Am I understanding correctly that recent revelations from Ilya’s deposition (e.g. looking at the parts here) suggest Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati seem like very selfish and/or cowardly people? They seem approximately as scheming or manipulative as Sam Altman, if maybe more cowardly and less competent.
My understanding from is that they were basically wholly responsible for causing the board to try to fire Sam Altman. But when it went south, they actively sabotaged the firing (e.g. Mira disavowing it and trying to retain her role, Ilya saying he regrets it) and then let Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, and effective altruism / AI safety take the blame almost completely, for years (as Zvi notes in the post linked above). I think this is a really really bad thing to do!
What did Sam Altman do? Like, what are the top two things that he did that make you say that? That will maybe sound absolutely wild to you, but I’m still not convinced Sam Altman did anything bad. It’s possible, sure, but based on the depositions, it’s far from clear IMO.
Edit: unless you mean the for-profit conversion, but I understood you to be talking about the board drama specifically.
No, the many cases we have of Sam lying to people. Including in this case the part where he seems to have lied to board members about what other board members believed.
it’s notable that ilya only caved very late into the incident, when it was all but certain that the board had lost
That’s not my impression?
I obviously don’t know the internal details, presumably there was stuff going on behind the senes. But the threat of all the employees maybe leaving (note that the letter they signed didn’t say that thy would leave, only that they would be forced to consider it) did not seem to me to be that strong of a threat.
The board could, to my knowledge, have just stuck to their guns and kept Sam fired. This might or might not have destroyed the company, but I weakly guess not. And even if it had, Ilya and Mira would not clearly be worse off than they ended up.
Do we have a two-sentence summary on what the EAs could have done better, with hindsight? Overall it was a pretty catastrophic outcome to lose all their power on the board AND become the scapegoat, and I’m not sure what lesson to draw. Inasmuch as Ilya/Mira were less reliable allies than the board thought, maybe we should think they misjudged the situation
I think the answer is either “you don’t know enough about the specifics to have actionable advice” or “return to basic principles”. I generally think that, had they been open about Altman blatantly lying to the board about things, and that Murati and Sutskever were the leaders of the firing, then I think there would’ve been (a) less scapegoating and (b) it would’ve been more likely that Altman would’ve failed his coup.
But I don’t know the details to be confident about actionable advice here.
Make sure the people on the board of OpenAI were not catastrophically naive about corporate politics and public relations? Or, make sure they understand their naïveté well enough to get professional advice beforehand? I just reread the press release and can still barely believe how badly they effed it up.
Being cowardly and being scheming are not the same thing. Being scheming is about having a plan and executing it. Being cowardly is about being afraid and acting based on the fear.
I agree, but I think both occurred. they had a long-term secret plan and tried to execute it (a scheme), and then when it went poorly they acted based on fear (or possible just complete disregard for the truth and interests of others).
From what I understand, they executed a risky maneuver, lost, tried to salvage what they could from the wreckage (by pinning the blame on someone else), but got pushed out anyway. So I can see where you’re getting “scheming or manipulative” (them trying this scheme), “less competent” than Altman (losing to him), and “very selfish” (blaming other people). But where are you getting “cowardly” from? From their attempt at minimizing their losses after it became clear their initial plan had become exceeding unlikely to succeed? If so, I’d say it speaks to how poorly you think of valor if you believe it precludes so sensible an action.
“cowardly” because my strong guess is that their actions were driven by fear of social censure rather than calculated attempts to minimize losses. If they were trying to minimize losses to their non-selfish goals of ousting Sam A, who I think they believed to be a bad and dangerous actor, that would have been better served by coming clean about why they did what they did.
Am I understanding correctly that recent revelations from Ilya’s deposition (e.g. looking at the parts here) suggest Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati seem like very selfish and/or cowardly people? They seem approximately as scheming or manipulative as Sam Altman, if maybe more cowardly and less competent.
My understanding from is that they were basically wholly responsible for causing the board to try to fire Sam Altman. But when it went south, they actively sabotaged the firing (e.g. Mira disavowing it and trying to retain her role, Ilya saying he regrets it) and then let Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, and effective altruism / AI safety take the blame almost completely, for years (as Zvi notes in the post linked above). I think this is a really really bad thing to do!
Am I understanding this correctly?
Yep, what they did seem pretty cowardly. I do also think it really wasn’t on the same level as what Sam did.
What did Sam Altman do? Like, what are the top two things that he did that make you say that? That will maybe sound absolutely wild to you, but I’m still not convinced Sam Altman did anything bad. It’s possible, sure, but based on the depositions, it’s far from clear IMO.
Edit: unless you mean the for-profit conversion, but I understood you to be talking about the board drama specifically.
Can you spell out what you mean here? Doing the jujitsu move where he mobilized the company to threaten to maybe quit if he wasn’t reinstated?
No, the many cases we have of Sam lying to people. Including in this case the part where he seems to have lied to board members about what other board members believed.
it’s notable that ilya only caved very late into the incident, when it was all but certain that the board had lost
That’s not my impression?
I obviously don’t know the internal details, presumably there was stuff going on behind the senes. But the threat of all the employees maybe leaving (note that the letter they signed didn’t say that thy would leave, only that they would be forced to consider it) did not seem to me to be that strong of a threat.
The board could, to my knowledge, have just stuck to their guns and kept Sam fired. This might or might not have destroyed the company, but I weakly guess not. And even if it had, Ilya and Mira would not clearly be worse off than they ended up.
This article said that it involved quite a bit of direct personal pressure and that his reversal was pivotal (but it may not be very accurate).
Do we have a two-sentence summary on what the EAs could have done better, with hindsight? Overall it was a pretty catastrophic outcome to lose all their power on the board AND become the scapegoat, and I’m not sure what lesson to draw. Inasmuch as Ilya/Mira were less reliable allies than the board thought, maybe we should think they misjudged the situation
I think the answer is either “you don’t know enough about the specifics to have actionable advice” or “return to basic principles”. I generally think that, had they been open about Altman blatantly lying to the board about things, and that Murati and Sutskever were the leaders of the firing, then I think there would’ve been (a) less scapegoating and (b) it would’ve been more likely that Altman would’ve failed his coup.
But I don’t know the details to be confident about actionable advice here.
Make sure the people on the board of OpenAI were not catastrophically naive about corporate politics and public relations? Or, make sure they understand their naïveté well enough to get professional advice beforehand? I just reread the press release and can still barely believe how badly they effed it up.
Being cowardly and being scheming are not the same thing. Being scheming is about having a plan and executing it. Being cowardly is about being afraid and acting based on the fear.
I agree, but I think both occurred. they had a long-term secret plan and tried to execute it (a scheme), and then when it went poorly they acted based on fear (or possible just complete disregard for the truth and interests of others).
From what I understand, they executed a risky maneuver, lost, tried to salvage what they could from the wreckage (by pinning the blame on someone else), but got pushed out anyway. So I can see where you’re getting “scheming or manipulative” (them trying this scheme), “less competent” than Altman (losing to him), and “very selfish” (blaming other people). But where are you getting “cowardly” from? From their attempt at minimizing their losses after it became clear their initial plan had become exceeding unlikely to succeed? If so, I’d say it speaks to how poorly you think of valor if you believe it precludes so sensible an action.
“cowardly” because my strong guess is that their actions were driven by fear of social censure rather than calculated attempts to minimize losses. If they were trying to minimize losses to their non-selfish goals of ousting Sam A, who I think they believed to be a bad and dangerous actor, that would have been better served by coming clean about why they did what they did.