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Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

submitted by nickru+(OP) on 2023-11-18 00:10:21 | 1423 points 656 comments
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21. famous+q2[view] [source] 2023-11-18 00:20:30
>>nickru+(OP)
Oh man. https://twitter.com/apples_jimmy/status/1725615804631392637?...

Really wonder what this is all about.

Edit: My bad for not expanding. Noone knows the identity of this "Jimmy Apples" but this is the latest in a series of correct leaks he's made for Open AI for months now. Suffice to say he's in the know somehow.

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29. babl-y+T2[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:22:40
>>dnissl+M1
Why would he recuse himself? Sam seemed happy to work at OpenAI.

FWIW, radio silence from Ilya on twitter https://twitter.com/ilyasut

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65. stickf+E4[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:30:00
>>Waterl+e2
You can thank this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings
79. johnwh+c5[view] [source] 2023-11-18 00:31:48
>>nickru+(OP)
Edit: I called it

https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725682088639119857

nothing to do with dishonesty. That’s just the official reason.

———-

I haven’t heard anyone commenting about this, but the two main figures here-consider: This MUST come down to a disagreement between Altman and Sutskever.

Also interesting that Sutskever tweeted a month and a half ago

https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1707752576077176907

The press release about candid talk with the board… It’s probably just cover up for some deep seated philosophical disagreement. They found a reason to fire him that not necessarily reflects why they are firing him. He and Ilya no longer saw eye to eye and it reached its fever pitch with gpt 4 turbo.

Ultimately, it’s been surmised that Sutskever had all the leverage because of his technical ability. Sam being the consummate businessperson, they probably got in some final disagreement and Sutskever reached his tipping point and decided to use said leverage.

I’ve been in tech too long and have seen this play out. Don’t piss off an irreplaceable engineer or they’ll fire you. not taking any sides here.

PS most engineers, like myself, are replaceable. Ilya is probably not.

119. runjak+Y6[view] [source] 2023-11-18 00:40:44
>>nickru+(OP)
What’s the likelihood this is over a Microsoft acquisition? Purely speculative here, but Sam might have been a roadblock.

Edit: Maybe this is a reasonable explanation: >>38312868 . The only other thing not considered is that Microsoft really enjoys having its brand on things.

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134. reduce+E7[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:43:53
>>runjak+y6
No, that's BeffJezos https://twitter.com/BasedBeffJezos?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7C...
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145. betaby+l8[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:47:53
>>adastr+O7
Yes. https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-...
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153. unders+P8[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:49:48
>>adastr+O7
IKEA is the world's largest nonprofit.

https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco...

170. m101+G9[view] [source] 2023-11-18 00:54:17
>>nickru+(OP)
Maybe something to do with this?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman...

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175. CrazyS+Q9[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 00:55:05
>>crop_r+g7
OpenAI exists both as a nonprofit and, for several years now, as a for-profit company [1] that has taken billions of dollars in investment. It needs to make billions of dollars to return to investors just as much as any other for-profit company does.

[1] https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp

235. stolsv+Rc[view] [source] 2023-11-18 01:12:01
>>nickru+(OP)
Whether Greg knew of the decision beforehand? I don’t think so. This totally business-as-usual post from Greg Brockman happened 1 hour before the one from OpenAI: https://x.com/gdb/status/1725595967045398920 https://x.com/openai/status/1725611900262588813 How crazy is that?!
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255. welpo+le[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 01:21:10
>>otikik+R8
OpenAI firing Sam Altman.

The announcement: https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transiti...

The discussion: >>38309611

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259. stolsv+De[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 01:22:37
>>crop_r+6b
I agree: >>38313501
280. smlacy+Lg[view] [source] 2023-11-18 01:36:46
>>nickru+(OP)
https://nitter.net/gdb/status/1725667410387378559
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293. wslh+Rh[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 01:43:02
>>johnwh+c5
And there is: https://twitter.com/anothercohen/status/1725631445941563671
300. next_x+fi[view] [source] 2023-11-18 01:44:43
>>nickru+(OP)
Here is Helen Toner's resumé: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-toner-4162439a/details/edu...

I am genuinely flabbergasted as to how she ended up on the board. How does this happen?

I can't even find anything about fellow board member Tasha McCauley...

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320. andrew+Nj[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 01:53:10
>>next_x+fi
Just linking to the education tab of her profile is misleading.

Many people in AI safety are young. She has more professional experience than many leaders in the field.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-toner-4162439a/

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332. johnwh+Xk[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:01:25
>>anigbr+ui
Please don’t patronize me. It indeed looks like the press release from OpenAI is under scrutiny. What you fail to understand is human nature and the way people really do things ^TM

https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725685211436814795

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336. LoganD+Ol[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:05:49
>>cthalu+vi
https://xkcd.com/2501
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350. codys+Gm[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:11:03
>>next_x+fi
McCauley's linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tasha-m-25475a54/ . From some digging, full name appears to be Aimee Nastassia 'Tasha' McCauley, and is married to Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the actor).
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374. johnwh+ap[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:36:46
>>johnwh+c5
https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725702501435941294
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377. lotsof+Ap[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:39:41
>>Sebb76+th
What is all this nonsense about MSFT stock price? Nothing material has happened to it.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/MSFT:NASDAQ

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384. concur+Zp[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:42:20
>>johnwh+c5
More new information from Swisher:

> "More scoopage: sources tell me chief scientist Ilya Sutskever was at the center of this. Increasing tensions with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman over role and influence and he got the board on his side."

> "The developer day and how the store was introduced was in inflection moment of Altman pushing too far, too fast. My bet: He’ll have a new company up by Monday."

[source: https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725702501435941294]

Sounds like you exactly predicted it.

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388. latexr+cq[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:44:33
>>philip+ld
> and it would have been in the official announcement.

It is:

> As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO.

https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transiti...

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398. newscl+Pr[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 02:57:31
>>next_x+fi
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/tasha-mccauley-3562...
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410. morale+4t[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 03:06:48
>>johnwh+c5
>https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1707752576077176907

Dang! He left @elonmusk on read. Now that's some ego at play.

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415. brianj+Lu[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 03:18:20
>>I_am_t+Vc
It was previously a Google form without any confirmation. As of late October, they moved it to this privacy center that they keep conveniently well hidden.

This page provides confirmation that your request is processed: https://privacy.openai.com/policies

420. convex+wv[view] [source] 2023-11-18 03:23:26
>>nickru+(OP)
"Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, works 60 to 100 hours per week, and spends around 80% of the time coding. Former colleagues have described him as the hardest-working person at OpenAI."

https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6309033/greg-brockman...

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442. aboodm+DB[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 04:10:35
>>intell+Ng
lol https://imgur.com/a/3QVdbz0
459. momofu+WG[view] [source] 2023-11-18 04:47:53
>>nickru+(OP)
https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725736242137182594

Update from Greg

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484. cedws+XM[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 05:30:42
>>jumplo+pc
>Ilya claims the transformer architecture, with some modification for efficiency, is actually sufficient for AGI.

I thought this guy was supposed to know what he's talking about? There was a paper that shows LLMs cannot generalise[0]. Anybody who's used ChatGPT can see there's imperfections.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.12288

506. singlu+5R[view] [source] 2023-11-18 06:02:28
>>nickru+(OP)
Update from Sam: https://nitter.net/sama/status/1725748751367852439
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509. erk__+BR[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 06:07:48
>>unders+P8
I think the Novo Nordisk foundation is the largest now. It owns a majority of both Novo nordisk and Novozymes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk_Foundation

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514. mkl+ES[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 06:16:43
>>cowl+yc
He didn't. From https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/17/openai-sam-altman-firing-b...:

> When Altman logged into the meeting, Brockman wrote, the entire OpenAI board was present—except for Brockman. Sutskever informed Altman he was being fired.

> Brockman said that soon after, he had a call with the board, where he was informed that he would be removed from his board position and that Altman had been fired. Then, OpenAI published a blog post sharing the news of Altman’s ouster.

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518. astran+nU[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 06:34:41
>>mkagen+mu
He appears to say he doesn't.

https://x.com/sama/status/1725748751367852439

Though any fund containing MSFT must be correlated.

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543. upward+JY[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 07:17:55
>>next_x+fi
Helen Toner is famous among the AI safety community for being one of the most important people working to halt and reverse any sort of "AI arms race" between the US & China. The recent successes in this regard at the UK AI Safety Summit and the Biden/Xi talks are due in large part to her advocacy.

She is well-connected with Pentagon leaders, who trust her input. She also is one of the hardest-working people among the West's analysts in her efforts to understand and connect with the Chinese side, as she uprooted her life to literally live in Beijing at one point in order to meet with people in the budding Chinese AI Safety community.

Here's an example of her work: AI safeguards: Views inside and outside China (Book chapter) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97810032...

She's also co-authored several of the most famous "survey" papers which give an overview of AI safety methods: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22h...

She's at roughly the same level of eminence as Dr. Eric Horvitz (Microsoft's Chief Scientific Officer), who has similar goals as her, and who is an advisor to Biden. Comparing the two, Horvitz is more well-connected but Toner is more prolific, and overall they have roughly equal impact.

(Copy-pasting this comment from another thread where I posted it in response to a similar question.)

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557. visarg+q01[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 07:34:48
>>Medium+uV
No, if you read this article it shows there were some issues with the way they tested.

> The claim that GPT-4 can’t make B to A generalizations is false. And not what the authors were claiming. They were talking about these kinds of generalizations from pre and post training.

> When you divide data into prompt and completion pairs and the completions never reference the prompts or even hint at it, you’ve successfully trained a prompt completion A is B model but not one that will readily go from B is A. LLMs trained on “A is B” fail to learn “B is A” when the training date is split into prompt and completion pairs

Simple fix - put prompt and completion together, don't do gradients just for the completion, but also for the prompt. Or just make sure the model trains on data going in both directions by augmenting it pre-training.

https://andrewmayne.com/2023/11/14/is-the-reversal-curse-rea...

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583. Paul-C+t81[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 08:49:56
>>Geee+Ac
Even if it is literal, it may not be infringement. See "rangeCheck" in the Oracle v. Google case.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...

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612. derras+vA1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-11-18 12:31:20
>>Capita+Xn1
Trump said Tim Apple instead of Tim Cook: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tim-apple
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