breaking news Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI

[Dominik W]

Summary

After a review by the Board of Directors, Sam Altman has been fired as the CEO of OpenAI.

 

Quotes

Quote

“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said in its blog post. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

 

My thoughts

Well, I was certainly not expecting this to happen. I'm extremely curious about the specifics, but we'll probably never know. Also, what do you guys think the impact of this will be? One could argue that it might not be significant, but sometimes the CEOs of bleeding edge companies (my way of saying companies on the bleeding edge of tech development) have strong visions, and when they go, it all comes tumbling down. OpenAI seems to have a strong structure in place, but you never know. Curious as well how the new CEO will do.

 

Spoiler

 

This is a developing story, so I'll keep adding details and sources as they come.

 

Sources

The Verge

OpenAI Blog

Edited November 17, 2023 by Dominik W
Added more thoughts // Added source // Added image

[TetraSky]

When you open your company to investors, this is what happens. I'm sure he won't have too much trouble finding another job.

[Arika]

20 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

When you open your company to investors, this is what happens. I'm sure he won't have too much trouble finding another job.

i would have a light chuckle if all of the jobs he wants has been replaced by AI.

[Senzelian]

Windows Copilot probably suggested firing him. 

[GlenTiki]

43 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

I'm extremely curious about the specifics, but we'll probably never know

With how directly the blog has called out his behaviour, this reads like the board trying to get out ahead of something, big. The chairman of the board is also stepping down.
 

We’re probably about to find out something problematic soon.

[Biohazard777]

Edit: nevermind, I'm blind.  

Edited November 17, 2023 by Biohazard777
Removed a quote that was already present in the OP.

[LAwLz]

His sister posted some tweets a few days ago about how Sam abused her as a child.

My guess is that those tweets have something to do with him getting fired. Although his sister seems, let's say a bit unstable at best, so I wouldn't really take her claims at face value.

Spoiler

In fact, a lot of her claims seem weird (like she claims Sam got her shadowbanned on "all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. Not sure how she thinks Sam managed to control Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and other platforms, and also that he hacked all her accounts and her WiFi for 6 months because she started a podcast).

She seems to believe that AI will cause widespread destruction, and she is into some spiritual stuff. I won't say it is one way or the other, but I wouldn't exactly be surprised if she just said these things to harm OpenAI because she thinks they are a threat. The ends justify the means and all that.

 

 

 

Sometimes, people that exihibt similar traits to her sometimes get hyper-focused on something and see it as the only evil in the world, and it becomes their life goal to destroy that thing. They twist everything into being the fault of whatever they dislike, and I get the vibe that this is what has happened. Every time something bad happens, she believes it is because of some family member. Nobody watches her Youtube videos? Probably her brother hacking into Youtube to shadowban her. Her WiFi perform poorly? Probably her brother hacking her WiFi. She can't hold a normal job, so she "has" to start an onlyfans and pornhub account? Probably her brother's fault as well, somehow.

She says she was economically abused because she has to work as a sex worker while her bother is a millionaire, and when someone brought up that Sam had offered to buy her a house she declined saying she said that house would "feel like an unsafe place to actually heal from the experiences I had with him". I feel like she is speaking out of both sides of her mouth. She complains about not getting financial help (although she will occasionally admit to Sam giving her money), and when offered help she refuses it saying she don't trust him and then cuts all communications with him.

 

Apparently, she hates everyone in her family except her dad. She comes off as a really hateful and bitter person overall. I have read through quite a lot of tweets and blog posts of hers now, and she has never once said that she has done anything wrong. Everyone bad in her life seems to be someone else's fault.

She has over the course of a few tweets listed like 5 different mental illnesses she has (which she didn't want to take midcations for), on top of like 5 other physical illnesses. It seems like the death of her and Sams dad really messed her up mentally. I am not sure if I am reading her tweets correctly, but it also seems like she blames her brother for the death of their father, because "dad was not given money {by Sam} while he was alive"

 

Honestly, this all reads as a mentally unstable person having a psychosis to me.

 

This post includes a bunch of tweets and other statements made by his sister Annie for those who want to read it:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman-s-sister-annie-altman-claims-sam-has-severely

 

[leadeater]

Just putting it out there, maybe they should try an AI CEO?

[srcds0706]

6 hours ago, GlenTiki said:

With how directly the blog has called out his behaviour, this reads like the board trying to get out ahead of something, big. The chairman of the board is also stepping down.
 

We’re probably about to find out something problematic soon.

Agree, this is definitely not a normal transition.

If what I'm hearing is correct, dude was doing normal CEO duties and representing the company up till yesterday - it looks like the board made an overnight decision to fire him.

 

The fact that the board fired him, instead of planning out a self-resignaton, is a big red flag.

 

100% something happened behind the scenes that warranted an immediate termination. Whatever the reason is, it's probably not good for Altman.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

I knew Sam Altman was grifting politicians and marks with crypto, but he was grifting the Board of Directors???

 

 

  

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Just putting it out there, maybe they should try an AI CEO?

It's the most expensive role in a company, worthy of automating away!

[Dominik W]

4 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I knew Sam Altman was grifting politicians and marks with crypto, but he was grifting the Board of Directors???

 

About that picture...

 

Here's a lengthy but valuable article about how Sam Altman's Worldcoin seems to be exploiting the poorest of the world. Worthy of a read, even if it's pretty long.

[Sauron]

18 hours ago, Dominik W said:

Also, what do you guys think the impact of this will be?

Nothing

18 hours ago, Dominik W said:

sometimes the CEOs of bleeding edge companies (my way of saying companies on the bleeding edge of tech development) have strong visions, and when they go, it all comes tumbling down.

Nah

 

CEOs of large companies handle the money. They can certainly kill a company but advancements usually happen despite their input, not thanks to it.

Quote

Altman has reportedly talked with Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer, about making the “iPhone of artificial intelligence,” though Altman downplayed those rumors at a recent Wall Street Journal conference.

When I read quotes like this I know for sure these people don't know what they're talking about

[Erebuxy]

It will be very funny/spicy if he joins xAI.

[Quackers101]

its very complicated over there now, they maybe want him back, but its very ongoing situation.

[Monkey Dust]

Getting him out of the way before Microsoft buys the whole company?

[Jinchu]

12 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

Getting him out of the way before Microsoft buys the whole company?

It seems he was the first to get bought by Microsoft.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

1 hour ago, Jinchu said:

It seems he was the first to get bought by Microsoft.

I guess if Microsoft gets the ex-ceo and the core developers, they can retrain a model in a matter of months without all the pesky limitations of the agreement with OpenAI. There might be licensing lawsuits in the future about Ip infringment.

[Jinchu]

18 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I guess if Microsoft gets the ex-ceo and the core developers, they can retrain a model in a matter of months without all the pesky limitations of the agreement with OpenAI. There might be licensing lawsuits in the future about Ip infringment.

True. There is very limited information about what plans have been made, but I'd say there is longer term plans for new company under Microsoft than just quickly replace everything that was done with OpenAI

[LAwLz]

Some new developments.

 

Sam has been hired by Microsoft to lead their new "advanced AI research team". They also hired Greg Brockman, the former CTO and co-founder of OpenAI to lead the team.

 

Source:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23968829/microsoft-hires-sam-altman-greg-brockman-employees-openai

 

 

Greg also tagged several other OpenAI employees in his reply to Satya. Possibly a list of other people who will leave OpenAI.

 

 

Over 500 employees (out of around 700) at OpenAI have signed an open letter saying that they will quit from OpenAI unless they get Sam Altman back as the CEO. They also want the 

https://www.wired.com/story/openai-staff-walk-protest-sam-altman/

[Helpful Tech Witch]

59 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

They also want the 

Dont keep me hanging

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

Dont keep me hanging

The world may never know.

 

 

No but seriously, they want the board of directors to quit.

Quote

The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward - the one that would
best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public - would be for you
to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability.
Leadership worked with you around the clock to find a mutually agreeable outcome. Yet
within two days of your initial decision, you again replaced interim CEO Mira Murati against
the best interests of the company. You also informed the leadership team that allowing the
company to be destroyed "would be consistent with the mission."

 

 

Side note, the OCR and text selection in Snipping tool are fantastic. Great job Microsoft.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No but seriously, they want the board of directors to quit.

Maybe Microsoft will buy OpenAI?

[Arika]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Maybe Microsoft will buy OpenAI?

They kind of "own" them by proxy already. Chatgpt runs off azure.

 

Tay2.0 let's fucking goooooooo

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

A big problem is how expensive is to run LLM and especially Image Diffusion with their DallE3 integration. It makes zero sense for bing chat to be free. I'd rather Microsoft price the service accordingly, than subsidize it then pull the rug when they pass an arbitrary loss line.

 

It's not a problem you can solve by swapping CEO.

 

I don't want a repeat of Youtube that after years of giving their service for free, they are upset users expect the service to be free. Subsidation kills any chance of competitors to emerge with sustainable businness models... Microsoft should gate bing chat behind a subscription, not be marred in a political CEO/Board swap likely because the non-profit OpenAI is now a For Profit Company.

 

What I'd like even more is a push to develop open source models that use local resources to run if you have the hardware and don't want to pay subscriptions. A local Cortana. A push to develop diffusion and transformer accelerators for consumer hardware. Not the n-th "offer the service for free then figure out how to make money later".

 

Also why as soon as Microsoft had a model that vaguely resemble an actual AI, they drop the cool Cortana branding and call it Copilot? I don't get it.

 

It's a mess.

[Dominik W]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Maybe Microsoft will buy OpenAI?

From what I've read, I belive they want a seat on the board. But this whole thing has been so chaotic, I don't know what's what anymore.