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andrewstuart

It would have to be extremely serious, obviously.

"review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board"

OK, so they tell us he was lying, which is precisely what "not consistently candid in his communications" means.

Possible topics for lying:

* copyright issues to do with ingestion of training data

* some sort of technical failure of the OpenAI systems

* financial impropriety

* some sort of human resources issue - affair with employee

* other - some sort of political power play? Word from Satya Nadella - "get rid of him"?

Possibly the reason is something that the board members felt exposed them personally to some sort of legal liability, thus if they did not act then they would have to pay a legal price later.

It has to be pretty serious to not make it public.

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Agreed, it implies he lied, but the board’s swiftness suggests enormous liability if they didn’t act immediately. An affair or HR issue could wait until after the holidays, it feels like it’s something much more nefarious.

Regardless of what, the longer OpenAI waits to explain, the more it could damage corporate and developer trust in using its AI.

I think people would forget this in a month, Sam would fail forward/upward, and it would be business as usual. You might be overestimating public’s interest and attention span.

Pretty much nothing changed positively or significantly after Snowden revelations, Panama papers etc etc

>> it implies he lied

It says he lied, explicitly, just with slightly nicer words. Whether he did or not, that is the definitive reason the board is giving.

"Not being candid"? To me that implies not giving all information. Not necessarily lying. Am I wrong?

Lying by omission is still lying, and is especially a concern when you have a duty to the people who are deceiving, such as an executive has to their board.

Isn't that considered deceit rather than lying?[1]

[1] ChatGPT "lying is defined as intentionally making a false statement. If you are omitting details but not actually stating anything false, this may not strictly meet the definition of a lie."

It implies they think he either lied or omitted crucial information.

That's corporate for "he's big ol' lying ass liar who lies."

Correction, its: "he's big ol' lying ass liar who lied to us."

Point taken.

> It says he lied, explicitly, just with slightly nicer words.

No it doesn't. "Not being candid" does not explicitly mean lying. It's like the old tea towel joke where the people at the bottom say "it's shit" and the manager one rung up says "it's manure" and the next one says "it's fertilizer" and by the time it's reached the CEO they're saying "it promotes growth".

> Regardless of what, the longer OpenAI waits to explain, the more it could damage corporate and developer trust in using its AI.

I doubt anything can damage the almost religious belief in chatgpt today. The inertia is huge.

Occams razor. He probably pursued a sale to Microsoft without the boards approval. Hes buddy buddy with Satya. Board basically said no, thats not our mission. Firedd

Makes sense, but would this be so egregious that they had to fire him on the spot?

Why would he want to sell to Microsoft. All that would do is put his leadership in jeopardy, and he wouldn't profit as he owns no equity.

Occam's razor: duped the investors about the technical and financial prospects of the company. No AGI next year (or ever).

It has to be something time sensitive or they would never fire him in this way. Also Sutskever is on the board, who has as much understanding of how far away AGI is as anyone on Earth.

The equity explanation makes a lot more sense. If sama was "not candid" to the board about being the ultimate owner of OpenAI and his goal is to get unbelievably rich (he's already a billionaire and obsessed with money) they would have to fire him on the spot. Sam would immediately try to move against the board so they can't give him any window to make a counter-move. And if that means firing him on a Friday right before markets close, so be it.

If Sam made a deal with MSFT that required board approval they would be mad, but not this mad. The board feels betrayed, and Sam being the secret owner of OpenAI through the foundation checks all the boxes.

> Hes buddy buddy with Satya.

Why would he accept to work under Satya?

Meh, he could be co-ceo and head all AI operations and that will help Microsoft signal how serious they are about AI

Co CEOs never works, these are people with very strong ambitions, they dont like to share and it ultimately leads to conflicts.

That doesn't mean companies don't do it all the time.

> It has to be pretty serious to not make it public.

I'd say the opposite; given the way CEOs usually part with firms even after misconduct investigations, it needs to be very serious for the “not consistently candid with the board” to be made public (it needs to be mildly serious for it not be hidden under a veil of “resigned to spend more time with his family/pursue other interests/pet his llama" but instead openly be a dismissal where the board “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading”.)

The suddenness of the firing, and the bridge-burning language (basically "he lied to us") rather than any sort of soft exit, suggests that it must be something in the "other" bucket.

The details are anyone's guess. But if we're engaging in wild speculation, how about this weird coincidence: one day after Xi Jinping and Sam Altman are in the same place, Sam Altman is abruptly fired.

If you asked ChatBLT to summarize the above, it would say he was caught lying about his affair with Satya to which he improperly disclosed financial technical copyright issues impropriety.

It has to do with money.

I would think it is some kind of assets transferring, maybe the model, maybe the data, to party that is not disclosed to the board.

Other reasons, like you listed above, warrants an investigation and the board might have the incentive to bury it.

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

I always felt his sister is unhinged, I doubt she has anything to do with this

Even if her accusations are 100% correct, I doubt it has anything to do with this. The messaging would have been entirely different.

For me the messaging is opaque, which makes sense if her accusations are on the money. I think? Open to opposing thoughts

I went through some of the same things. It’s crazymaking when substantially older members of the family do this shit to you and deny it happened.

affair with employee

Just like the McDonald's CEO.

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