Maybe I’m wrong about how all of this will be painted by the media, and the public / government’s perceptions
So far, a lot of the media coverage has framed the issue so the board comes across as inexperienced and their mission-related concerns come across more like an overreaction rather than reasonable criticism of profit-oriented or PR-oriented company decisions putting safety at risk when building the most dangerous technology.
I suspect that this is mostly a function of how things went down, how these differences of vision between them and Altman came into focus, rather than an a feature of the current discourse window – we’ve seen that media coverage about AI risk concerns (and public reaction to it) isn’t always negative. So, I think you’re right that there are alternative circumstances where it would look quite problematic for Microsoft if they try to interfere with or circumvent the non-profit board structure. Unfortunately, it might be a bit late to change the framing now.
But there’s still the chance that the board is sitting on more info and struggled to coordinate their communications amidst all the turmoil so far, or have other reasons for not explaining their side of things in a more compelling manner.
(My comment is operating under the assumption that it’s indeed true that Altman isn’t the sort of cautious good leader that one would want for the whole AI thing to go well. I personally think this might well be the case, but I want to flag that my views here aren’t very resilient because I have little info, and also I’m acknowledging that seeing outpouring of support for him is at least moderate evidence of him being a good leader [but one should also be careful about not overupdating on this type of evidence of someone being well-liked in a professional network]. And by “good leader” I don’t just mean “can make money for companies” – Elon Musk is also good at making money for companies, but I’m not sure people would come to his support in the same way they came to Altman’s support, for instance. Also, I think “being a good leader” is way more important than “having the right view on AI risk,” because who knows for sure what the exact right view is – the important thing is that a good leader will incrementally make sizeable updates in the right direction as more information comes in through the research landscape.)
So far, a lot of the media coverage has framed the issue so the board comes across as inexperienced and their mission-related concerns come across more like an overreaction rather than reasonable criticism of profit-oriented or PR-oriented company decisions putting safety at risk when building the most dangerous technology.
I suspect that this is mostly a function of how things went down, how these differences of vision between them and Altman came into focus, rather than an a feature of the current discourse window – we’ve seen that media coverage about AI risk concerns (and public reaction to it) isn’t always negative. So, I think you’re right that there are alternative circumstances where it would look quite problematic for Microsoft if they try to interfere with or circumvent the non-profit board structure. Unfortunately, it might be a bit late to change the framing now.
But there’s still the chance that the board is sitting on more info and struggled to coordinate their communications amidst all the turmoil so far, or have other reasons for not explaining their side of things in a more compelling manner.
(My comment is operating under the assumption that it’s indeed true that Altman isn’t the sort of cautious good leader that one would want for the whole AI thing to go well. I personally think this might well be the case, but I want to flag that my views here aren’t very resilient because I have little info, and also I’m acknowledging that seeing outpouring of support for him is at least moderate evidence of him being a good leader [but one should also be careful about not overupdating on this type of evidence of someone being well-liked in a professional network]. And by “good leader” I don’t just mean “can make money for companies” – Elon Musk is also good at making money for companies, but I’m not sure people would come to his support in the same way they came to Altman’s support, for instance. Also, I think “being a good leader” is way more important than “having the right view on AI risk,” because who knows for sure what the exact right view is – the important thing is that a good leader will incrementally make sizeable updates in the right direction as more information comes in through the research landscape.)