Last update: Sunday 11/26/23
Welcome to our TL;DR summary of and podcast about the past week's top two AI stories on our "Useful AI News" page ...
(1) What happened? (2) Why did it happen?
... Click the "start" button in the audio control (below) to hear the podcast.
1) What happened?
- The tumultuous long weekend began on Friday evening 11/17/23 when the OpenAI board abruptly notified Sam Altman that he was fired.
- The board then appointed an outsider to become CEO
- Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella announced that he was going to hire Altman and other OpenAI staff
- Hundreds of OpenAI staff announced that they would quit OpenAi and go to work for Microsoft unless Altman was rehired as CEO and the board was fired
- On Monday 11/20/23, Nadella announced that Altman might return to OpenAI
- On Tuesday evening 11/21/23, Altman returned to OpenAI as CEO; three out of the four members of the board were dismissed; and two new outsiders were appointed to the board
2) Why did it happen?
Altman's abrupt dismissal embodied an inevitable seismic collision between altruistic "AI Doomers" on OpenAi's board (called "Doomers" because they feared that the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) might end in a catastrophic doomsday) vs. Sam Altman, the ultimate Silicon Valley, profit driven, optimistic "AI Boomer". In its dismissal notice the OpenAI board said that it no longer trusted Sam Altman, but it did not say why.
However, various observers have identified three issues that might have caused the board to become dissatisfied with Mr. Altman's performance, given the board's primary obligation to ensure that OpenAI developed artificial general intelligence (AGI) in a safe manner and in a manner that did not cede control of its AGI to private corporations.
- The Washington Post reported that "Four years ago, one of Altman’s mentors, Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, flew from the United Kingdom to San Francisco to give his protégé the boot, according to three people familiar with the incident, which has not been previously reported."
"Graham had surprised the tech world in 2014 by tapping Altman, then in his 20s, to lead the vaunted Silicon Valley incubator. Five years later, he flew across the Atlantic with concerns that the company’s president put his own interests ahead of the organization — worries that would be echoed by OpenAI’s board." - VentureBeat reported that Altman had criticized an academic paper published by board member Helen Toner in October 2023
"In the paper, Toner, a director of strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, included a three-page section that was a detailed and earnest account of the way OpenAI and a major competitor Anthropic approached the release of their latest large language models (LLMs) in March of 2023. OpenAI chose to release its model, in contrast with Anthropic, which chose to delay its model, called Claude, because of concerns about safety ..."
"Senior OpenAI leaders then discussed whether Toner should be removed, but co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who was deeply concerned about the risks of AI technology, sided with other board members to oust Altman for not being “consistently candid in his communications with the board."
"All of this came after some previous board frustrations with Altman about his moving too quickly on the product side, with other accounts suggesting that the company’s recent DevDay was also a major frustration for the board." - Reuters reported that OpenAi researchers had recently achieved an as yet unannounced major breakthrough in their quest for AGI. If so, then the terms of Microsoft's $13 billion investment in OpenAI that had been negotiated by Altman might give it immediate access to this new technology in a direct violation of OpenAI's defining mission.
3) Who won? Who lost?
Satya Nadella and Microsoft won. (Indeed, Microsoft's stock hit an all-time high after Altman's return was announced.) Sam Altman and the OpenAI staff won. The three board members who were dismissed lost, and Open AI lost. OpenAI lost because it failed to pursue its mission. OpenAI is now a new organization that is a profit-oriented operation beholden to Microsoft and to other investors. In short, the pessimistic, altruistic "AI Doomers" lost, and the optimistic, profit-driven "AI boomers" won.
Top 2 stories in past week ...
- OpenAI
AI Big Bang 1 -- What happened? ***
"OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman", Will Knight, Wired, 11/17/23
"Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond", Will Knight, Wired, 11/18/23
"Meet Emmett Shear, OpenAI’s ‘Highly Intelligent, Socially Awkward’ Interim CEO", Anit katwala and Will Bedingfield, Wired, 11/20/23
"Microsoft Hires Sam Altman Hours After OpenAI Rejects His Return", Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose and Cade Metz, NY Times, 11/20/23
"Hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to resign and join Microsoft", Jacob Kastrenakes and Tom Warren, The Verge, 11/20/23
"Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggests that Sam Altman might return to OpenAI", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 11/20/23
"Sam Altman Is Reinstated as OpenAI’s Chief Executive", Cade Metz, Mike Isaac, Tripp Mickle, Karen Weise and Kevin Roose, NY Times, 11/22/23 - OpenAI
AI Big Bang 2 -- Why did it happen? ***
Various observers have identified three issues that might have caused the board to become dissatisfied with Mr. Altman's performance, given the board's primary obligation to ensure that OpenAI developed artificial general intelligence (AGI) in a safe manner and in a manner that did not cede control of the development of AGI to a private corporation.
-- "Altman’s polarizing past hints at OpenAI board’s reason for firing him", Elizabeth Dwoskin and Nitasha Tiku, Washington Post, 11/22/23 ... Key insight = Altman was fired from Y Combinator because he out his own interest ahead of the company's interest,
-- "Sam Altman’s return to OpenAI highlights urgent need for trust and diversity", Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 11/22/23 ... Key insight = Altman’s criticism of board member Helen Toner’s work on AI safety [in October 2023]
-- "OpenAI researchers warned board of AI breakthrough ahead of CEO ouster, sources say", Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin and Krystal Hu, Reuters, 11/23/23... Key insight = OpenAi researchers had recently achieved an as yet unannounced breakthrough in their quest for AGI. If so, then the terms of Microsoft's investments negotiated by Altman might give it immediate access to this new technology, thereby giving Microsoft an unchallengeable advantage ... a direct violation of OpenAI's defining mission.
____________________________________
Links to related notes on this blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments will be greatly appreciated ... Or just click the "Like" button above the comments section if you enjoyed this blog note.