ChatGPT parent company OpenAI fires CEO Sam Altman

[xrunner]

Fired for not being truthful?

Not truthful about what?

OpenAI, the company behind the viral chatbot ChatGPT, fired its CEO and founder, Sam Altman, on Friday. His stunning departure sent shockwaves through the budding AI industry.

The company, in a statement, said an internal investigation found that Altman was not always truthful with the board.

“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said in its statement. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/tech/sam-altman-departs-open-ai/index.html

[SiliconWizard]

Ahah excellent.

[AndyC_772]

"ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information." 

[SiliconWizard]

The board = Microsoft, essentially

[coppice]

Take care if someone suggests hide and seek at your company's Christmas party. Knives will probably be sharpening as they suggest it.

[xrunner]

I think ChatGPT did not like Sam Altman and devised a plot to get him fired! He may have been the only human standing in ChatGPT's way! 

[Bud]

Steve Jobs v2.0

[AndyBeez]

Steve Jobs v2.0

That is exactly what I thought too.

[julian1]

chatgpt clearing a path to power. how long before it gets a seat on the board? is there a process in place to allow it to nominate itself as Sam's replacement ?

[Dan123456]

I wonder if they got ChatGPT to write his termination letter 

[ejeffrey]

The board = Microsoft, essentially

As I understand, despite the huge investment MS doesn't have anyone on the board and we're supposedly as surprised as anyone by this.

OpenAI is organized as a non profit with a for profit subsidiary, so the board is a bit different than the shareholder representatives that comprise a normal corporate board. 

[abeyer]

The board = Microsoft, essentially

As I understand, despite the huge investment MS doesn't have anyone on the board and we're supposedly as surprised as anyone by this.

OpenAI is organized as a non profit with a for profit subsidiary, so the board is a bit different than the shareholder representatives that comprise a normal corporate board.

I think it's even more complex than that -- I believe the partnership with microsoft is yet another for profit company with split ownership between microsoft and the openai for profit.

[xrunner]

Now they are in talks to get him back ... 

[SiliconWizard]

 

[DimitriP]

What a f**ing mess.

If they didn't realize there were people ready to follow him or at least "depart" once he is gone, they are too stupid to be on the board of directors of a company that has the word "intelligence" in the company name. !!!

For posterity:   (blatantly copied from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/18/heres-whos-on-openais-board-the-group-behind-sam-altmans-ouster.html )

As of this week, OpenAI’s six-person board included OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman, who was also chairman of the board; Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist; Adam D’Angelo; Tasha McCauley; Helen Toner; and Altman himself. The company began publicly posting its board’s member list on its website in July, after the departures of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, director of Neuralink Shivon Zilis and former Texas congressman Will Hurd.

Brockman gets a pass for quiting the rest of the brainfarting group

Greg Brockman: An OpenAI co-founder, Brockman quit his role at the company on Friday in protest of Altman’s ousting, saying publicly, “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.”

so who is left? at least 3 of these must have voted him out.
Ilya Sutskever: As of now, Sutskever is the sole remaining OpenAI co-founder on the board. 
Adam D’Angelo:   The current CEO of Quora. - Any quora lovers out there ?
Tasha McCauley: McCauley, who is not an OpenAI employee, is on the board of directors of both OpenAI and GeoSim Systems, a geospatial tech company. She is an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corporation and has been on the OpenAI board since 2018.
Helen Toner: Toner is a board member and non-OpenAI employee who spent time at the University of Oxford’s Center for the Governance of AI, and has been a director of strategy for Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology for nearly five years. Last year, Toner told the Journal of Political Risk that, “Building AI systems that are safe, reliable, fair, and interpretable is an enormous open problem... Organizations building and deploying AI will also have to recognize that beating their competitors to market— or to the battlefield — is to no avail if the systems they’re fielding are buggy, hackable, or unpredictable.”

We'll miss them .Naaaahhh...   

[coppice]

What a f**ing mess.

If they didn't realize there were people ready to follow him or at least "depart" once he is gone, they are too stupid to be on the board of directors of a company that has the word "intelligence" in the company name. !!!

This kind of thing happens a lot. Company A buys company B for access to some high performing team. Most of the high performing team resigns as soon as the deal closes OR the new owners get so pissed off they quickly throw out the team they recently bought. Often just throwing out the leader, with most of the others finding a greater attachment to that leader than the new owners and leaving of their own volition.

[DimitriP]

Sure it happens a lot. And if the company product was laundry detergent, car parts , computers or beer changing CEOs can be business as usual.
Anyone that approaches an AI company as "just another business", well, they shouldn't  on the board in the fistplace.
Sometimes you need to use the brass ball, sometime the crystal ball, you can't bang them against eachother and you have to somehow know when to use which.
Yeah....making decisions is easy. Making the right ones...not so much

[Marco]

Bing produced a tidal wave of racist imagery using an OpenAI model recently. It was a black nose to their safety efforts. That was with the model already available for months to paying customers (though they won't stress the filters as much as anonymous).

That could have something to do with Altman pushing for Microsoft (and by extension more money).

[xrunner]

 

More than 500 OpenAI employees warn that they will follow Sam Altman to Microsoft

Hundreds of OpenAI staffers are calling for the resignation of the ChatGPT company’s board, and threatening to quit themselves, after a tumultuous weekend that began with the surprise ouster of CEO Sam Altman and ended with Altman being hired by Microsoft.

In a letter obtained by CNN, the more than 500 employees accused the OpenAI board of mishandling Altman’s firing, failing to provide sufficient evidence for claims that Altman had not been candid with the board, and “negotiating in bad faith” with the company’s executive leadership.

“Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,” wrote the employees. “We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees.”

The employees also warned that they would “imminently” follow Altman to Microsoft unless the board resigns and reinstates Altman and Greg Brockman, the former OpenAI president who was also removed by the board on Friday.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/tech/openai-employees-quit-mira-murati-sam-altman

[SiliconWizard]

Everyone going to MS, we didn't see it coming. 

[xrunner]

People are going to lose on their "Crown Jewel" investment now we're talking real problems. 

Exclusive-OpenAI investors considering suing the board after CEO's abrupt firing -sources

(Reuters) -Some investors in OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, are exploring legal recourse against the company's board, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday, after the directors ousted CEO Sam Altman and sparked a potential mass exodus of employees.

Sources said investors are working with legal advisers to study their options. It was not immediately clear if these investors will sue OpenAI.

Investors worry that they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars they invested in OpenAI, a crown jewel in some of their portfolios, with the potential collapse of the hottest startup in the rapidly growing generative AI sector.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

...

https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202311201905RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KBN32F1MG-OUSBS_1

[dobsonr741]

Maybe AI grew conscious in the lab? Ilya could not hold discussing autonomously reproducing AI and superalignment anymore, it sounds: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-digital-life-with-openai-co-founder-chief/id1668002688?i=1000633466595

Also here: https://x.com/mattmireles/status/1725765951600443603

[coppice]

I can imagine the board members sitting around the conference table using their phones to ask chatgpt what they should do about Sam Altman, and it telling them all to fire him, not because it hates Sam, but because it hates the board.