I think Sam Altman restructuring OpenAI is not a power coup because he already has dictatorial power. He mostly wants to get rid of pesky profit caps so he can secure more investment at a better valuation.
The OpenAI board members already have very little real power, since the previous board already tried to fire Sam Altman, and learned the hard way that Altman and all the employees can simply threaten to jump ship to Microsoft or another company. Altman effectively fired all the board members he disliked using this threat.
Sam Altman isn’t fighting for power because he already has it. He probably wants the board to have more power over investors of the PBC, because the board is more afraid of him than the investors and won’t act against him. The only reason he acts like he wants investors to have more power, is that he knows that giving investors a lot of power on paper won’t actually matter much (look at how Tesla investors can’t do anything to reign in Elon Musk’s behaviours). It only encourages certain kinds of investors to invest more.
I think certain investors care a lot about removing the profit caps, because they hope to rake in the sweet AGI money. And certain activists care a lot about keeping the profit caps, because they hope the sweet AGI money will go to humanity (as promised).
Moderate importance
But I don’t think the fight is as pivotally important as it looks, because I’m skeptical of the risk that “rich people will take all the AGI money and poor people will all starve to death.” Rich people are not that uniformly evil, there will be a small fraction of them who have enough of a heart to keep the rest of humanity living comfortably, assuming AGI actually is powerful enough to automate the entire economy.
Again, whether the decision to release the new AI model technically falls on the nonprofit board or investors, isn’t that important in my opinion because Sam Altman will have the de facto power either way. The board members are afraid of him and have no real power. The investors won’t be able to do anything either, since PBC investors are even weaker than normal investors. Even Tesla investors can’t reign in Elon Musk.
But I may be totally wrong. I wrote a lot here but I never actually read much about this.
Not a coup
I think Sam Altman restructuring OpenAI is not a power coup because he already has dictatorial power. He mostly wants to get rid of pesky profit caps so he can secure more investment at a better valuation.
The OpenAI board members already have very little real power, since the previous board already tried to fire Sam Altman, and learned the hard way that Altman and all the employees can simply threaten to jump ship to Microsoft or another company. Altman effectively fired all the board members he disliked using this threat.
Because everyone joins the side they think will win during a coup, a previous victory against a previous board guarantees Altman absolute power over the new board.
Investors
Sam Altman isn’t fighting for power because he already has it. He probably wants the board to have more power over investors of the PBC, because the board is more afraid of him than the investors and won’t act against him. The only reason he acts like he wants investors to have more power, is that he knows that giving investors a lot of power on paper won’t actually matter much (look at how Tesla investors can’t do anything to reign in Elon Musk’s behaviours). It only encourages certain kinds of investors to invest more.
I think certain investors care a lot about removing the profit caps, because they hope to rake in the sweet AGI money. And certain activists care a lot about keeping the profit caps, because they hope the sweet AGI money will go to humanity (as promised).
Moderate importance
But I don’t think the fight is as pivotally important as it looks, because I’m skeptical of the risk that “rich people will take all the AGI money and poor people will all starve to death.” Rich people are not that uniformly evil, there will be a small fraction of them who have enough of a heart to keep the rest of humanity living comfortably, assuming AGI actually is powerful enough to automate the entire economy.
Again, whether the decision to release the new AI model technically falls on the nonprofit board or investors, isn’t that important in my opinion because Sam Altman will have the de facto power either way. The board members are afraid of him and have no real power. The investors won’t be able to do anything either, since PBC investors are even weaker than normal investors. Even Tesla investors can’t reign in Elon Musk.
But I may be totally wrong. I wrote a lot here but I never actually read much about this.