OpenAI Debacle - Update (03/01): Elmo sues OpenAI for...uhhhh..."reasons"

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

@Bacon - Larry Summers is Bill Clinton's former Secretary of the Treasury (and President of Harvard University) whose solution to the increase in inflation over the last couple of years essentially amounted to "more people should lose their jobs".

[SuperSpreader]

3 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

@Bacon - Larry Summers is Bill Clinton's former Secretary of the Treasury (and President of Harvard University) whose solution to the increase in inflation over the last couple of years essentially amounted to "more people should lose their jobs".

 

I nominate Summers as first tribute 

[Ominous]

Has anyone asked the AI who should be in charge yet?

[Bacon]

15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

@Bacon - Larry Summers is Bill Clinton's former Secretary of the Treasury (and President of Harvard University) whose solution to the increase in inflation over the last couple of years essentially amounted to "more people should lose their jobs".

Yeap, he has the face of a guy who'd say that.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

MSFT stock price still hanging out in near all-time peak territory.

[finaljedi]

2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

@Bacon - Larry Summers is Bill Clinton's former Secretary of the Treasury (and President of Harvard University) whose solution to the increase in inflation over the last couple of years essentially amounted to "more people should lose their jobs".

 

I honestly wish he would just go away, but he keeps burbling up from wherever every couple years to be awful.

[TwinIon]

So Sam is back as CEO, and the new board will be bigger, less concerned with the non-profit mission, almost certainly include some MS representation, and likely allow Altman to do whatever he wants.

 

Not a super entertaining outcome from all this for all this. I still desperately want to know more about why the board fired him in the first place.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, TwinIon said:

I still desperately want to know more about why the board fired him in the first place.

 

You and everyone else who has been following this rather quite entertaining saga!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Read Microsoft’s internal memo about the chaos at OpenAI - The Verge

WWW.THEVERGE.COM

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The memo doesn’t mention Microsoft’s promised new AI lab.

 

Quote

 

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, OpenAI announced that Sam Altman is returning as CEO, following a shock firing on Friday. Over the weekend, it looked like Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman might end up at Microsoft, leading a new AI research lab. But after days of negotiation, that’s no longer the case and OpenAI has appointed a new board of directors and brought back Altman as CEO of the company.

 

After a weekend of chaotic scenes, including hundreds of OpenAI employees threatening to quit and join Microsoft, things seem to be settling down. Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI Kevin Scott has now addressed Microsoft employees about the OpenAI turmoil. It’s the first company-wide communication to Microsoft employees about the situation, beyond CEO Satya

 

Nadella’s announcement of Altman’s hiring not hiring on Sunday and the initial reaction to the news on Friday. The Verge has obtained the memo, posted to Microsoft’s internal employee forum. Here it is in full:

As you’ve likely seen by now, OpenAl has appointed a new board of directors. Sam Altman and Greg Brockman have agreed to return to OpenAl with Sam as CEO. The events of the past few days have been uncertain for our colleagues at OpenAl, and of intense interest to many others. Throughout, nothing has changed or wavered about our resolve and focus to deliver the world’s best Al technology platforms and products to our customers and partners. We will continue to support our colleagues at OpenAl and the phenomenal work they’ve been doing alongside us in service of that mission. As we have for these past 4+ years, we look forward to continuing our work with Sam and his team.

 

Despite the potential of the past few days to distract us, both Microsoft and OpenAl scientists and engineers have been working with undiminished urgency. Since Friday, Azure has deployed new Al compute, our newly formed MSR Al Frontiers organization published their new cutting-edge research Orca 2, and OpenAl continued to ship product like the new voice features in ChatGPT that rolled out yesterday. Any of these things alone would have been the accomplishment of a quarter for normal teams. Three such achievements in a week, with a major US holiday and with a huge amount of noise surrounding us, speaks volumes to the commitment, focus, and sense of urgency that everyone has. It is both humbling and inspiring to be part of such an amazing team at Microsoft, and to have the privilege of working with the team at OpenAl.

 

On behalf of the SLT [senior leadership team], thank you all for your resolve, and to the huge number of people who went above and beyond over the past few days to help in so many ways: we are enormously grateful.

 

 

[Jason]

This feels suspiciously like the OpenAI people got an early showing of the new For All Mankind season.

[UpvoteShittyTakesOnly]

we really were robbed of a much more hilarious outcome

[stepee]

Does Ilya still work there after all this?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

13 minutes ago, stepee said:

Does Ilya still work there after all this?

 

At the moment, there's nothing suggesting that he doesn't work there.

[stepee]

Just now, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

At the moment, there's nothing suggesting that he doesn't work there.

 

Well that was my theory. DAMNIT WHAT HAPPENED.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Exclusive: OpenAI researchers warned board of AI breakthrough ahead of CEO ouster, sources say | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

 

Quote

 

Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

 

The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm was a key development ahead of the board's ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. Before his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft (MSFT.O) in solidarity with their fired leader.

 

The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board that led to Altman’s firing. Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter. The researchers who wrote the letter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

According to one of the sources, long-time executive Mira Murati mentioned the project, called Q*, to employees on Wednesday and said that a letter was sent to the board prior to this weekend's events.

 

 

Quote

 

The maker of ChatGPT had made progress on Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some internally believe could be a breakthrough in the startup's search for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans

 

Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Though only performing math on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.

 

Reuters could not independently verify the capabilities of Q* claimed by the researchers.

 

 

Quote

 

SUPERINTELLIGENCE

 

Researchers consider math to be a frontier of generative AI development. Currently, generative AI is good at writing and language translation by statistically predicting the next word, and answers to the same question can vary widely. But conquering the ability to do math — where there is only one right answer — implies AI would have greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe.

 

Unlike a calculator that can solve a limited number of operations, AGI can generalize, learn and comprehend.

 

In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. There has long been discussion among computer scientists about the danger posed by superintelligent machines, for instance if they might decide that the destruction of humanity was in their interest.

 

Against this backdrop, Altman led efforts to make ChatGPT one of the fastest growing software applications in history and drew investment - and computing resources - necessary from Microsoft to get closer to superintelligence, or AGI.

 

In addition to announcing a slew of new tools in a demonstration this month, Altman last week teased at a gathering of world leaders in San Francisco that he believed AGI was in sight.

 

"Four times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple weeks, I've gotten to be in the room, when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward, and getting to do that is the professional honor of a lifetime," he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

 

A day later, the board fired Altman.

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

[CitizenVectron]

The OpenAI people are already the true believers who think they are fighting the first phase of the Terminator future war. Some of the board already believe that GPT has gained some kind of sentience. They are nuts.

[chakoo]

What is OpenAI, Really?

NEWSLETTER.PRAGMATICENGINEER.COM

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It’s been five incredibly turbulent days at the leading AI tech company, with the exit and then return of CEO Sam Altman. As we dig into what went wrong, an even bigger question looms: what is OpenAI?

 

[Kal-El814]

Tired: WE'RE ALL GONNA BE PAPERCLIPS, SKYNET, REJECT MODERNITY

 

Wired:

 

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

FUTURISM.COM

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Sports Illustrated was publishing articles under seemingly fake bylines. We asked their owner about it — and they deleted everything.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Tired: WE'RE ALL GONNA BE PAPERCLIPS, SKYNET, REJECT MODERNITY

 

Wired:

 

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

FUTURISM.COM

---

Sports Illustrated was publishing articles under seemingly fake bylines. We asked their owner about it — and they deleted everything.

 

 

OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO @ this picture of "Drew Ortiz"

 

 

Quote

The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he's described as "neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes."

 

 

OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

"DOMINO ABRAMS" 

 

[Kal-El814]

37 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO @ this picture of "Drew Ortiz"

 

 

 

 

OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO

 

33 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

"DOMINO ABRAMS" 

 

 

Fucking Skyrim NPCs writing for SI, Jesus Christ.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

From my own personal experience in seeking out gaming-related articles to post, the plethora of PAINFULLY OBVIOUS LLM-generated sludge has increased exponentially within the last few months with the gaming section of SI being one of the worst offenders. 

[Kal-El814]

5 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

From my own personal experience in seeking out gaming-related articles to post, the plethora of PAINFULLY OBVIOUS LLM-generated sludge has increased exponentially within the last few months with the gaming section of SI being one of the worst offenders. 

 

There’s so much gaming of SEO going on, it’s genuinely fucking terrible. For the umpteenth time, whenever someone complains about youths today spending time on TikTok or whatever, I try to remind them that they have decades of accumulated experience that makes google usable for them that younger people simply do not. There are issues on those platforms too, of course, but it is often MUCH easier to find relevant results there if you’re looking for random bullshit.

[TwinIon]

4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

From my own personal experience in seeking out gaming-related articles to post, the plethora of PAINFULLY OBVIOUS LLM-generated sludge has increased exponentially within the last few months with the gaming section of SI being one of the worst offenders. 

I've been seeing this as well and it's getting out of control. The thing I've run into a few times recently is looking for some piece of information, finding an answer on IGN or other site I mostly trust, but their answer is wrong or incomplete, and then finding nothing but pages and pages of generated content that is wrong in the exact same way. For low stakes stuff about games, it's annoying and disappointing, but it must be happening all over the place and serving audiences that don't understand what is going on.

[CitizenVectron]

Search on the internet is basically dead thanks to the gaming of SEO and Google's unwillingness to actually fix it. TikTok is the best platform currently for finding helpful content, even though it's unfortunately in video form. Though we all know the jokes about trying to find recipes online and having to sift through AI-generated essays ("This is the best apple pie recipe. Before I list the ingredients, let me first tell you about why pie helped my family move to the new world from Romania. You see, my grandmother loved..."), the worst thing is trying to find specific issues with consumer products like phones or TVs. Unless you are already aware of a good forum (of which most are dying/have died out), then you're SOL. And with reddit looking to do away with webcrawlers...good luck even appending "reddit" to your searches in the future.

 

The golden age of the internet is long behind us, in terms of it being a useful platform for the dissemination of knowledge. 

[TwinIon]

56 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Tired: WE'RE ALL GONNA BE PAPERCLIPS, SKYNET, REJECT MODERNITY

 

Wired:

 

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

FUTURISM.COM

---

Sports Illustrated was publishing articles under seemingly fake bylines. We asked their owner about it — and they deleted everything.

 

This is so terrible and so much worse than what I've seen before. I've heard of newsrooms that were told about AI content getting posted, and I've heard of newsrooms where AI content was getting posted without consulting actual writers, but coming up with full on fake identities is wild. It also seems like it's inevitable that the digital trail that the Futurism reporters looked for will be easily faked too. How long before these fictitious writers actually have a Facebook account?

 

I've made fun of cypto in general and worldcoin specifically, and I'm not backtracking on any of it, but I suddenly understand why they think an ID system that just verifies that there's a person would have some value. It's still a bad idea, and if SI is going to invent profiles for fake writers, the existence of some blockchain blue check isn't going to solve anything, but at least I can see what they might be after.

 

This is also one of those times where I wish that government could be an answer. I'd love Elizabeth Warren or the EU to step in with some governmental overreach that would help this, but I just can't imagine it actually mattering. Yeah, you could try and force companies to label what is AI created, but there's no way to actually police it. Maybe it would help at least a little, to the point it would keep big publications in line, but really it would probably just end with these companies paying a patsy a few bucks instead of inventing them.

[legend]

The real fun begins when new generative models are trained on old generative model content.

 

 

[Kal-El814]

7 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I've been seeing this as well and it's getting out of control. The thing I've run into a few times recently is looking for some piece of information, finding an answer on IGN or other site I mostly trust, but their answer is wrong or incomplete, and then finding nothing but pages and pages of generated content that is wrong in the exact same way. For low stakes stuff about games, it's annoying and disappointing, but it must be happening all over the place and serving audiences that don't understand what is going on.

 

I dunno that I agree that gaming is "low stakes." In comparison to something like flat earth / dietary misinformation it's of a lesser concern sure, but the well being poisoned for a multibillion dollar industry that often targets the time and money of children is really bad. Stuff like professional sports, TV, movies, etc., are diversions too, but historically journalism has helped keep professional leagues accountable, covered scandals, exposed conflicts of interest, etc. It's not been perfect of course, but it's been important. Gaming never really got the same attention, and the online media about it coming to be dominated by shit gobbling robots is not going to help things. Independent journalism like People Make Games covering Roblox is important, but it should be a huge fucking deal that one of the largest and most popular games gets its publisher rich based largely on the effort of children!

 

1 minute ago, TwinIon said:

This is so terrible and so much worse than what I've seen before. I've heard of newsrooms that were told about AI content getting posted, and I've heard of newsrooms where AI content was getting posted without consulting actual writers, but coming up with full on fake identities is wild. It also seems like it's inevitable that the digital trail that the Futurism reporters looked for will be easily faked too. How long before these fictitious writers actually have a Facebook account?

 

I've made fun of cypto in general and worldcoin specifically, and I'm not backtracking on any of it, but I suddenly understand why they think an ID system that just verifies that there's a person would have some value. It's still a bad idea, and if SI is going to invent profiles for fake writers, the existence of some blockchain blue check isn't going to solve anything, but at least I can see what they might be after.

 

This is also one of those times where I wish that government could be an answer. I'd love Elizabeth Warren or the EU to step in with some governmental overreach that would help this, but I just can't imagine it actually mattering. Yeah, you could try and force companies to label what is AI created, but there's no way to actually police it. Maybe it would help at least a little, to the point it would keep big publications in line, but really it would probably just end with these companies paying a patsy a few bucks instead of inventing them.

 

Yeah I really have no idea what can be done. It's all in the interest of corporate profits and all of these corpos are failing the marshmallow test pretty dramatically.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, legend said:

The real fun begins when new generative models are trained on old generative model content.

 

 

We'll end up with the generative model equivalent of Habsburg dynastic inbreeding:

 

[legend]

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

We'll end up with the generative model equivalent of Habsburg dynastic inbreeding:

 

 

There is research that looked at this for image generators. The outcome was not good!

Probably exists for language models too, but I don't recall any.

[legend]

7 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I've made fun of cypto in general and worldcoin specifically, and I'm not backtracking on any of it, but I suddenly understand why they think an ID system that just verifies that there's a person would have some value. It's still a bad idea, and if SI is going to invent profiles for fake writers, the existence of some blockchain blue check isn't going to solve anything, but at least I can see what they might be after.

 

Incidentally, verification without exposing identity is technologically simple without the blockchain. The main hurdle is making sure an org is actually doing the vetting in the first place.

 

You just need good old-fashioned signing. No blockchain needed. And with the advent of Passkey tech, this might get *much* easier to use in practice. I even have some designs I've been thinking about as part of my "I want to re-invent how we publish" overly ambitious plans that will never happen  

[Jason]

18 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Search on the internet is basically dead thanks to the gaming of SEO and Google's unwillingness to actually fix it. TikTok is the best platform currently for finding helpful content, even though it's unfortunately in video form. Though we all know the jokes about trying to find recipes online and having to sift through AI-generated essays ("This is the best apple pie recipe. Before I list the ingredients, let me first tell you about why pie helped my family move to the new world from Romania. You see, my grandmother loved..."), the worst thing is trying to find specific issues with consumer products like phones or TVs. Unless you are already aware of a good forum (of which most are dying/have died out), then you're SOL. And with reddit looking to do away with webcrawlers...good luck even appending "reddit" to your searches in the future.

 

The golden age of the internet is long behind us, in terms of it being a useful platform for the dissemination of knowledge. 

 

This is among the reasons I hate people saying "lol just use Discord". It's not indexed by search engines, Discord's internal search function is pretty shitty, and you have to search one server at a time, assuming you even know what servers to join. 

[Kal-El814]

5 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

This is among the reasons I hate people saying "lol just use Discord". It's not indexed by search engines, Discord's internal search function is pretty shitty, and you have to search one server at a time, assuming you even know what servers to join. 

 

Discord is great for small communities, chat with the same, and with certain games / industries, troubleshooting or assistance. Anything beyond that it's fucking terrible, and the fact that a lot of people use it as de facto wiki / website replacements is absolute shit. I appreciate that it's easier to build and maintain for a lot of people, but it's still awful.

[legend]

27 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Discord is great for small communities, chat with the same, and with certain games / industries, troubleshooting or assistance. Anything beyond that it's fucking terrible, and the fact that a lot of people use it as de facto wiki / website replacements is absolute shit. I appreciate that it's easier to build and maintain for a lot of people, but it's still awful.

 

Agreed. I've found there is a sweet spot in community size for discord for technical discussion Q&As. Too small, and no one is around or the right people aren't there to respond. Too big and any topic/question you bring up gets easily lost the fire hose of messages. (Which I've observed on both sides of the Q and A).