OpenAI was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 106 points –
OpenAI ‘was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff’
theguardian.com

OpenAI was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff::Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking

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The whole thing sounds like some cockamamie plot derived from chatgpt itself. Corporate America is completely detached from the real world.

That's exactly what it is. A ploy for free attention and it's working.

There’s no way this was a “ploy”.

ploy
/ploi/
noun
a cunning plan or action designed to turn a situation to one's own advantage.

Except for the cunning part it seems to be a pretty good description.

There’s no way the board members tarnished their reputations and lost their jobs so they could get attention for a company they no longer work for and don’t have a stake in. That’s just silly.

I don’t think the firing was a ploy, but I do think the retroactive justification of ‘we were building a model so powerful it scared us’ is a ploy to drum up hype. Just like all the other times they’ve said the same thing.

That's an appealing 'conspiracy' angle, and I understand why it might seem juicy and tantalising to onlookers, but that idea doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny whatsoever.

Why would the Board willingly trash their reputation? Why would they drag the former Twitch CEO through the mud and make him look weak and powerless? Why would they not warn Microsoft and risk damaging that relationship? Why would they let MS strike a tentative agreement with the OpenAI employees that upsets their own staff, only to then undo it?

None of that makes any sense whatsoever from a strategic, corporate "planned" perspective. They are all actions of people who are reacting to things in the heat of the moment and are panicking because they don't know how it will end.

Why would the Board willingly trash their reputation?

What reputation?

Why would they drag the former Twitch CEO through the mud and make him look weak and powerless?

Why would they care about that?

Why would they not warn Microsoft and risk damaging that relationship? Why would they let MS strike a tentative agreement with the OpenAI employees that upsets their own staff, only to then undo it?

Microsoft has put their entire sack in OpenAI's purse. They could literally do or say anything to Microsoft.

Are you telling me you really think it's outlandish to think the same people who push a glorified nested 'if' statement as AI would do what it said to do? Those people are goofy, if they thought they were being given a convoluted real life quest by a digital DM they'd be all about it.

Why would they want attention not a publicly traded company?

What's that got to do with anything? They sell a thing, they want the thing to sell more.

I think pretty much the entire world knows about chat GPT so clearly advertising isn't an issue for them. Firing your CEO is not really a good look unless you've got a very very good reason in which case you should announce it.

Which they didn't because it's fake grandstanding bullshit.

Sound more like a ploy to become a fully for proffit get rid of the not for priffit board