Because they lost and crumbled. They were unbelievably outmatched by Sam (a world-class manipulator) and Satya (the money behind OpenAI and himself a political genius.)
They were outmaneuvered, panicked, and folded.
Did they have to? No. But in the moment they thought they were on the precipice of nuking a deca-billion dollar company, their life’s greatest work, and a generational company.
It’s hard to stand against what they did. Unsurprising they couldn’t.
Then they should have made the position clear to the public, or at the very least have some communication with the employees. It's not hard to say that they were against Sam for some particular reason, if they are firing him. At least if the reason is good that might have given them some credibility.
> Then they should have made the position clear to the public
From what I understand, their legal counsel advised them not to speak publicly. Being inexperienced in this sort of political game, they thought they were doing the right thing.
I just want to point out that it was the company's legal counsel I believe. Hence the "right thing" was only the right thing for the company. Not necessary for the greater good or their conscience.
This is so obviously wrong I don't know how this theory got popular. OpenAI had everything from compute to brand name to contracts. Sam wasn't the reason the money was coming, employees and OpenAI were. Even if Sam bought them money, board could still tell the reason of firing Sam rather than keeping it a secret.
And why did Ilya flip? He doesn't have much to gain by being in non profit when he could get more money elsewhere.
Wow, emotions and all. These people should never be anywhere near dangerous technology such as advanced AI. Luckily, neither of them seem to be anymore since openAI lost its leading (technical) edge to other companies.
I mean this in the best sense possible: Ilya is obviously a very strange human being. People seem to always entirely ignore this when discussing what happened at OpenAI and I feel including it serves well when trying to explain much of what happened.
They were outmaneuvered, panicked, and folded.
Did they have to? No. But in the moment they thought they were on the precipice of nuking a deca-billion dollar company, their life’s greatest work, and a generational company.
It’s hard to stand against what they did. Unsurprising they couldn’t.