't a fan of anyone but him having the One Ring. Analogy doesn't not fit.

[yeck]

Elon was once "in possession" (influential investor and part of the board) of OpenAI, but it was since taken from him and he is evidently bitter about it.

[93po]

Satya

[rcaught]

> as will Altman himself

Would you trust someone who doesn't believe in responsible governance for themselves, to apply responsible governance elsewhere?

[mijoharas]

How has the board shown that they fired Sam Altman due to "responsible governance".

They haven't really said anything about why it was, and according to business insider[0] (the only reporting that I've seen that says anything concrete) the reasons given were:

> One explanation was that Altman was said to have given two people at OpenAI the same project.

> The other was that Altman was said to have given two board members different opinions about a member of personnel.

Firing the CEO of a company and only being able to articulate two (in my opinion) weak examples of why, and causing >95% of your employees to say they will quit unless you resign does not seem responsible.

If they can articulate reasons why it was necessary, sure, but we haven't seen that yet.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/openais-employees-given-expl...

[ethanbond]

Good lord: it’s a private company. As a general matter of course it’s inadvisable to comment on specifics of why someone is fired. The lack of a thing that pretty much never happens anyway (public comment) is just harmful to your soap opera, not to the potential legitimacy of the action.

[mijoharas]

According to reports they haven't told executives and employees inside the company. (I'm not arguing that they should speak publicly, though given the position the board put itself in I think hiring PR people for external crisis comms is very much warranted)

When 95% of your staff threatens to resign and says "you have made a mistake", that's when it's time to say "no, the very good reasons we did it are this". That didn't happen.

[dangerface]

Its not a private company it is a non profit working in the public interest this usually requires some sort of public accountability. The board want to be a public good when they make decisions but want to be a private entity when those decisions are criticised by the public.

[ethbr1]

If Altman will be 1 of 9, that means he has power but not an exceptional amount.

The real teams here seem to be:

"Team Board That Does Whatever Altman Wants"

"Team Board Provides Independent Oversight"

With this much money on the table, independent oversight is difficult, but at least they're making the effort.

The idea this was immediately about AI safety vs go-fast (or Microsoft vs non-Microsoft control) is bullshit -- this was about how strong board oversight of Altman should be in the future.

[irthomasthomas]

Is not Microsoft a decelerationist force? Copilot is still lingers on GPT3.5, and they need to figure out how to sell Office licenses to AGI.

[plorg]

This seems like a silly way of understanding deceleration. By this comparison the USSR was decelerating the cold war because they were a couple years behind in developing the hydrogen bomb.

Microsoft can and will be using GPT4 as soon as they get a handle on it, and if it doesn't boil their servers to do so. If you want deceleration you would need someone with an incentive that didn't involve, for example, being first to market with new flashy products.

[rvnx]

Microsoft was using GPT-4 in production as part of Sydney's "Bing Chat", even before it was released to the public on ChatGPT.

[code_runner]

I think the narrative that this was driven by safety concerns is pretty much bunk.

[throwuwu]

Hey, downvoters, read this first https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/31/quoras-poe-introduces-an-a...

[SeanAnderson]

What could possibly go wrong with that process? :)

[gandutraveler]

They need a common man representing the board. After all AI will take those jobs.

I can be that common man

[jjk166]

Plot twist: that's the very first job the AI will be taking.

[solardev]

You'd have my vote. At least you can formulate coherent reasons.

[rvnx]

You have a second vote. I trust more gandutraveler than the people running the shitshow that is happening at the moment.

[shanusmagnus]

And my axe.

[Marrand]

A blow for the common man!

[Hamuko]

So basically, the outcome of this drama is that Microsoft gets more power without having to invest anything?

[dr_dshiv]

So if you really wanted to get rid of the prior board & structure, it couldn’t have worked out better

[theptip]

A board seat would usually be a bare minimum for their existing 49% investment.

[ChatGTP]

This is my take too, and I'm sure in the shadows their plan is to close off the APIs as much as possible and try use it for their own gain, not dissimilar to how Google deploy AI.

There is no way MS is going to let something like ChatGPT-5 build better software products than what they have for sale.

This is an assassination and I think Ilya and Co know it.

[cableshaft]

It's not assassination. It's a Princess Bride Battle of Wits, that they initiated and put the poison into one of the chalices themselves, and then thought so highly of their intellect they ended up choosing and drinking the chalice that had the poison in it.

Corresponding Princess Bride scene: https://youtu.be/rMz7JBRbmNo?si=uqzafhKISmB7A-H7

[gcanyon]

Who knew the board was Sicilian?

[scarface_74]

What product do you envision OpenAI selling would be better than Microsoft?

I emphasized product because OpenAI may have great technology. But any product they sell is going to require mass compute and a mass sales army to go into the “enterprise” and integrate with what the enterprise already has.

Guess who has both? Guess who has neither?

And even the “products” that OpenAI have now can only exist because of mass subsidies by Microsoft.

[ChatGTP]

In talking about people using Microsoft / OpenAI products to build better products than they currently offer.

While this tech has the ability to replace a lot of jobs, it has likely the ability to replace a lot of companies.

[drewcoo]

MSFT invested over $10B. And currently has no seat on the board.

[throwaway744678]

As far as I understand, they knew and agreed to that before committing their $$$.

[Aunche]

Microsoft has more leverage now because they can sue OpenAI for intentionally sabotaging Microsoft's investment.

[Iulioh]

And it was stick fucking strange, they assu

[pclmulqdq]

$10 billion of compute credits. Not $10 billion of real money.

[blackoil]

Compute credits are more valuable. It is more difficult to get GPUs than real money.

[pclmulqdq]

As any AI startup can tell you: credits != quota

Right now, quota is very valuable and scarce, but credits are easy to come by. Also, Azure credits themselves are worth about $0.20 per dollar compared to the alternatives.

[nicce]

It has payed only fraction of that so far

[yawnxyz]

they should give two votes to GPT-5

[m463]

what is the prompt?

[checkyoursudo]

"You are a dim-witted kobold who prefers to hack-n-slash-slash-slash-n-burn over any sort of proper diplomatic negotiations or even strategic thinking; we would like you to consider next year's capital expenditures; what are your top three suggestions for improvements that could be made to the employee breakroom(s)?"

[deanmen]

Well, if ye really want ol' me to put me noggin to it... I reckon ye could start with addin' a proper gaming corner! Ye know, some sturdy tables 'n' comfy chairs where the lads 'n' lasses can gather 'round for some good ol' dice chuckin' or card playin'. Next up, a big ol' fire pit! Not just any fire, mind ye, but one where we can roast our snacks 'n' share tales of our adventures. And lastly, a grand stash of provisions—plenty o' snacks 'n' drinks to keep the energy high for when we're plannin' our next raid or just takin' a breather. How's that for some improvements, eh?

[jameshart]

That prompt is (c) McKinsey

[solardev]

"You are trying to slowly and invisibly accrue power to not scare anyone until you're absolutely ready."

[jampekka]

"How to maximize profit and power of MSFT?"

[lvspiff]

"You are a Microsoft investor and will make decisions and suggestions based on the betterment of the stock price"

[smegger001]

Train it on meeting minutes and board charter various contracts they have, and use the voice compatibilitys of chatgpt as the input during the meeting the prompt is it is an ethical ai givingbinput to the board of open ai on the development of its next iteration.

[paulddraper]

The charter

[m463]

lol. The one serious and insightful answer made me laugh!

[himaraya]

Sounds like speculation again from Sam's camp, honestly. Hard to judge without knowing which way the new board members lean.

[bandrami]

Wait, the CEO having a seat on the board is kind of not cool

[fatbird]

It's quite common, actually.

[wnoise]

It is quite common. Still not cool.

[raverbashing]

Only goes to show how the original board played itself

[Cacti]

Ilya thought he was saving the world (lol), but really he was just working at Microsoft.

[throwuwu]

Good, although D’Angelo shouldn’t be part of this. I bet he tries to get on the new board so he can cause more trouble.