zlacker

I think this strengthens my theory that the AI safety true believers wrestled control away from the entrepreneurs.

The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. Microsoft, who just finished building OpenAI’s models into every core product, was blindsided. The chairman of the OpenAI board, Greg Brockman, another startup exec was pushed out at the same time. Eric Schmidt, with his own AI startup lab start singing Sam’s praises and saying “what’s next?”

My guess is that Microsoft is about to get fucked and Eric Schmidt is going to pop open a bottle of expensive champagne tonight.

>>dougmw+(OP)
Yeah I think this makes the most sense

>>dougmw+(OP)
> The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements.

"screams butt hurt"? the board put out a blog post saying the CEO had lied so badly they'd insta-sacked him.

>>dougmw+(OP)
Not sure why you were downvoted. It is very hard to understand who really has power at OpenAI, and as of now half of the board consists of people whose biggest life accomplishment is somehow getting on the board.

>>crop_r+l3
+1, the parent comment was helpful, tbh today I found out that 4 board members on OpenAI, 3 of whom I never heard of till this news, have so much power over this organization that has been making headline news for most of the past year.

>>banana+93
It’s quite rare for these board communications to say anything of substance at all. You let the PR folks work their magic and manage the narrative. This reads like 4 people out of their depth desperately trying to justify themselves.

I would not be surprised if it turns out Microsoft has a multibillion dollar, complex financial instrument axe on the necks of these people by Monday forcing a sale or a new management structure that gives them more control.

>>dougmw+J5
The board of OpenAI has their hands on the ultimate self-destruct button, though. If M$ made a power play, worse case scenario they end up with ownership of the for-profit OpenAI, but they'd still have no control of the non-profit, which owns the intellectual property.

If the deal goes sideways, the board of OpenAI (the nonprofit) could just dump everything onto the open internet. All M$ has is a substantial but minority stake in a company that the non-profit OpenAI owns all the beef of.

>>crop_r+l3
In the AI safety community (which I work in), Helen Toner is well-known. She is famous (among our community) for being one of the main 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.