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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26766 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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This is pretty good damage control, but it's still damage control. It's possible that OpenAI was "lightning in a bottle," that you need all of the very specific parts to fit together in a certain way to work.

From the latest news, it seems it's now over 500 employees that are pledging to leave for Microsoft with Sam if the board doesn't immediately rehire Sam and resign, so I think it's safe to say Microsoft has that lightning pretty well bottled if they want it. https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1726600151027073374#m

Assuming the board does it, the question that remains is for Microsoft. Is having essentially full control of OpenAI's human capital without a non-profit meddling worth potentially losing access to its current IP, and some initial friction as these employees work to replicate everything they can inside of Microsoft.

*EDIT: I'm saying potentially, because I can easily see the non-profit just deciding it's too late and that their current structure is just not workable. Tell all the employees to move to Microsoft, dissolve the OpenAI for-profit and sell all the IP to Microsoft (or just sell the for-profit for Microsoft to run as a subsidiary) and give the money to some other AI safety orgs or to "worker re-training" orgs, etc...

I think the may there means "we have the option to", not "maybe we will". Consider how they follow with "We will take this step imminently, unless..."

Certainly sounds like a promise that they will leave unless their demands are met.

To be clear, as part of MS's initial investment, they got access to all the source code and all the model weights. They aren't losing anything. See https://stratechery.com/2023/openais-misalignment-and-microsofts-gain/.

I like that Ilya Sutskever is one of the 12 signatories on the first page of the open letter, but also on the Open AI board and is reportedly the instigator of Altman's ouster.

That conflict between fast growth and A.I. safety came into focus on Friday afternoon, when Mr. Altman was pushed out of his job by four of OpenAI’s six board members, led by Mr. Sutskever. The move shocked OpenAI employees and the rest of the tech industry, including Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in the company. Some industry insiders were saying the split was as significant as when Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985.

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