zlacker

For me, this stood out in the announcement:

> In a statement, the board of directors said: “OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission.

Why would they include that? Maybe its just filler, but if not then it is possible that there has been more than a simple disagreement about long-term objectives. Possibly something going on that the board feels would get them shut down hard by state-level players?

>>andyjo+(OP)
Or Sam was the driving force behind increasingly closed research and that went against the board's commitment to "benefit all humanity"?

Maybe the closed GPT-4 details were promised by him to be a one time temporary thing at the time and then he has been continuing to stonewall releasing details later on?

>>kromem+n7
Possibly. But that doesnt sound serious enough to constitute "hindering [the board's] ability to exercise its responsibilities".

Maybe its the off-the-books Weapons Division with all those factories in obscure eastern European countries. Or the secret lab with the agi that almost escaped its containment. /s

Money or power. I guess someone will eventually talk, and then we'll know.

>>andyjo+(OP)
Arent they a couple of percent away from being owned by Microsoft? MS owning them would make them a benefit to Microsoft only at which point they would become nothing more than a corpse murdered to fuel that profit machine and it’s existing software.

>>edgyqu+Jn1
Microsoft only own minor share of their "for profit" subsidiary. The way OpenAI structured it's would be basically impossible for Microsoft to increase their 49% share without Non-profit board approval.

Most likely their share is this high is to guarantee no other company will compete for the share or IP. OpenAI non-profit also excluded anything that will be considered "AGI" from deal with Microsoft.

https://openai.com/our-structure

>>kromem+n7
Since the beginning of OpenAI, haven't we been slowly surprised by the progressive closedness what it was becoming. I think there were multiple threads on HN about this, and the irony in the name. Maybe this has been going on for much longer and reached a tipping point.

>>SXX+gz1
> The way OpenAI structured it's would be basically impossible for Microsoft to increase their 49% share without Non-profit board approval.

Some[one/group] wanted to go down the for-profit route, the board disagreed, they pursued it anyway, the board took action?

>>kromem+n7
Following this argument, perhaps the line about Sam being "not consistently candid" is an indirect reference to his preferring the closed approach...i.e. they wanted him to be more candid, not in his reports to the board, but with the public, regarding the research itself.

>>andyjo+(OP)
Because it's the reason he got fired.

https://www.plainsite.org/posts/aaron/r8huu7s/