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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

You don't normally perform you role as a board member through publications in a public forum. You do it by exercising pressure internally to get the effect you desire so you can continue to do so in the future. Going public is usually a one-shot affair.

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Being a co-author of that publication was not her performing her role as an OpenAI board member, it was her day job.

Conflicts of interest suck. Experienced board members avoid them or deal with them. They don't allow their conflicts of interest to spiral out of control to the point that they destroy the thing they're supposed to govern.

> Conflicts of interest suck. Experienced board members avoid them or deal with them.

Agreed. It seems remarkable that she dealt with her conflict of interest so thoroughly that she published an article that was mildly critical of the organization. I do not think her duty was to let Sam Altman seize power by firing her from the board on a flimsy pretext, though.

She went a bit further than that.

Did Helen's publication conflict with the charter though?

I'd say the OpenAI employees are the ones with the conflict of interest, since they stand to get rich if the company does well, independent of whether the charter is being upheld.

No, it did not conflict. But that doesn't mean you first try to get things fixed rather than to publish.

> I'd say the OpenAI employees are the ones with the conflict of interest, since they stand to get rich if the company does well, independent of whether the charter is being upheld.

Those pesky employees again. Too bad we still need them. But after AGI is a fact we don't and then it'll be a brave new world.

It’s interesting that people are making the assumption Toner didn’t raise these concerns internally as well.

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