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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

Did Sam Altman have any conflicts of interest, between OpenAI's charter and his other investments?

The answer to that one is of indeed YES.

It would appear that there are different rules when profit is involved, which ironically is exactly what OpenAI's nonprofit parent was intended to prevent.

Yes, it would be funny if it wasn't tragic: the exact scenario they wanted to prevent materialized but from the one angle where they weren't covered. I predict this is the last time that a non-profit is put in charge of a for profit that has investors. That mistake is not going to be made again. And it also shows how risky it is to put together new governance structures even if they seem to be a good idea at the time. Because the fig leaf suddenly turned into a hammer the size of which would be hard to replicate in a normal governance setting. Unparalleled destruction with zero regards for the consequences.

the one angle where they weren't covered

Not sure what this is from the thread context.

Unparalleled destruction with zero regards for the consequences.

Isn't this the size of the hammer needed, in case there's a danger of misaligned runaway superintelligence?

> Isn't this the size of the hammer needed, in case there's a danger of misaligned runaway superintelligence?

Possibly, but then you are better off not to develop the thing in the first place.

And you should only break the glass in a break-the-glass moment.

Purely hypothetical but this presents a tiny angle which Adam could come out of this as a reasonable person... if all of this was basically him saying "I have to go. You have to go. We are both compromised and our positions are now against the charter" then maybe Sam was fighting against that because of the team he built and loves leading. This is one reason I would accept Adam's role if it is just him hanging on to make sure Sam is out before leaving himself.

But if that's the case then just say it.

It's a stretch but it could be true. Unlikely though. And if it were true I would have expected Sustkever to spill the beans by now.

If a single “donor”/investor owns you you cannot enforce anything nonprofit or not.

Which investment?

Absolutely, but that seems to have been a prerequisite for joining the board of OpenAI.

Yes but that's most boards these days, at least by the standards of a layperson.

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