That's a bit naive, to put it mildly. It presumes that nobody else would be able to replicate the effort and that the parties that are able to replicate it would also destroy theirs after proving that it could be done. Fat chance.
"The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,”"
We can't control other's actions, but we can control our own. If we feel that our actions are diverging from our own sense of what we ought to be doing we can change our actions, regardless of how others are behaving.
Altman appears to me to be reckless, ms. Toner appears to be naive. Both should not be near this kind of power.
I'm sure that's how tobacco and oil executives justify their paycheck: "If I wasn't doing it, someone else would". Probably lots of criminals justify their crimes using similar reasoning too.
Ultimately it's not quite true. If you quit your job at that tobacco or oil company, it's going to take a while to find them a replacement for you. That replacement might not be quite as good at the job (why were you picked for the job in the first place? Probably because you were the strongest candidate.) You aren't going to totally halt EvilCorp by quitting, but you're going to give it a speed bump.
In the case of OpenAI, we have to consider what organization is likely to replace them if they throw in the towel. If it's a more cautious org like Anthropic, OpenAI throwing in the towel could actually be a good thing from the point of view of their charter: https://openai.com/charter
That would have been a lot safer than to give MS the keys to the kingdom.
But she was on the board when that happened and presumably agreed to the deal or she could have resigned.
And it's not quite the tobacco company we're talking about here. I'm more in line to compare it to the Manhattan project.
Additionally, the role of the board is to supervise the CEO, not make strategic decisions, no? If the MS partnership was a mistake, Sam is the primary person to blame here.
I'm seeing a lot of "Monday morning quarterback" in this thread
That's fine but you are not forced to participate.
> That's not obvious to me. Suppose OpenAI deliberately partners with a number of different infra providers. That creates a bunch of drag because they have to create a compatibility layer for staying agnostic to the underlying infra. And the outcome in a situation like this would probably be fairly similar: Since big tech companies are focused on making a buck, they would probably pressure the board to do whatever they think will be most profitable, just like Microsoft.
So, either you are 'OpenAI' and that means open to all or you are Microsoft AI, licensing your tech to one of the least ethical and most wealthy companies in the world. If the board didn't have anything to say about that at the time and if they didn't resign en masse you have to assume that they are ok with it.
> Additionally, the role of the board is to supervise the CEO, not make strategic decisions, no? If the MS partnership was a mistake, Sam is the primary person to blame here.
So are they or are they not there to supervise the CEO?
In my view a board exists to protect the interests of the stakeholders guided by a charter. OpenAI sees 'humanity' (whatever that means to them) as their stakeholders and that trumps each and every other party involved. But it is unclear whether their actions really benefit those stakeholders or if it is just people being people.
So far I'm seeing a lot of the latter and only little bits of the former.
In this case, if your company fails to provide for greater good, then it is best to destroy it. And it also shows some example to others. Whatever others do, you have no power. I does not matter if you pretent or not.
Comparison works only if you could do something about it.
If she agreed with the Microsoft deal but not with what followed that too would be hopelessly naive. Microsoft + ethics?
I guess the main problem here is that nobody knows properly what this deal contains and how it was made. I believe CEO has power to do such deal alone?
But what is interesting is that until MS got involved OpenAI was struggling for funding and talent, and afterwards it took off like a rocket.
This is an all but undeclared arms race.
>We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”
That's why Sam pressuring Helen to shut up about Anthropic is so concerning.
That bit I never understood. It doesn't even have a qualification as to who is stewarding the project as if any AI should be assisted no matter who ends up owning it. The whole thing is just so utterly disconnected from the real world.
Edit: Note also the "value-aligned, safety-conscious" caveat.
What I believe is that the first party to create an AGI will likely end up being nationalized and that that AI will be weaponized the next day to the exclusion of the rest of the world.
Hence my position that the charter was a fig leaf designed to throw regulators off.
So basically we have two cases here:
1. The charter is a deceptive fig leaf, OpenAI aren't the good guys. In which case blowing up OpenAI looks reasonable
2. The charter is not a fig leaf, Helen is doing the right thing by upholding it
I'd say upholding the charter is the right thing in intermediate situations as well. Basically, OpenAI are the good guys, in part, to the degree to which the board (and other stakeholders) actually uphold the charter instead of being purely profit-driven.
It's #1 to some, and #2 to others.