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Comment by Davidzheng | Hacker News Reader

That's her job to decide what's good for humanity from my reading of the charter

> The board’s mission is to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that mission would be fulfilled.

How does destroying company achieve the mission of having _that very company_ create artificial intelligence that "benefits all of humanity?"

By stopping AI that doesn't (benefit all of humanity).

It's not her job to overrule the people running the actual organization, 95% of the employees, and all of OpenAI's stakeholders without a good fucking reason.

But it literally is

She needs a legitimate reason. Without one, her actions could well be illegal. Being on a board doesn’t mean you can act with impunity or that you don’t owe anyone an explanation. You can’t accept bribes, commit fraud, etc. If you don’t explain yourself in a high stakes situation like this one where you are burning down the organization you claim to be safeguarding the interests of, people are rightfully going to start asking questions about what your motivations are.

And who decides what's legitimate? The board.

Who made the decision to fire Altman? The board.

Who is the board answerable to? The law.

"Who is the board answerable to? The law."

Which is why she needs a legitimate reason.

What do you think a board does? It supervises the executive. It approves the actions of he executive. It hires and fires the CEO.

From her perspective, she does have a good reason. And in what way was publishing the paper "overruling" the employees of the for-profit company? The board of the non-profit is beholden to their charter first and foremost

“From her perspective, she does have a good reason.”

Does she? In that case, perhaps she should tell someone what it is.

She told the board. Who else should she tell?

My limited understanding is that this was all that was strictly required, and would normally be sufficient.

Nevertheless, when a board decision explodes into international headline news as this one did, my gut feeling is it might possibly be a good idea to make a press release with more details.

But that's easy for me to say — I don't have the real insider information, and I wasn't in their shoes.

Funny, I thought elected officials held that role, but apparently I'm mistaken.

OpenAI is a charity, and doing exactly that is their charter.

No you don't normally elect people to boards

You are missing some context. The context is apparently 'Humanity' and humanity didn't elect Helen Toner.

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