Hacker News Reader

Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of whether you feel like Altman was rushing OpenAI too fast, wasn’t open enough, and was being too commercial, the last few days demonstrated conclusively that the board is erratic and unstable and unfit to manage OpenAI.

Their actions was the complete opposite of open. Rather than, I don’t know, being open and talking to the CEO to share concerns and change the company, they just threw a tantrum and fired him.

View on HN

They fired him (you don’t know the backstory) and published a press release and then Sam was seen back in the offices. Prior to the reinstatement (today), there was nothing except HN hysteria and media conjecture that made the board look extremely unstable.

??? They fired him on friday with a statement knifing him in the back, un-fired him on tuesday, and now the board is resigning? How is that not erratic and unstable?

Note that I just stated, up until reinstatement their actions weren’t erratic.

Now, yes, they definitely are.

IMO OpenAI’s governance is far less trustworthy today than it was yesterday.

I found the board members own words to be quite erratic between Friday and today, such as Ilya saying he wished he didn't participate in the boards actions.

It would be completely understandable to regret when your action against someone causes them to fall upwards

What? Do you think it would be understandable for a board member to regret firing the CEO because of his career path post-firing?

If Ilya was concerned about dangerously fast commercialization, which seems to have been a point of tension between them for a while now, then yes.

But he's acting as a board member firing the CEO because he arguably believes it's the right thing to do for the company. If he then changes his mind because the fired CEO continued a successful career then I'd say that decision was more on a personal level than for the wellbeing of the company.

His obligation as a member of the board is to safeguard AI, not OpenAI. That's why in the employee open letter they said, "the board said it'd be compliant with the mission to destroy the company." This is actually true.

It's absolutely believable that at first he thought the best way to safeguard AI was to get rid of the main advocate for profit-seeking at OpenAI, then when that person "fell upward" into a position where he'd have fewer constraints, to regret that decision.

Fair enough, I understand better where you're coming from. Thanks!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com