zlacker

>>staran+(OP)
I guess the main question is who else will be on the board and to what degree will this new board be committed to the Open AI charter vs being Sam/MSFT allies. I think having Sam return as CEO is a good outcome for OpenAI but hopefully he and Greg stay off the board.

It's important that the board be relatively independent and able to fire the CEO if he attempts to deviate from the mission.

I was a bit alarmed by the allegations in this article

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-...

Saying that Sam tried to have Helen Toner removed which precipitated this fight. The CEO should not be allowed to try and orchestrate their own board as that would remove all checks against their decisions.

>>altpad+R1
It seems ironic that the research paper that started it all [0] deals with "costly signals":

> Costly signals are statements or actions for which the sender will pay a price —political, reputational, or monetary—if they back down or fail to make good on their initial promise or threat

Firing Sam Altman and hiring him back two days later was a perfect example of a costly signal, as it cost all involved their board positions.

There's an element of farce in all of this, that would make for an outstanding Silicon Valley episode; but the fact that Sam Altman can now enjoy unchecked power as leader of OpenAI is worrying and no laughing matter.

[0] https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/decoding-intentions/

>>bambax+hk
This event was more than just a costly signal. The costly signal would have been "stop doing what you're doing or we'll remove you as ceo" and then not doing that.

But they did move forward with their threat and removed Sam as CEO with great reputational harm to the company. And now the board has been changed, with one less ally to Sam (Brockman no longer chairing the board). The move may not have ended up with the expected results, but this was much more than just a costly signal.