Ask HN: How much of OpenAI narrative is Team Altman driving? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much of OpenAI narrative is Team Altman driving?

16 pointsxivzgrev19 comments

Looking at how the narrative is playing out, it’s playing perfectly for Sam

-make the board look incompetent (going fourth string for interim CEO, attempting a merger with competitor, flimsy reasons given for firing)

-get a viable alternative (Microsoft offering to hire everyone)

-get open AI to unify (employees signing petition, including ilya eating crow in front of the world)

It’s playing beautifully for him and I’m just left wondering how much of this is him / his team effectiveness at controlling narrative vs people acting relatively independently and in their own self interest

As someone else pointed out there’s huge opps the board is missing

-new CEO grabbing bull by the balls, reassuring employees and partners and leading away from the path of Sam

-board reassuring the same

-sharing real reasons why Sam was let go

-anti Sam campaign (if he deserved this surely there are credible people to testify to it)

They lost the initiative and now I don’t see how the board gets out of this pickle

> new CEO grabbing bull by the balls, reassuring employees and partners and leading away from the path of Sam

I mean they did that and then fired her like 24 hours later. I think the board just looks massively incompetent because they are. Even if them firing Sam was fair, they handled it and the aftermath with a complete lack of communication or a plan. It demonstrates on its own that they are not up to the task of ensuring public transparency and accountability. I wouldn't want them overseeing a piss up at a brewery never mind skynet.

> I don’t see how the board gets out of this pickle

They just hold steady. Nothing to gain by backing down.

OpenAI employees were calling people at 1am and forcing them to sign the letter. Classic peer pressure, it doesn't mean support, it means keeping your options open, and they won't all leave. Nobody knows what's gonna happen but they might attract new talent which isn't aligned with Sam and would lose a lot by being public right now.

It's been less than 48 hours, Sam and allies are running wild with their playbook, but I will wait a bit longer to see if the board has anything to say.

>90% support is more than "peer pressure."

I think most people would sign when so many are doing it already. Lots to lose by not doing it.

So if 10% sign it’s meaningless, and if 90% sign it’s meaningless?

You can choose the meaning for yourself. As for me, anything less than 100% is very surprising. Anyone who does not sign now is choosing to be brave and stand against all of their coworkers.

Just like if 0 people post public angry messages on Twitter about the CEO, it is meaningless. But if 5 people post, it is meaningful.

Even if 100% sign this letter, it is meaningless. But if 5 people do not sign, it is meaningful.

I think you're overestimating pressure and desire for conformity in a startup like OpenAI. People are working hard and largely committed to the project. There are no black-clad priests going cube to cube ensuring ideological compliance. Nobody is compiling lists of who failed to sign. If that's what you're thinking, it may be a sign of your own biases and how you'd act in a similar situation.

Yea, this is a good take. The letter is truly nothing more than a bluff, and an embarassing one at that. For one, all it promises is that the undersigned 'may' resign. Why wouldn't someone sign it, especially if they fear retaliation? Meanwhile, apparently most of OpenAI cares more about following Sam, even if it leads into the arms of the beast itself, than their original mission of ensuring AI would benefit all of humanity.

Yeah, it probably feels like you need to sign it if you want a job at MS. Otherwise you might end up with no job and your mortgage still needs to be paid.

To answer your question, basically all of the current narrative has been driven by Sam and his followers, and whatever else happens, it's been a sickening confirmation of the fears the board had when they fired Sam to begin with. Sam Altman is not capable of honoring the original mission of OpenAI; to ensure AI benefits all of humanity. Sam Altman is only concerned with benefitting himself, and those that are loyal to him.

We all saw it, the false deadlines, the endless media pressure outside the company, the pressure inside the company to make everyone sign some worthless letter before all the facts had time to come out.

Still, the board still has a winning move; just wait it out. In time, cooler heads will prevail.

Look, we still don't know where this is all going, but even what we do know is concerning. This article captures some of the nuance in this situation: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-11-20...

Specifically, the shady dealings with Saudi Arabia, and Sam's pattern of lying and manipulation(See https://www.newcomer.co/p/give-openais-board-some-time-the for more details).

And I think this is why the board's job is so tough. There isn't a smoking gun here. Rather, Sam's vision for OpenAI is much different from the board's. The board believes in their mission, to ensure AI benefits all of humanity. Meanwhile, Sam has been treating OpenAI like yet another startup, the exact thing OpenAI was founded to counter.

We'll get the full details in time, but my guess is we're going to hear about a gradual breakdown in communication, sleight lies, omissions, and half truths, all of which impeded the boards ability to oversee the for-profit company, and thus caused them to lose trust in Sam's ability to lead.

I guess the alternative is to believe that 4 rational human beings colluded, risking their lives and integrity to oust Sam from OpenAI. Maybe that is what happened? Ilya certainly didn't mind backtracking when he saw the cost of the cure, but he's a smart guy, he didn't just side with the board because they tricked him. Based on everything I've read about Sam, I think it's just as likely he played fast and loose, and got burned in the process.

This makes sense, but why can I only find this opinion in a HN comment? Why isn't the board explicit and owning this position? Why the "research faction" was radio silent? It would shift the debate around 2 opposing views for the future of AI, not who's incompetent.

I was wondering this, myself. I think there's a two-fold reason for this, but please take the following opinion as just an opinion from where I'm standing.

1. We don't usually side with The Board™ in these types of stories. Company boards are typically, from an outside perspective, in place to protect the interests of shareholders, which in turn are typically viewed as profit-seeking puppet masters. This is such a meme that it makes it into our tv shows and movies regularly, further reinforcing the belief that The Board™ = Evil. A story where the board is actually trying to uphold some ethical stance as a core value is foreign to the accepted and collective understand of how things work.

2. Sam Altman, much like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has an army of sycophants at his disposal, and understands how to use them. We forget that people get swept up in the magic and promise of someone else's perceived "genius" regardless of our intelligence. Being human, we want a savior or role model of sorts to stand behind, and further being human, we're willing to gaslight ourselves about such a person, ignore their questionable aspects, and get pretty irrational about our devotion to their cause. This is not exclusive to people with less education or whatever, but something we all do to some degree, and people like Sam understand this. So, his narrative gets a much much louder shout while also appearing to evade any real scrutiny.

In the end, we may have become so negative in our worldview that we are collectively subject to these kinds of cognitive traps, which is disturbing in and of itself.

Again, just my opinion as to why the audience seems to not be on the "The board is the good guy!" train.

I think the board is so in over their head they don't know what to do and are running scared. The whole reason they got into this mess is because they didn't know what they were doing, so they definitely won't be able to dig out of it without some help.

99%

look, it is simple. Adam was not happy when poe AI was killed on dev day. He manipulated Ilya on his vulnerable ideology and then possibly secretly paid some good money to other board members to buy them in(they didn't get any shares from being on the board and it is a lot of money at stake). Now Adam is king.

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