The Fallout from the Weirdness at OpenAI
economist.com
economist.com
5 occurrences of "Microsoft" in the article body vs 9 "OpenAI".
To make my point clear; this weirdness was definitely caused by the OpenAI board deviating from everybody's plans, including a member of the board themselves.
From there, Microsoft strategically reacted to a black swan event. From MS's pov, this was a zero-day attack that would manifest itself in 2-5 years, Google vs FTC style, and the mitigation strategy was providing the appearance of welcome arms++ to the tyranny of a board that makes kneejerk decisions, and having those open arms be rejected by the (natural) out-pour of sentiment.
The end result is identical, and Microsoft turned a zero-day attack into an irrefutable defense for any future FTC lawsuit.
+24 hours - Nadella announcing the creation of an internal OpenAI and automatic employment offers to all OpenAI employees. Seems sensible. Microsoft's investment in OpenAI entitles them to 75% of all of OpenAI's net profit until they make their whole $13B investment back, not to mention retain ownership of 49% of OpenAI. Too much capital to play chess with, the division/auto-hire announcement still feels like it must have been done with a lot of hesitation and picking the least awful option, but what else? If the conclusion is that OpenAI's board is prepared to sabotage the company -- and the exceptionally vague (=> bullshit) reasoning OpenAI published for his termination supports that conclusion -- there's no other option.
But +48-72 hours, this is perhaps when the "holy shit" moment happened -- Bing's lifelong irrelevance as a consumer product and sudden ascension to relevance as Google's defense in an extremely serious lawsuit, and at least Google organically beat the other search engines.
The Microsoft board realized hemorrhaging OpenAI, whilst also probably owning xx% of all H100's (arguably the defining competitive advantage of GPT-as-a-Service co's), would almost definitely lead to them being in Google's predicament years down the line. By then, the FTC will not care that the "trigger" all those years ago was a board that became frantic about AGI, with Microsoft merely rescuing a ship that self-sabotaged.
So the chess started here, Ctrl+Z'ing everything, the overtly outward displays of compassion, some genuine, some perhaps encouraged, and everyone - including Sam - is back on the same page that Microsoft needs to back off, but crucially it has to appear as a reunification stemming from within OpenAI.
It is precisely at this point, in this chain of events, that the opportunity emerges for a OpenAI board replacement, with Sam being firmly on it, that is in line with Microsofts deep (arguably trauma-laden) desire to finally be the dominant player in something other than desktop operating systems.
No source, I doubt there will ever be, but this speculation of events, to me, lines up most with the actions of the parties involved.
But of course, what is the alternative?
Consumer choice? doubt it Self-governance? clearly not Crypto? lol
Fission reactors. Human cloning. Nuremberg code for medical ethics in general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor
> PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is pumped under high pressure to the reactor core where it is heated by the energy released by the fission of atoms.
When people say "fission reactor" do they mean something else?
Nuclear energy, stem cell and DNA-based research, consumer supersonic flight, NIMBYism and zoning regulation, patent regulation-enabled trolling, copyright abuse, the tragic story of Google Books, fracking, the lack of technology innovation in post-WWII Europe, any historical or current example of communism, etc. I could go on.
Innovation only happens in risk-tolerant and fair markets. A good rule of thumb: Regulation encourages innovation when it supports risk-taking and supports fairness. It stifles innovation when trying to reduce risks or reduce fairness by preferencing incumbent winners.
* A legal structure for the joint effort of some tycoons, because they need a structure?
* Tax advantages for the donors?
* Attract some top talent, which happened to be idealistic?
* Some PR shield they thought they might need?
* Genuine interest in the non-profit's charter?
2. Whatever the original purpose of there being a non-profit, what percentage of the current people there are aligned with that? (Rather than preferring being at a for-profit?)
3. With the company higher-profile now, with huge monetary valuation, and a national security/dominance asset, and much of the value committed to MS... who actually wants there to be a non-profit? (Only a handful of idealists, maybe a few structure officials, and maybe MS?)
All these forks and branches might eventually become different settlements, solar systems, multiverses... it's all information, and each world an experiment unto itself.
Morality can't be stuck in the pre-industrial era, and our current religions aren't really well suited for questions of matter and energy, consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, scaling thought past biological bottlenecks, etc.
I'm really excited about this future, even (or especially) if it means the end of human dominance. Life will find a way :D
"I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side."
Ending up with something even remotely like a Culture Mind would be pretty awesome to me...
#FullyAutomatedLuxuryGaySpaceCommunism
Thing is, it doesn't work. The primary purpose of religion is to tackle questions that are metaphysical in nature; to provide an explanation for the deep mysteries of life. To most believers, God isn't a comic book character that's worshipped solely because he is powerful -- He is worshipped as the first mover, the alpha and omega, beyond all constraint -- and the mere fact of His existence explains their own. (He created them in His image, etc.) An AI, however advanced, would be an infinitely lesser being; nothing more than a powerful agent, constrained and embedded alongside us in space and time.
Others say it's primary purpose is making large groups of people collaborate instead of fight each other.
Or you could use an AI to synthesize an entirely new religion, complete with its own distant god and its own completed metaphysics -- but that might be a hard sell. In this case, the AI itself is not the object of worship, but it takes upon itself the role of prophet and evangelist to some fiction it has concocted. It would be interesting, though, that's for sure.
If humans did manage to create an artificial being with seemingly magical powers, I don't see why it wouldn't develop a religion around it. Even if the being is not God in itself, it could be argued that mankind's existence has become explained by the divine imperative to bring this superior being into the universe.
[0] heck, given the echoes of polytheism from earlier eras, I'd argue that the entity in the Bible (especially the earlier parts) isn't even really the Christian God as seen today by self-identified Christians.
The idea of the God as something outside existence is recent history. Humans are hardwired to worship kings and prophets as gods. AI will be no different, probably a lot more convincing even.
Ian Banks' Culture series takes this idea to the extreme, feels like it's getting more relevant by the day in the past week.
Well, Minds are friendly, so I'd take it.
A tendency that would take humanity a few hundred years backward, that's such a shame.
Laziness will prevail when immediacy and cargo cult tribalism are the most potent currency.
Not in this case - AI, singularitanism and transhumanism have had cultish, neo-religious elements to them for decades. All we're seeing now is the seeds that Ray Kurzewil, Rudy Rucker and others planted ages ago bearing fruit now that technology actually seems to be catching up to people's fears.
I'm not claiming it is, just that it seems to be.
You may find this interview interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTJR9vqWB4
I don't think there's anything particularly mystical about that, but I suppose you could say that its spirituality-adjacent in the way that all great things are.
I’d question whether it is “undeniable”, but I do think this sounds like the exact sort of foundational mythology necessary to establish a religion oriented around AI.
If anyone has ever said anything cynical ever I think this beats it.
Biology is amazing.
>What are you hoping will be understood.
Understanding is like the apparent horizon. The closer you get the further away you realize it is. There will always be more to understand, we will just reach a point where our little monkey minds are incapable of holding enough 'state' to grasp for the next step. I say that as a monkey who is awfully fond of my own little monkey mind.
Improvements to understanding always seem obvious after they're made and it always seema like you have a mostly complete worldview right up until you realize you don't. That's how it works.
If you can explain to me from base principles why the fine structure constant has the value it does, or why there is such a pronounced baryon asymmetry or any of the many big open questions in basic physics I will acquiesce the point.
Being ignorant of the big questions doesn't mean big questions don't exist, only that you don't know about them yet.
If not, then all the answers are variations on each other. To be fair, in some sense that project has already broken down. We have 'fields' in empty space, 'virtual' particles, correlation over distances where causation is not possible, and other things that, basically, are inconceivable.
Which players have the better tensor chips?
1. Apple 2. Google 3. NVIDIA 4. SAMA if his side chip startup gets going 5. Microsoft
As the bet would not be SoC tensor specific but overall the full stack of it..
By posting this additional comment you just made it sink even lower, good job!
They only sent a letter after Ilya signed it.
Power is distributed amongst Ilya, Brockman, Altman and the board. The other big player, which asserted itself quite plainly during this episode was ofc the team itself.
Altman is progressive, Brockman is center, Ilya is conservative and the board(should be) independent. Not sure where Mira Murati is at. Probably center with Brockman.
I'm guessing the team is highly diverse in loyalty, operating more like a family with a rather adorable coparenting arrangement than a corporation.
Seems overall everyone loves everyone. It's a high stakes mission that brought out some serious tension. All parties have strong feelings. Hell... I would.
If McKinsey was on track to sell armies of consultants for 20 bucks a month possibly as soon as the next 10 years... The stakes get high real quick.