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0 pointsjacquesm2y ago0 comments

Yes, agreed, that was uncalled for. But it is what probably a large number of CEOs would do.

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I think it clearly represents the dichotomy of OpenAI’s structure. By its nature it created an adversarial position between the non-profit and for profit side with Sam and Toner representing those two poles.

I, personally, have a hard time picking sides here. On its face it seems that Ms Toner is more aligned with OpenAI’s stated mission.

However Sam seems much better suited to operating the company and being the “public face” of AI. One thing I’m pretty confident in is that the board isn’t capable of navigating OpenAI through the rough seas it’s currently in.

I think an argument could realistically be made to blow up the whole governance structure and reset with new principals across the board, that being said I don’t know who’d be a natural arbiter here.

At the end of the day the untenable spot Ms Toner is in is that the genie is out of the bottle which makes her position of allowing the company to self-destruct a bit tone deaf.

jacquesmOP2y ago

I'm seeing a somewhat larger stage where the United States and other countries are in an undeclared arms race and it just so happens that from what we know private entities (or an entity) in the United States believes that they are close enough to achieving that goal that they are actively working on things like alignment rather than just futzing around with GPUs and other multiplication hardware.

AGI is either just around the corner or it will be 50 years or more and if it is just around the corner you'd hope that parties that have at least some semblance of balance would end up in charge of the thing. Because if it is possible I expect it to be done given the amount of resources that are being thrown at this. Assuming it can be done weaponization of this tech would change the balance of power in the world dramatically. Everybody seems to be worried about the wrong thing: whether or not the AGI will be friendly to us. That doesn't really matter, what matters is who controls it.

No single individual (Altman, Toner, Nadella, or anybody else) should be taking the responsibility about what happens onto themselves, if anything the board of OpenAI has shown that this isn't a matter for junior board members because the effects range far further than just OpenAI.

reducesuffering2y ago

Practically all of the most relevant experts in this domain, leadership in OpenAI, think it's right around the corner.

> Assuming it can be done weaponization of this tech would change the balance of power in the world dramatically.

Yes it would, but it wouldn't be as bad as everyone dying.

> Everybody seems to be worried about the wrong thing: whether or not the AGI will be friendly to us. That doesn't really matter, what matters is who controls it.

No, "who controls it" is a problem best tackled after "will it kill everyone." You say "That doesn't really matter," but again, Sam Altman himself thinks "Development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity."

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0xDEAFBEAD2y ago

>At the end of the day the untenable spot Ms Toner is in is that the genie is out of the bottle which makes her position of allowing the company to self-destruct a bit tone deaf.

Tone-deaf basically means "unpopular", doesn't it?

I'm old enough to remember when doing the right thing, even when it's unpopular, was considered a virtue.

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