If Elon hadn't pulled the rug out from under them after they refused his forceful takeover*, they wouldn't have had to go to Microsoft and they'd still be open.
* a takeover which he predicated on the claim that OpenAI was "doomed to fail"
Elon promised 1 Billion, and so OpenAI was able to be Open.
But then just 10% into that commitment Elon in the biggest miss of the century, tried to imply that OpenAI was falling behind Google, and wanted to take complete control of the company. However OpenAI took a lot of very smart people looking at what was best for their mission, and rightly refused to let him retroactively turn a 100M dollar donation into a purchase agreement.
And then to double down on his folly, he reneged on the rest of the funding and abandoned his post on a technicality: "Tesla is now AI [ha!] so I can't be on this board despite having just tried to take over the whole thing."
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Without his funding OpenAI did something very sensible and went looking for new partners. It turns out billions for non-proven ideas don't come by easily, and so they ended up with Microsoft: And unlike Elon, Microsoft was upfront! They wanted premier access, they wanted it to be a secret sauce, and that was the deal OpenAI settled for.
Elon's actions in this situation are by far the most "disgusting" thing here. It's like a child trying to kick down a sand castle because "you guys are using my bucket and I don't like what you're building!".
As OpenAI's bet proves 100% right and just completely spits in the face of the hubris he displayed with "you guys are failing and need me to take over", he gets increasingly more outspoken about it in an incredibly childish display of sour grapes.
But then again, can you blame him? He's since admitted that by reneging on the 1 B offer and departing based on a self-invented conflict of interest, he had to cash out immediately. So not only was his wrong, but as OpenAI shapes up to be the biggest thing to happen to computing in the last decade (something he tried to paint Tesla as being about to do!), he's also realizing he gave up on a stake in that. I can't even imagine the gut punch it must be.
Whether it is Elon or Altman that controls it has nothing to do with how open or not openAI is. And it has become very clear that OpenAI is nothing but Microsoft in a trenchcoat.
No matter his motives, I applaud this lawsuit. Who cares if his talk doesn't match his action? His action, here, is good.
You would have an argument if Elon Musk didn't attempted to take over OpenAI, and proceeded to abandon it after his attempts were rejected and he complained the organization was going nowhere.
I don't think Elon Musk has a case or holds the moral high ground. It sounds like he's just pissed he committed a colossal error of analysis and is now trying to rewrite history to hide his screwups.
He was for OpenAI at least, he recruited key members and convinced them to go get big funding which they did seek from Microsoft instead of Elon himself. Likely OpenAI wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his involvement, they did break off from him since he wanted too much control not because he didn't help them.
That's a blatant lie, but I don't expect much better from people defending Elon at this point:
Elon promises Open AI 1 Billion dollars
=> 10% into that commitment Elon tries to take over the company.
=> Is rebuked by Sam Altman and co.
=> Elon reneges on the funding for Open and Transparent AI and walks away.
=> OpenAI goes to Microsoft to replace Elon's money
=> Microsoft gets to define terms and "Open and Transparent" is no more.
Oh yeah... and Google goes on to make Elon look like an absolute fool by proving that no, OpenAI was not falling behind Google: OpenAI behind behind is the absolutely hilarious excuse he tried to use to take over.
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I don't know how clueless you need to be to call OpenAI's move a bait-and-switch: The only bait and switch was Elon offering 1 Billion dollars as a donation, then trying to turn that into a takeover.
That's morally disgusting behavior, not trying to save your company after a petulant child tried to sink it because you didn't let him turn it into his pet.
OpenAI went downhill fast after Elon left the board of directors due to a "conflict of interest" with Tesla. I don't know if he would have allowed the for-profit restructuring after giving them so much money precisely so that it didn't need profits for AI research. It probably also didn't help that he poached Karpathy from them and put him in charge of Tesla's AI efforts. So it's no surprise that there is a lot of potiential beef here.
What do you mean he shouldn't have bothered. Quick recap:
1. OpenAI was founded to study and create AI/AGI as a non-profit with Elon pledging half a billion, and other investors also pledging.
2. A fraction of the funds are wired. Elon waits until this "grant" is almost spent and places an ultimatum "make me CEO or you don't get a cent."
3. Board (back then made of different people) says "scram". He resigns and takes his money.
4. OpenAI scrambles to find sources of funding. Microsoft is interested.
5. They create the for-profit branch owned by the not-for-profit company to deal with Microsoft's projects and investment.
So in that sequence of events, no one had a choice. Elon lied to them and tried to force their hand, they chose integrity and had to find a way to survive or cease to exist.
Let him have his "OpenAI exists because of me". Unlike other projects where he claims to be a co-founder (but wasn't), in this one he was a co-founder. The fact he started bending arms and insisting on full control and they kicked him out was the best thing to happen to OpenAI though.
It seems they are unhappy about OpenAI as a single company entity getting all that power. It doesn't seem clear enough to them that OpenAI wouldn't just snowball leaving others aside.
This was essentially already in the cards as a possible outcome when Microsoft made it's big investment in OpenAI, so in my view it was a reasonable outcome at this juncture as well. For Microsoft, it's just Nokia in reverse.
If you looked at sama's actions and not his words, he seems intent on maximizing his power, control and prestige (new yorker profile, press blitzes, making a constant effort to rub shoulders with politicians/power players, worldcoin etc). I think getting in bed with Microsoft with the early investment would have allowed sama to entertain the possibility that he could succeed Satya at Microsoft some time in the distant future; that is, in the event that OpenAI never became as big or bigger than Microsoft (his preferred goal presumably) -- and everything else went mostly right for him. After all, he's always going on about how much money is needed for AGI. He wanted more direct access to the money. Now he has it.
Ultimately, this shows how little sama cared for the OpenAI charter to begin with, specifically the part about benefiting all humanity and preventing an unduly concentration of power. He didn’t start his own separate company because the talent was at OpenAI. He wanted to poach the talent, not obey the charter.
Peter Hintjens (ZeroMQ, RIP) wrote a book called "The Psychopath Code", where he posits that psychopaths are attracted to jobs with access to vulnerable people [0]. Selfless talented idealists who do not chase status and prestige can be vulnerable to manipulation. Perhaps that's why Musk pulled out of OpenAI, him and sama were able to recognize the narcissist in each other and put their guard up accordingly. As Altman says, "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”[1] Perhaps this apply to him as well.
Amusingly, someone recently posted an old tweet by pg: "The most surprising thing I've learned from being involved with nonprofits is that they are a magnet for sociopaths."[1] As others in the thread noted, if true, it's up for debate whether this applies more to sama or Ilya. Time will tell I guess.
It'll also be interesting to see what assurances were given to sama et al about being exempt from Microsoft's internal red tape. Prior to this, Microsoft had at least a little plausible deniability if OpenAI was ever embroiled in controversy regarding its products. They won't have that luxury with sama's team in-house anymore.
I don't understand why you putting the blame on the board, instead of the CEO, who:
1. is way more responsible for the direction the company deviated to
2. was in fight against the board, who did not like his direction
3. will be in the new company leading everything.
So all the bad that you criticize OpenAI for would leave to MS, and yet people are still cheering for it.
"...And Musk proposed a possible solution: He would take control of OpenAI and run it himself.
Altman and OpenAI’s other founders rejected Musk’s proposal. Musk, in turn, walked away from the company — and reneged on a massive planned donation. The fallout from that conflict, culminating in the announcement of Musk’s departure on Feb 20, 2018..."
My impression is it was more a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it rather than love for Sam. I mean OpenAI was maybe the world's hottest tech company with many employees about to get rich through share sales and there were proposals to largely destroy that. I can understand how employees would be against.
"A feud over the direction of OpenAI led Musk to step down from the board in 2018"
So, voluntary departure, but it's clear that Sam won some kind of battle over the future of OpenAI. Not sure what their differences were, but Musk has repeatedly commented how not open OpenAI has become.
Not enough people understand what OpenAI was actually built on.
OpenAI would not exist if FAANG had been capable of getting out of it's own way and shipping things. The moment OpenAI starts acting like the companies these people left, it's a no brainer that they'll start looking for the door.
I'm sure Ilya has 10 lifetimes more knowledge than me locked away in his mind on topics I don't even know exist... but the last 72 hours are the most brain dead actions I've ever seen out of the leadership of a company.
This isn't even cutting your own nose of to spite the face: this is like slashing your own tires to avoid going in the wrong direction.
The only possible justification would have been some jailable offense from Sam Altman, and ironically their initial release almost seemed to want to hint that before they were forced to explicitly state that wasn't the case. At the point where you're forced to admit you surprise fired your CEO for relatively benign reasons how much must have gone completely sideways to land you in that position?
"This time he was ousted because he was hindering the pursuit of the company's non-profit mission. "
This is what is being said. But I am not so sure, if the real reasons discussed behind closed doors, are really the same. We will find out, if OpenAI will indeed open itself more, till then I remain sceptical. Because lots of power and money are at stake here.
He went off trying to raise money from the Middle East to create a startup he would have controlled trying to make AI accelerator hardware. The conflict of interest vs what OpenAI was doing was absurd. Don't thieve from one startup to build your own next startup.
Given AIs power and hype & control over people, maybe also don't go about trying to disrupt the industry with a bunch of anti-Democracy sovereign powers. Maybe stay a little closer to home.
There's so much general banter in comments about ownership & what to do/what not to do. Little of it is specific to what happened here. Don't undermine your startup by creating a new startup thats going to overtake & subjugate your current startup. The people running the current one don't want to be devoured.
> OpenAI is a sinking ship as long as the board members go ahead with their new CEO and Sam, Greg are not returning
Far from certain. One, they still control a lot of money and cloud credits. Two, they can credibly threaten to license to a competitor or even open source everything, thereby destroying the unique value of the work.
> without all the regulatory headaches of a formal acquisition
If Elon hadn't pulled the rug out from under them after they refused his forceful takeover*, they wouldn't have had to go to Microsoft and they'd still be open.
* a takeover which he predicated on the claim that OpenAI was "doomed to fail"
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