Microsoft Hires Sam Altman Hours After OpenAI Rejects His Return - eviltoast

Microsoft Hires Sam Altman Hours After OpenAI Rejects His Return::The announcement capped a tumultuous weekend for OpenAI, after Mr. Altman made a push to reclaim his job as C.E.O. of the artificial intelligence company.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I really don’t get the employee position. They want to work at Microsoft? Literally the opposite of everything _open_ai claimed to stand for?

      What a joke this whole “non-profit” owning “for-profit” structure turned out to be. For profit structure is like a virus and we see again and again it doesn’t integrate with other systems.

      • hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Altman and Brockman were the founding leadership of the company/organization and many of these employees are “rockstar” researchers. They wanted to be a part of what they were leading — so it makes sense they still would even if it’s under Microsoft.

      • knotthatone@lemmy.one
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        If OpenAI doesn’t have stable, rational and deliberative leadership, none of what they claim to stand for matters. The board did an end-run around the chair and summarily fired Altman Friday afternoon without consulting with any other stakeholders beforehand. They still haven’t offered a coherent explanation for why they did what they did.

        • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There’s no “other stakeholders” tho. It’s a non profit board with a profit capped company that they control. The whole goal of the structure was to resist monetary capture and yet here we are

          • Augustiner@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            A stakeholder is something different than a stockholder. A stakeholder could be an employee, investor, customer, someone selling equipment to them or even the community they work in.

            Basically anyone who’s affected by their actions.

      • crystal@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        What makes you assume the employees ever cared about whether OpenAI is non-profit or not?

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Microsoft is not the pile of shit it used to be. See the past 10 years

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Their products sure don’t seem to be anything other than steaming piles of shit. Seems like a distinction without a difference.

        • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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          Do you mean internally? Because in terms of doing exactly what the worst possible thing is for people, they’re a giant, steaming, fly ridden pile of shit

        • weedwhacking@lemmy.world
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          In what way? Their product lineup is the worst it’s ever been expect maybe xbox, especially software like windows and office. Even Xbox is loosing to Sony and Nintendo despite being a decent product.

          In the windows 98-7 era I was die hard. It was a pretty good OS. By modern standards, it’s just awful. Mac and Linux for me.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            1 year ago

            I run Linux basically everywhere as a sysadmin, I’m comfortable on linux… But my main desktop was always Windows (Games mainly). About every year I try to main Linux… and usually get by a few weeks or maybe a month before I cave. This year… I’ve swapped over and it’s been a long time. I think that windows got so bad at this point that I no longer find the “downfalls” or negatives of linux as worse anymore…

            • weedwhacking@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I was in the same boat as you, ended up deciding to give up the mouse and keyboard and went all in on console gaming to give up my PC. So glad I did

              • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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                1 year ago

                I dunno proton has been really good for me. Only game I don’t have installed is Siege and CoD… Baldur’s gate and all the other ones I had installed prior seem to run just fine now.

                console gaming

                Sorry, but I can’t. The 7950x3d, and 7900xtx just make games so pretty.

              • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That’s why I love my steam deck. Can play any of my PC libraries (Steam, Epic, emulation, etc) with additional games at great prices more often than not. Touchpads are really nice too.

            • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Plus Linux gaming is really catching up to Windows, especially if you aren’t huge into competitive multiplayer games with invasive system-level anticheats.

          • Seraphin 🐬@pawb.social
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            1 year ago

            Even Xbox is loosing to Sony and Nintendo despite being a decent product.

            Xbox and Windows are both by Microsoft but they can’t even get that right.

            I got a free trial for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that I’ve been using to play Starfield and a handful of other games on PC. But half the time I go to play it I either get a license error, which usually needs a full PC restart and signing in and out a few times to fix, or it constantly has to sync with the cloud. I can save my game, close it, not even switch off or restart my PC or even close the Xbox app, and later on when I go to play again it has to slowly synchronise my cloud save again. Why?! And if I want to make sure my save can be used on another device, I have to keep the app open for at least 10-15 mins after exiting the game so that the save can sloooowly upload to the cloud. I can upload things to YouTube, Google Drive, etc at 15+ Mbps but Xbox gaming services chugs along at 0.5 Mbps max. It’s infuriating.

            Honestly, game pass is a pretty good value proposition (lack of game ownership aside), but with the issues I’ve been having I won’t be keeping it after my free time expires. If Steam has been able to handle license verification and cloud saves for years without problems, why can’t Microsoft get this shit right? /rant

            Sorry, I really needed to vent about this.

            • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              They keep bothering me about feedback, and that my trial is going to end in X amount of days. Like… Yes? I know… stop bothering me about it.

  • KinNectar@kbin.run
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    This is devolving into the worst way this could have gone. If he had spun of a new startup at least it would have provided real competition to GPT, building out in-house Microsoft models when they already have OpenAI license is ick.

  • kyle@lemm.ee
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    I had read that Altman was “ambivalent” to re-joining OpenAI and the board wanted him back after regretting their decision? (presumably after the backlash)

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Does OpenAI own the related intellectual property? Is there a non compete contract that he signed? This could be interesting.

    • hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Non-competes aren’t a thing in California. OpenAI obviously own the IP, but that doesn’t mean an investor like MS wouldn’t have enough rights to effectively take it and build from it.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The board of directors of OpenAI, the high-flying artificial intelligence start-up, said in a note to employees on Sunday night that its former chief, Sam Altman, would not be returning to his job, while naming his second interim replacement in two days.

    The board said Mr. Shear has a “unique mix of skills, expertise and relationships that will drive OpenAI forward,” according to the memo viewed by The New York Times.

    Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI, only learned of Mr. Altman’s exit one minute before it was announced, while other investors discovered that he had been forced out via social media.

    “The board firmly stands by its decision as the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI,” said the memo on Sunday, referring to Mr. Altman’s removal from the company on Friday.

    Since OpenAI released its hit ChatGPT chatbot almost a year ago, artificial intelligence has captured the public’s imagination, with hopes that it could be used for important work like drug research or to help teach children.

    On Monday, as OpenAI employees signed the letter saying they might leave to join Mr. Altman’s new project at Microsoft, one name stood out: Mr. Sutskever.


    The original article contains 1,262 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Tygr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well, I’m micro-protesting all of this craziness. Cancelled my renewal of CGPT4 next month. I don’t support the board, Sam going to Microsoft, and a majority of employees leaving to Microsoft.

    Go use Microsoft’s version of CGPT4. You’ll see why.

    • crystal@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Wasn’t he basically working for Microsoft already while being employed by OpenAI?

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Eh? So far the only allegation is from his little sister who has provided zero evidence. She also mentions in her interview with Weil how she has gotten angry at her brother over money on more than one occasion… I don’t know, I don’t want to completely dismiss her out of hand, but to just blindly hop on the train of him being a bonefide rapist is also wreckless. He’s also quite openly gay… So him raping his little sister doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but who knows.

      I think I’ll let people qualified to get to the bottom of these allegations sort it out, given the very “he said/she said” nature of it.

      • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.world
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        She still deserves all of our attention and her voice needs to be heard. She struggles for survival and probably can’t even afford good lawyers to sue him.

        He’s also quite openly gay… So him raping his little sister doesn’t make a whole lot of sense

        Sexual orientation or even desire are quite irrelevant, as that would apply to pedophiles too otherwise.

        She also mentions in her interview with Weil how she has gotten angry at her brother over money on more than one occasion

        How could she not be with how she was, according to her, pushed into sex work? Having one of your siblings resort to sex work for survival while your own net worth is more than half a billion dollars definitely means you’re the bad guy no matter whose version is correct and no matter how you look at it.

        • Traister101@lemmy.today
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          Sheesh they didn’t completely shut down the possibility. They just said they think it’s unlikely, and I agree with them. Whenever I’ve seen people suddenly jump out like this to make extreme claims it’s been somewhat sketchy at best.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          Look, I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve to be heard. I stated as much in my first comment. But it’s literally just her word versus his at this point. She even says her other siblings abused her, so do her other siblings deserve to be fired from their jobs just because she claims they abused her?

          Bring proof or don’t bother grabbing your pitchfork and leave it up to expert investigators to get to the bottom of the matter. Much of the internet is way too eager to start a witch-hunt simply because it fits in with their biases.

        • ExLisper@linux.community
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          She looks like a very troubled person. I definitely wouldn’t deny someone a job only because of her allegations.

        • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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          He doesn’t owe her anything, but even looking at those images it says he offered to help.

    • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately those claims are not backed up by anything. You can’t really state them as fact like that.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Such a statement is not confirmed, so why have you stated it like that?

        • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Your “rarely” seems to be contradicted by the statistics:

          When methodologically rigorous research is conducted based on this definition, estimates for the percentage of false reports converge around 2-8%.

          • For example, Dr. David Lisak and colleagues analyzed sexual assaults reported to a major Northeastern university over a 10-year period to determine the rate of false reporting. Of the 136 reports taken during that period of time, 8 reports, or 5.9% were found to be false (Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, & Cote, 2010).

          • In a study of sexual assault cases reported to the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008, researchers found that rate of false reports was 4.5% (Spohn, White, & Tellis, 2014).

          • In a multi-site study of 8 US communities involved in the “Making a Difference” (MAD) Project conducted by EVAWI, data were collected by law enforcement agencies for all sexual assault reports received in an 18-24 month period. Of the 2,059 cases that were included in the study, 140 (7%) were classified as false.

          • Statistics even appear to converge internationally. In an analysis of 2,643 sexual assault cases reported to British police, 8% were classified by the police department as false reports. Yet when researchers applied the official criteria for establishing a false allegation, this figure dropped to 2%. These criteria specified that there must be either “a clear and credible admission by the complainant” or “strong evidential grounds” (Kelly, Lovett, & Regan, 2005).

          Source: https://evawintl.org/best_practice_faqs/false-reports-percentage/

          So if anything, instead of trying to discredit her or mob-downvote every comment mentioning her story to bury her voice, you might probably want to reweight the odds and start to consider the fact that it’s highly likely she’s not lying.

          • blahsay@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            All important stats. Keep in mind though that this isn’t a typical case. I imagine that in cases where the accused has mountains of money or third parties have a reason to discredit them that the % of false claims would go from 5%(ish) to far higher.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      Not taking unsubstantiated claims from someone with a grudge seriously especially when they are pushed by an anime pfp with an Israeli flag.