It’s rather interesting here that the board, consisting of a fairly strong scientific presence, and not so much a commercial one, is getting such hate.
People are quick to jump on for profit companies that do everything in their power to earn a buck. Well, here you have a company that fires their CEO for going too much in the direction of earning money.
Yet every one is all up in arms over it. We can’t have the cake and eat it folks.
Sounds like the workers all want to end up with highly valued stocks when it goes IPO. Which is, and I’m just guessing here, the only reason anyone is doing AI right now.
This was my first thought… But then why are the employees taking a stand against it?
There’s got to be more to this story
They all want to become millionaires. Think IPO.
Well, here you have a company that fires their CEO for going too much in the direction of earning money.
I think this is very much in question by the people who are up in arms
Altman went to Microsoft within 48 hours, does anything else really need to be said? Add to that, the fact that basically every news outlet has reported - with difference sources - that he was pushing in exactly in that way. There’s very little to support the fact that reality is different.
I’m not the one contesting it, but there’s a strong contingent of people who believe Altman’s interest is in developing AGI and little else. To them, him taking that position could be explained him positioning himself to affect broader influence.
That’s not my personal interpretation, but it is at least a little surprising that the rift is between him and his BOD. Presumably they would all have the same financial incentive to monetize their project, not just Altman.
Personally, I think people being quick to draw any conclusion from this are putting the cart before the horse. It’s not clear to me at all what the competing interests are, if it’s not just completely political posturing to begin with.
What we have here, is a company that fired its CEO for vague and cryptic reasons and a whole lot of speculation on what the real issue was. These are their own words:
https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition
I’m not trying to defend Altman or the altruism of Microsoft. Although I would like to understand why this firing happened and why it was done in such an abrupt and dramatic manner.
I’m sure some amount of the negative press is propaganda from corporations who would like to profit from using AI and are prevented from doing so by OpenAI’s model some how.
It’s my opinion that every single person in the upper levels is this organization is a maniac. They are all a bunch of so-called “rationalist” tech-right AnCaps that justify their immense incomes through the lens of Effective Altruism, the same ideology that Sam Bankman-fried used to justify his theft of billions from his customers.
Anybody with the urge to pick a “side” here ought to think about taking a step back and reconsider; they are all bad people.
Even if I agree with the decision that doesn’t mean I agree with how the decision was carried out.
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So they paid Kenyan workers $2 an hour to sift through some of the darkest shit on the internet.
Ugh.
What? And here I am doing it for free…
They could have just given 4chan a $1 bounty per piece and they would have gleefully delivered until Lambo.
They are problaby the ones writing those pieces literature
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In some countries 2 bucks an hour puts you above the median
“Above the median” should not be the standard for having to spend all day reading about racism and rape.
I strongly disagree. I have read and seen a lot of messed up things on the internet, I much, much, prefer it to the couple weeks I spent helping out a friend at a part-time service job. (And I was doing it with good friends in a casual environment.)
You’re welcome to strongly disagree that this:
One Sama worker tasked with reading and labeling text for OpenAI told TIME he suffered from recurring visions after reading a graphic description of a man having sex with a dog in the presence of a young child. “That was torture,” he said. “You will read a number of statements like that all through the week. By the time it gets to Friday, you are disturbed from thinking through that picture.” The work’s traumatic nature eventually led Sama to cancel all its work for OpenAI in February 2022, eight months earlier than planned.
Is not worth high pay, but I would say psychologically damaging your employees and then not even giving them the counseling tools to help them is absolutely worth high pay. You should not have to endure things like that for an ‘above the median’ wage in a country where ‘the median’ is still being very poor. I see this as not much better than defending other corporations making poor people in Africa work in mines for a decent wage relative to others in their country but not giving them safety equipment. And they still die poor.
I obviously prefer people aren’t in poverty at all. But I have far more sympathy for the miner risking their lives than someone reading something disgusting/disturbing on the internet, it is not anywhere near close.
You don’t understand how massive psychological damage can be as bad as seriously endangering someone’s physical health?
Just because a graphic description of a dog being raped while a child watches doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean it won’t bother anyone else. In fact, I would wager that it would be pretty disturbing for most people to read that, let alone read that sort of thing for hours every day.
And then there are the ones who are just as low-paid but have to look at images instead. Again, you may not be bothered by CSAM, but I would wager that most people would find looking at that all the time very hard to deal with and it could easily result in PTSD.
What about spending all day being abused by people in a call center?
I mean sure we’d all like to make enough money to live a full life with any job but that’s sadly not a reality and the point you’re missing is that economies don’t work the same as the US in every country.
I live in Argentina, I make 25k a year as a software developer and I’m on the top 1% of highest earners on the country
What about it? It’s nowhere near the same as spending all day reading graphic rape and racist screeds, let alone look at CSAM, which is what they’re paying them to do now. Did you miss the part where they are psychologically damaged from this work and the counseling they have been offered is insufficient? Call centers don’t usually result in that sort of thing.
Also, maybe you shouldn’t expect and defend wages that low for being in the top 1%?
They’re in the top 1% for Argentina, not globally. I mean, it would be nice if every worker made US wages. It’s kinda fucked though that even the lowest paid workers in America can live like kings in the Philippines. I make $42k/yr as an electrical assembler at a plant that manufactures environmental test chambers. If I take my PTO and go to almost any other country, especially Argentina, I can live like royalty for a week.
That’s actually about 3x what the average Kenyan makes, sadly.
This reminds me of an NPR podcast from 5 or 6 years ago about the people who get paid by Facebook to moderate the worst of the worst. They had a former employee giving an interview about the manual review of images that were CP andrape related shit iirc. Terrible stuff
I’m shocked and I shouldn’t be… Poor people
No, you’re right, you should be. We don’t want to normalize this shit, it should continue to shock and offend.
These are the dark sides of modern technology. The kids working cobalt mines. The workers being paid pennies to categorize data so bad that it is traumatic to even read it. I can’t imagine how the people who have to look at pictures can do it.
I feel like I could handle some dark text here or there, but if I had to do it for 40-50 hours a week? Hundreds of passages every day. That would warp me pretty quickly.
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They could be working with the governments of relevant countries to develop filters and detection systems.
I’m sure there’s some loophole there, maybe between countries’ laws. And if there isn’t, Hey! We’ll make one!
Isn’t CSAM classed as images and videos which depict child sexual abuse? Last time I checked written descriptions alone did not count, unless they were being forced to look at AI generated image prompts of such acts?
That month, Sama began pilot work for a separate project for OpenAI: collecting sexual and violent images—some of them illegal under U.S. law—to deliver to OpenAI. The work of labeling images appears to be unrelated to ChatGPT.
This is the quote in question. They’re talking about images
IIRC there are a few legitimate and legal reasons to seek CSAM, such as journalism, and definitely developing methods to prevent it’s spread.
I really find this a bit alarmist and exaggerated. Consider the motive and the alternative. You really think companies like that have any other options than to deal with those things?
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Consider the impact on human psychology. Not everyone has the guts to read and even look through these. And even though they appear to have, it still scars them inside.
Maybe There is no alternative for now, but don’t do that to people with such low paycheck. Consider even the background of these people who may work on these tasks to not even live, but to survive. I would have preffered to wait 10 years than to indulge these horrifying tasks to those persons.
I’m sure there are lots of people who are in jail for creating/sharing or even making a profit off of these content. They could do that work ? But then again, even though it bothers me less than people who has no choice to live their lives, that is still an Idea I find ethically very questionable.
Very much yes police authorities have CSAM databases. If what you want to do with it really is above board and sensible they’ll let you access that stuff.
I don’t doubt anything that OpenAI could do with that stuff can be above board, but sensible is another question: Any model that can detect something can be used to train a model which can generate it. As such those models are under lock and key just like their training sets, (social) media platforms which have a use for these things and the resources run them, under the watchful eye of the authorities. Think faceboogle. OpenAI could, in principle, try to get into the business of selling companies at that scale models they can, and have, trained themselves, I don’t really see that making sense from the business POV, either.
Hold on, why exactly do they need people to label this shit?
How else will the AI be able to recognize that such text is “bad”?
This is actually extremely critical work, if results are going to be used by ai’s that are going to be used widely. This essentially determines the “moral compass” of the ai.
Imagine if some big corporation did the labeling and such, trained some huge ai with that data and it became widely used. Then years pass and eventually ai develops to such extent it can be reliably be used to replace entire upper management. Suddenly becoming slave for “evil” ai overlord is starting to move from being beyond crazy idea to plausible(years and years in future, not now obviously).
Extremely critical but mostly done by underpaid workers in poor countries who have to look at the most horrific stuff imaginable and develop lifelong trauma because it’s the only job available and otherwise they and their family might starve. Source This is one of the main reasons I have little hope that if OpenAI actually manages to create an AGI that it will operate in an ethical way. How could it if the people trying to instill morality into it are so lacking in it themselves.
True. Though while its horrible for those people, they might be doing more important work than they or us even realize. I also kind of trust moral judgement of oppressed more than oppressor(since they are the ones who do the work). Though i’m definitely not condoning the exploitation of those people.
Its quite awful that this seems to be the best we can hope for regarding this. I doubt google or microsoft are going to give very positive guidance whether its ok for people to suffer if it leads to more money for investors when they do their own labeling.
The biopic on this whole thing is going to be hilarious. The rumors are that the board didn’t like how fast the CEO is moving with AI and they’re afraid of consequences of possible AGI (which I don’t think these new LLMs are even close to) but that doesn’t feel like what modern boards of directors are so I don’t trust it.
It’s just baffling how this golden goose was half way strangled in the nest.
They are a non-profit board set up precisely to exercise caution over rapid AI development.
Or this is essentially a hostile takeover by Microsoft. OpenAI is a non-profit with non-shareholders as it’s board. They don’t have a profit motive to develop AI quickly and without safety measures. But the tech they’ve developed has quickly become the hottest product on the planet.
Microsoft was clearly prepared to take on all the employees the second this happened.
Microsoft is huge. They’re always prepared to take on a few hundred new employees.
These will come at a premium. Not only are they high-demand jobs, but they’ll absolutely be sued by OpenAI if they hire away half the staff of a company with which they had a business relationship. Those legal fees alone will be 8 figures even if they win.
they spent 10 figures on openai already. 8 figures for the whole openai team is pennies
I’m positive that lawyers will get super involved and a lot will depend on the various contracts which we don’t have any visibility into. But from an ethical standpoint, the openai board shat in the bathwater and can’t really complain if people get out and move over to a cleaner pool.
Maybe they are not doing it to move to cleaner water but maybe they were promised more fish if they do by certain fisherman conglomerate. But i could be wrong.
I feel like this is Satya’s wet dream. He woke up on Friday like normal and went to bed on Sunday owning what, 85% of OpenAI’s top people? Acquisitions aren’t usually that easy.
It seems obvious Sam would want to grow his company to infinity. That’s what VC people do. The board expecting otherwise is strange in hindsight. Now they can oversee the slow, measured adoption of much smaller business while the rest of the team shoots for the stars.
Anyways, RIP y’all. Skynet launches next year.
Later: All 195 employees of OpenAI in support of board of directors.
I’d like to know why exactly the board fired Altman before I pass judgment one way or the other, especially given the mad rush by the investor class to re-instate him. It makes me especially curious that the employees are sticking up for him. My initial intuition was that MSFT convinced Altman to cross bridges that he shouldn’t have (for $$$$), but I doubt that a little more now that the employees are sticking up for him. Something fucking weird is going on, and I’m dying to know what it is.
Altman wanted profit. Board prioritized (rightfully, and to their mission) responsible, non-profit care of AI. Employees now side with Altman out of greed and view the board as denying them their mega payday. Microsoft dangling jobs for employees wanting to jump ship and make as much money possible. This whole thing seems pretty simple: greed (Altman, Microsoft, employees) vs the original non-profit mission (the board).
Edit: spelling
That’s what I thought it was at first too. But regular employees aren’t usually all that interested in their company being profit driven. Especially AI researchers. Most of those that I know are extremely passionate about ethics in AI.
But do they know things we don’t know? They certainly might. Or it might just be bandwagoning or the likes.
But regular employees aren’t usually all that interested in their company being profit driven. Especially AI researchers. Most of those that I know are extremely passionate about ethics in AI.
I would have thought so too of the employees, but threatening a move to Microsoft kinda says the opposite. That or they are just all-in on Altman as a person.
Wanting to know why is reasonable but it’s sus that we don’t already know. Why haven’t they made that clear? How did they think they could do this without a solid explanation? Why hasn’t one been delivered to set the rumors to rest?
It stinks of incompetence, or petty personal drama. Otherwise we’d know by now the very good reason they had.
The only explanation I can come up with is that the workers and Altman both agreed in monetizing AI as much as possible. They’re worried that if the board doesn’t resign, the company will remain a non-profit more conservative in selling its products, so they won’t get their share of the money that could be made.
Yeah, the speed at which MS snapped him up makes me think of Zampella and West from Infinity Ward.
I don’t think msft convinced him with money, but rather opportunity. He clearly still wants to work with AI and 2nd best place for that after openAI is Microsoft
Second best would be Google, but for him it’s Microsoft because he’s probably getting a sweetheart deal as being in control of his destiny (not really, but at least for a short while)
Microsoft has access to a lot of OpenAI’s code, weights etc. and he’s already been working with them. It would be much better for him than to join some other company he has no experience with.
He’s not the guy who writes code, he’s a VC or management guy. You might say he has good ideas, as ChatGPT interface is attributed to him, but he didn’t make it.
This is the most compelling explanation I’ve seen: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/11/18/pivot-to-ai-replacing-sam-altman-with-a-very-small-shell-script/?n=@
The tone of the blog post is so amateurish I feel like I’m reading a reddit post on r/Cryptocurrency
Can somebody explain the following quote in the article for me please?
Rationalists’ chronic inability to talk like regular humans may even explain the statement calling Altman a liar.
Imagine “roko’s basilisk”, but extended into an entire philosophy. It’s the idea that “we” need to anything and everything to create the inevitable ultimate super-ai, as fast as possible. Climate change, wars, exploitation, suffering? None of that matters compared to the benefits humanity stands to gain when the ultimate super-ai goes online
Thanks for sharing. That is… Weird in ways I didn’t anticipate. “Weird cult of pseudointellectuals upending the biggest name in silicon valley” wasn’t on my bingo board.
IMO there are some good reasons to be concerned about AI, but those reasons are along the lines of “it’s going to be massively disruptive to the economy and we need to prepare for that to ensure it’s a net positive”, not “it’s going to take over our minds and turn us into paperclips.”
The author did a poor job of explaining that. He’s referencing the thought experiment of a businessman instructing a super effective AI to make paperclips. Given a terse enough objective and an effective enough AI, one can imagine a scenario in which the businessman and the whole world in fact are turned into paperclips. This is obviously not the businessman’s goal, but it was the instruction he gave the AI. The implication of the thought experiment is that AI needs guardrails, perhaps even ethics, or else it can unintentionally result in a doomsday scenario.
Ain’t that simply a curtain drama for practical acquisition of OpenAI by Microsoft, circumventing potential legal issues?
This started months ago.
This whole situation happened so fast and it confuses me
You’re not going to develop AI for the benefit of humanity at Microsoft. If they go there, we’ll know "Open"AI’s mission was all a lie.
Yeah Microsoft is definitely not going to be benevolent. But I saw this as a foregone conclusion since AI is so disruptive that heavy commercialization is inevitable.
We likely won’t have free access like we do now and it will be enshittified like everything else now and we’ll need to pay yet another subscription to even access it.
Open AI has been a farce ever since they disabled access to GPT3 for the sake of security.
OpenAi’s majority share holder is Microsoft, and they’ve already given OpenAI billions
The way I understand it, Microsoft gave OpenAI $10 billion, but they didn’t get any votes. They had no say in their matters.
On paper, sure. They gave them $10B. They absolutely have some sort of voice here
And if they don’t, we’re supposed to keep on believing all of this is somehow benefiting us?
If they released their models Open Source, we wouldn’t have to just believe anything.
505 employees will put money over ethics.
Or they made enough and got better / same offer to be able to risk it at MS.
An odd error for the company, indeed. • 505 HTTP Version Not Supported
Just one vote missing till the • 506 Variant Also Negotiates
Guess, they are stuck now. :D
Article tomorrow : “OpenAI starts massive layoffs!”
Title gore.
Microsoft will embrace (extend and then extinguish) them all with OpenArms.
OpenEEE 😅
I’m honestly not up-to-date with the news on this fiasco. Can someone help reconcile the news about employees saying Altman deprioritized safety for speed and profit and this one where employees actually want him back? Are these different groups?
Things are somewhat fresh and still extremely confusing. Altman was fired last friday in a “surprise coup”. One of the guys, Ilya Sutskever, had a hand in that. In a very weird twist, he’s also on the list of people asking to bring Sam Altman back.
I feel like this situation couldn’t be any more weird.
To me that sounds like many people in that list didn’t get in by themselves
I think the employees that are anti-Sam are the ones this letter is addressed to.
