skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some of the board member choices are baffling. Like why is Joseph Gordon Levitt’s wife on the board? Her startup has under 10 employees and has a personal email address as the contact address on the homepage.
I agree completely. People should oppose openly or leave.
For those downvoting me, I’d be interested to hear how you think it could work for him to come back and work with the people that unceremoniously fired him and made it sound like he had ethical violations when it now seems clear it was a disagreement over strategy. If there is a disagreement over strategy and he goes back what value do the others provide now?

Also, wouldn’t it seem clear that the board acted rashly in firing him without input from other stakeholders?

I am legitimately interested to know why you downvote as I don’t see another way for it to work.
Maybe wait for the facts then?
You're nitpicking via an overly literal interpretation of what I wrote and missing the point entirely.

In the case of nonprofits, the fiduciary duties of board members pertain to keeping the organization financially healthy as opposed to representing the interest of shareholders. But you already knew this, right?
A "laugh track" sometimes implies fabrication, but the cheering is real from live microphones in their facilities where employees are gathered to watch the launch.
it will definitely not do any of that, because (a) a crypto wallet has nothing to do with your identity, (b) nobody except the gullible will put their permanent biometrics information in the hands of a private company on purpose, (c) especially not if that private company is led by someone who repeatedly, demonstrably plays fast and loose with laws and regulations, especially around those having to do with privacy and ownership. It's an even wilder, less justified play than your other average shitcoins, which at least have some kind of memetic value.
Oh no do not use that. That was servo based, AI drones, which I think is the real "safety issue"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38199233
> A non profit board absolutely calls the shots at a non profit...

Doesn't look like it right now in this case.
Serious question - is Ilya in trouble now?
Rich people heard about a book and didn't bother to read it before contact.

I've heard this lore before, and it's the only way I can make sense of it.
ADL has diluted the meaning of anti-semitic to mean anyone who disagrees.
FSI Languages
The GP never claimed to be eligible to serve on the board, so the attack is unwarranted.
A Tale of Two Sams
Just tried it and it's not fast. It says "deep diving" and takes a few seconds to response. The response isn't as good as gpt-4 either.
1. There is so much momentum around OpenAI that it would be tough to walk away
2. I imagine they could find a better way to setup governance so the nonprofit entity still exists but the for profit entity has a bit more autonomy
These are usually intentional, no organisation of that type “accidentally” leaks victim details. Now that the details are in the open those for whom the leak was intended can “sort out” their “problems”.
It's a boardroom coup. Two-thirds of the board unilaterally fired the other third.
Did you intentionally omit Beavis and Butt-Head from your list of his iconic works? They captured the mood of a generation.
Based on what? I honestly don’t know and most comments seem to be assuming that’s not the case.

And also in some ventures it might be pretty hard to litigate when everything is done behind closed doors. How would you know if a rival trading firm is using an algorithm influenced by yours or not?
Birds are just stochastic parrots after all.
This isn't going to make me think in any way that OpenAI will return to its more open beginning. If anything it shows me they don't know what they want
The fact that the Chairman of the board was not included in the decision is a pretty big indicator
Sure, and thus the default should be to assume the user is correct and not change anything. But how much chance is there that the user actually typed Revlon with a capital R? I think practically nil. Instead, something was typed that wasn't in the dictionary and the autocorrect decided that "Revlon" was best fit. Depending on what was typed this might be true by Levenshtein distance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance), but I'm really doubtful it could possibly be the best fit in this sentence by any metric of likelihood that considered context. Hence my question of why context isn't used by most autocorrect systems.
Not sure why Satya would be privy to this disagreement let alone admit it if he is, and I'd assume Altman and Brockman would be incentivized to provide their own perspective (just as Ilya would) to represent events in the best possible light for themselves.

At this level of execution, words are another tool in their toolbox.
Sure but it would be at a much, much lower valuation.
Contracts are only worth their language if parties are willing to fight for them. Taking on Microsoft and hoards of angry billionaires with a piece of paper separating you from them might be more of a war than they expected.
FWIW you almost certainly can at minimum generalize the location of a phone if you know roughly where to look via beamforming [0]

Massive antenna arrays and SIGINT satellites have massive funding and decades of history, and they've already shown interest in tracking literally everything else [1]

This isn't some star trek type of thing, this is a "would the USG dump enough money into SIGINT to implement it?"

I'm very confident the technology exists to roughly track specific locations of interest for specific devices if not more.

I understand people may disagree but it would be foolish to assume it's beyond the realm of possiblity.

[0] https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/55143/is-it-possib...

[1] https://www.aerosociety.com/news/eavesdropping-from-space/
> It could be that pedestrians can carry lights too

Aye, on my midnight walks when I can't sleep (middle of nowhere - no streets, never mind street lights, it's all trails and fields. Amazing for stargazing!) I use my watch in flashlight mode to see where I'm going wherever it's particularly pitch black. I've also got a backup make-everything-daytime strength torch on me too if I need to properly see something or take out someone's night vision long enough to leg it

Never needed to use the latter so far. I don't imagine anyone trying to prey on me would even see me (or me them) until they're right up close if I turned the watch light off.

Fun tidbit for any new midnight walkers: Your night vision is separate in each eye. If you do need to use a light source in the dark, close an eye before you turn it on. That way when you turn it off you can open the eye and still mostly see where you're going while the other eye catches back up :)

I learned it doing backstage work at a theatre, I also heard it's the actual use case for pirate eye patches -- swap eye when going above and below deck. Good times.
But sama and gdb were largely instrumental in that recruitment.

The whole open vs closed ai thing... the fact is Pandora's box is open now, it's shown to have an outsized impact on society and 2 of the 3 founders responsible for that may be starting a new company that won't be shackled by the same type of corporate governance.

SV will happily throw as much $$ as possible in their direction. The exodus from OpenAi has already begun, and other researchers who are of the mindset that this needs to be commercialized as fast as possible while having an eye on safety will happily come on board, esp. given how much they stand to gain financially.
>The Information reported that Altman was already meeting with investors to raise funds for such a project. One source close to Altman said that both options remained possible. “I think he truly wants the best outcome,” said the person. “He doesn’t want to see lives destroyed.”

Lives destroyed? This is either a reporting error or is a very weird thing to say. Unless the source insinuates that Altman is willing to destroy the world with a cruel AGI if he doesn't get his way.
Who cares? I'm telling you why your low-effort, low-content emotional appeal is getting my downvote.
I highly doubt he will stay if that happens.
For Windows, false, unless you install it through the "Microsoft Store"
The whole situation just reminds me of a pool of children in the kindergarden. That's what VC culture cultivates
This is the ideal scenario in my view, the only thing better would be if it also included more interest rate hikes.
He and Greg founded the company. They hired the early talent after a meeting that Sam initiated. Then led the company to what it is today.

Compared to...

The OpenAI Non-Profit Board where 3 out of 4 members appear to have significant conflicts of interest or lack substantial experience in AI development, raising concerns about their suitability for making certain decisions.
It’s absolutely intentional, they made a blog post about it.
I don’t need to be an Olympian to know that my kid isn’t ready yet.
Absolutely. Who else is in a better position to understand the true limitations of these complex and failure-prone systems?
They're pretty close to having a different corporate structure IMPOSED on them next week.

Spare me the whole "but as a non-profit the board has a responsibility to their mission and charter". Someone has to pay for all those GPUs. If they're going to take a hardline against launching actual products then they can look for donors and see how far they get..
If you want a 1 GW solar farm you need to pay people per hour which is essentially per panel to physically install them and pay for mounting equipment etc. At 20% efficiency you need 5% more of that labor and mounting equipment than at 21%.
If technical expertise is what drove all progress, Google / DeepMind would be far ahead right now.
It's not just about availability (even though it is compute-limited, making it a technology only for those who have access to sufficient equipment or paying for it). Some technologies enable even more accumulation of wealth and success to the successful. AI is a prime example of that. When all the big conglomerates own all the supercomputers and have their own virtual employees, what will incentivize them to take into account the benefits of the general public?
But... they could. And also, they do? It's not uncommon.

All of those could be checked or irrelevant, I have no idea.
less an issue if people eat locally and seasonally
Kids are usually candid /s
>Proven success is a pretty decent signal for competence.

Interestingly this is exactly what all financial advice tends to actually warn about rather than encourage, that previous performance does not indicate future performance.

I suppose if they entered an established market and dominated it from the bootstraps that'd build a lot of trust in me. But others have pointed out, Sam went from dotcom fortune, to...vague question marks, to ycombinator, to openai. Not enough is clear to declare him wozniak, or even jobs, as many have been saying (despite investors calling him as such)

Sam altman is seemingly becoming the new post-fame elon musk: the type of person who could first afford the strategic safety net and PR to keep the act afloat.
OpenAI isn't scared, OpenAI quit already. The remnants and their false king Ilya are beyond what the word scared is capable of describing though, in terms of the level of abject horror they are certain to face the rest of their entire lives even if they run away now. This will never escape them and nobody involved with this decision will ever work in tech again, or on any board of any organization. I hope they saved up for retirement.
It's perfectly warranted to call someone out on a claim that board members wouldn't qualify for a kid's lemonade stand.
What, and ruin the entertainment value?

--We the peanut gallery
Just played this with some teammates. Some feedback:

- There was 7 of us, so the text felt kind of slow. Being able to click to speed up would be nice, or change text speed.

- Quiplash rewarded creativity more I feel, the problem with this game is that lots of people have the same answer
I agree. Just saying that there's only one person worth mending fences over.
Sam Altman is 'rethinking capitalism' in the same way a jackal rethinks and disrupts sheep flocks. Are we thinking about the same guy? I'm thinking of this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhhId_WG7RA
Your position seems presupposed on the idea that people think Sam going back is beneficial for OpenAI.

Personally this is all largely popcorn munching entertainment for me, as I don't think Sutskever is right about a lot of his core tenets, but I also don't think that Altman is a good fit for achieving the charter that OpenAI is obligated to follow.

I don't think OpenAI will be at the forefront of AI/AGI/etc. research a decade from now regardless (and had that position before yesterday's events) but if the OpenAI charter and mission statements are sincerely held beliefs then the path they have been following for the past several years with Altman at the helm have obviously been counter to it.

Whether or not that charter is anything more than a pipe dream isn't really relevant - they're a non-profit so their legal obligation as the board is to direct the resources under their control to achieve that charter.
I'm not sure anyone would want to come back to a company after having been maligned as a liar in public, let alone the CEO.
>The primary purpose of a company is not to take care of employees.

It definitely used to be considered as such. There has been a cultural shift over the last 40 years.
and: "Let's end this 'non-profit' myth."
But did that start yesterday? Sam knew who his bosses were. Managing up is an important thing unless you think the company is all about you
It was complete amateur hour for the board.

But that aside, how did so many clueless folks who understand neither the technology, or the legalese, nor have enough intelligence/acumen to forsee the immediate impact of their actions happen to be on the board of one of the most important tech companies?
A co-worker keeps mentioning we should use terraform, but I'm not getting a very good answer, and haven't had time to do my own research, on why we should use TF rather than writing playbooks to provision AWS resources. Your comment above makes me wonder if, because I'm so steeped in Ansible, I'm not realizing that some of the other CMs are lacking these functions and need to lean on TF, where in Ansible you do not. I'm willing to admit that TF might be a better way of expressing it.

As far as cutesy language, I don't really get jammed up by it, but I'll admit I kind of roll my eyes whenever I come across it. If it's a great tool, I'll overlook that (as in the case of brew). Kind of a "bless your heart" situation. :-)
I, myself, am a lot more worried about a few monopolists doing whatever they get to choose for the rest of humanity. AI fuels that vision more than any other piece of technology.
I do think he was the chief architect of the coup. I do think his beliefs and ideals are still valuable flora for a company of this ambition. There just needs to be a more professional structure for him to voice them.

Dealing with folks like Ilya isn't necessarily a matter of if, but how much.
Good points. It might be possible. I feel like they would have to change the structure in a practical way.
Why would they accept a different corporate structure where they get fired? What do they get out of the deal? Currently, OpenAI is essentially owned by the board as a nonprofit.
Tangential: I have argued that privacy is largely an artifact of the lack of technology. As technology increases, the total amount of information which can be kept private shrinks.

Also, the total number of criminal laws (including violations of treaties) is huge. One of the reasons we aren’t all prosecuted is because of the lack of prosecution resources and technology. As technology and automation increase, more average people will increasingly get prosecuted.

Not necessarily worried about the outcome of this Lockheed satellite system, but it is another tool which could contribute to this trend.
The entities I pay to carry guns under the pretense that they're defending and not violating my civil rights, yes. It is not the free market's job to prevent corruption among such entities, and it's certainly not my fault that they're spreading propaganda.
AI-Qaeda
I think he means people who have invested huge amounts of their energies for years into the venture and view it as their highest and best calling getting forced out (or feeling like they have to leave). For many of them it's not just a job.
There is a progression in 'richness'. We all start off 'poor' and gradually build up our riches as we go along in life. So we end up 'richer and older'.

Naturally the older group as a whole will be richer than the younger group as a whole.

Note that this happens in every generation. The young Boomers were 'hippies' or were protesting against the oldies back in the 70s *. The Millennials will have younger generations denigrating them that they are 'Too Old and Selfish' in another 30-odd years too.

* "If you're thirty, you're through!" - "Film: Wild in the Streets" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozufGZubYc
Uh, if this claim is true… so what? Isn’t it still exactly what they are saying?

“Ads are being shown alongside antisemitic content”

The spokesperson confirmed their statement, didn’t negate it.

And not sure how it could backfire, Presumably a spokesperson admitting that the statement you are suing over is literally true would count against you in any lawsuit.

Just another screaming tantrum from the toddler in charge, nothing else.
Has she used the word, "genocide" to describe Israel's actions?
Even though the country was against you, you should come back and lead it to freedom.

If the entire board can be replaced, then Sam should come back. Even though he can build a new company tomorrow. A leader will come back to lead the best shot anyone has gotten in AI development so far.

This was a power grab and it did not work. Not coming back is letting four people derail history and slow the development of AGI.
> My city doesn't release similar statistics

> The problem in my city is that the people at fault are generally

How do you know? My city does publish statistics and theirs do not match your opinion.

> My goal isn't to assign blame, though. My goal is to make sure as few people die as possible

If you want fewer people killed, finding out who is killing them is an important first step. My city's statistics show that cars are at fault 70% to 80% of the time when they collide with a pedestrian or a cyclist. Not to mention the obvious fact that the car is the one physically doing the killing, as collisions between pedestrians are resolved with a "sorry" rather than a visit to the ER.

> I'm not sure why you're okay with cyclists dying

And here is where I stop this conversation, as you are obviously not acting in good faith. For the record, I am a cyclist and have not driven a car in my life. Just to underline how assissine your accusation is.
The difference between some adults and toddlers if we've written off the adults as unfixable.
Big part of it is a typical YC execution of a product/pump/hype/VC/scale cycle and ignoring every ethical rule.

If you ever stood in the hall of YC and listened to Zuck pumping the founders, you’ll understand.

I’d argue this is a useful thing to lift up a nonprofit on a path to AGI, but hardly a good way to govern a company that builds AGI/ASI technology in the long term.
The Fear of Common Knowledge (2008)
>> “He doesn’t want to see lives destroyed”

As in, people staying millionaires instead of becoming multimillionaires? Could such life-destruction be brought to EU, please?
Contracts were made to be broken. Its always about who is more powerful, the law was designed for the wealthy to win every time.
Friendly-CAPTCHA might work.

I think it sends a crypto puzzle to your computer and when your computer solves it you're authenticated (their website isn't super clear).

Depending on your AI bot, it might not be hooked up to a cpu beyond just input > LLM > output, it would stop that
A crypto wallet can be easily tied to a hash of your real world identity which can then be used to sign into a website or sign a transaction verifying your identity. Already being done.
If LLMs are just glorified autocompletion, then humans are too!
Occlude? Lol
Microsoft is also OpenAI's main cloud provider, so they certainly have some leverage.
Out of curiosity, why do you say the bit about not using CloudFlare's DNS? Is using it incompatible with archive.is?
Yes they did this for my parents house. A guy with some sheet metal and a shears.
I can't believe I'm going to write this.. but:

So what? Regardless of launch/no launch, the company was a flop. This is a cheap shot. Just because someone was successful in the past (or not) is not an automatically relevant signal they'll be a great fit when placed in a different domain. Sometimes they have other relevant background and experience, and other times... Maybe they're just connected. What is the level of scrutiny of qualifications in other companies, even public ones? When looking closely at other companies, I've noticed board compositions can vary substantially. As outsiders, we're undoubtedly missing part of the context about what is relevant (to the board) or not.

Suggested reading: Black Swan by Taleb.

p.s. I am not partial to anyone involved, especially clueless board members. I found this comment annoying due to the breathless, baseless, and flawed logic. What was this supposed to add to the conversation?
I hope there is an investigative report out there detailing why the 3 outsiders, 2 of them complete unknowns, are on the board, and how it truly benefits proper corporate governance.

That's way too much power for people who seemingly have no qualifications to make decisions about a company this impactful to society.
Proof that finding a good house is really a matter of good luck and timing.

Two thousand years ago, by contrast, you could get a Roman Villa in Ye Olde England that had working toilets, running water, sub floor heating, mosaic decoration tile work, and more .. all for little more than the risk of an occasional onslaught by the woman next door and her bloody scythed chariot.
I appreciate the author explaining this.

I have had a Theory of what software is myself, mostly based on "Programming as Theory Building," but it is good to see it put into words.

I struggle to build "theory of mind," which means I can't read code written by other people.

This means I can't get or keep a software job, so it sucks.

At the same time, it is a superpower in personal projects because I can somehow document my own theory of mind. It's counterintuitive, but my inability to build a theory of mind about other people causes me to assume less about what they know, which translates into good Theory docs.

My best example is [1].

[1]: https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/bc/src/commit/22253a3a64db...
And I'm sure Google would jump at the occasion to fund the nonprofit and keep MS out while they develop their own.
The funding Goal for the openAI was just 1B. Small price to pay for Google to neuter one of it's competitors exclusive access to the GPT model.
Does Joseph Gordon Levitt’s wife have a name?
No worries, that's how I understood it too :) Just adding a bit more context on why we feel the approach does beat "grep panic" for people checking out this thread.
> when all the people who have a theory of a given program stop working on it. It dies.

This is only true of software of a particular level of complexity. For the most part, it simply isn't true. Humans made it (who also would routinely forget details about their own project) and humans can understanding it enough to build a working theory. If you can perform tests for something, you can deduce what it's doing, although the business case of why or specific experience with other approaches resulting in failures is often not recoverable by deduction.