It is a correct statement, not really "borderline narcissistic". The board's mission is to help humanity develop safe beneficial AGI. If the board thinks that the company is hindering this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company.
Of course, the employees want the company to continue, and weren't told much at this point so it is understandable that they didn't like the statement.
I can't interpret from the charter that the board has the authorisation to destroy the company under the current circumstances:
> We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project
That wasn't the case.
So it may be not so far fetched to call her actions borderline as it is also very easy to hide personal motives behind altruistic ones.
The more relevant part is probably "OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AGI ... benefits all of humanity".
The statement "it would be consistent with the company mission to destroy the company" is correct. The word "would be" rather than "is" implies some condition, it doesn't have to apply to the current circumstances.
A hypothesis is that Sam was attempting to gain full control of the board by getting the majority, and therefore the current board would be unable to hold him accountable to follow the mission in the future. Therefore, the board may have considered it necessary to stop him in order to fulfill the mission. There's no hard evidence of that revealed yet though.
> this mission (e.g. doing unsafe things), then it's the board's duty to stop the company.
So instead of having to compromise to some extent but still have a say what happens next you burn the company at best delaying the whole thing by 6-12 months until someone else does it? Well at least your hands are clean, but that's about it...
I thought so originally too, but when I thought about their perspective, I realized I would probably sign too. Imagine that your CEO and leadership has led your company to the top of the world, and you're about to get a big payday. Suddenly, without any real explanation, the board kicks out the CEO. The leadership almost all supports the CEO and signs the pledge, including your manager. What would you do at that point? Personally, I'd sign just so I didn't stand out, and stay on good terms with leadership.
The big thing for me is that the board didn't say anything in its defense, and the pledge isn't really binding anyway. I wouldn't actually be sure about supporting the CEO and that would bother me a bit morally, but that doesn't outweigh real world concerns.
The point of no return for the company might have been crossed way before the employees were forced to choose sides. Choose Sam's side and the company lives but only as a bittersweet reminder of its founding principles. Choose the board's side and you might be dooming the company to die an even faster death.
But maybe for further revolutions to happen, it did have to die to be reborn as several new entities. After all, that is how OpenAI itself started - people from different backgrounds coming together to go against the status quo.
What happened over the weekend is a death and rebirth, of the board and the leaderships structure which will definitely ripple throughout the company in the coming days. It just doesn't align perfectly with how you want it to happen.
According to this tweet thread[1], they negotiated hard for Sam to be off the board and Adam to stay on. That indicates, at least if we're being optimistic, that the current board is not in Sam's pocket (otherwise they wouldn't have bothered)
They can't take actions to take back the back control from Microsoft and Sam because Sam is the CEO. Even if Sam is of the utmost morality, he would be crazy to help them back into a strong position after last week.
So it's the Sam & Microsoft show now, only a master schemer can get back some power to the board.
Yeah, that's my take. Doesn't really matter if the composition of the board is to Adam's liking and has a couple more heavy hitters if Sam is untouchable and Microsoft is signalling that any time OpenAI acts against its interests they will take steps to ensure it ceases to have any staff or funding.
I’m sorry, but that’s all kayfabe. If there is one thing that’s been demonstrated in this whole fiasco, it’s who really has all the power at OpenAI (and it’s not the board).
I think it actually isn't that easy. Compared to your example, the difference is that OpenAI's for-profit is getting outside money from Microsoft, not money from non-profit OpenAI. Non-profit OpenAI is basically dealing with for-profit OpenAI as a external partner that happens to be aligned with their interests, paying the expensive bills and compute, while the non-profit can hold on to the IP.
You might be able to imagine a world where there was an external company that did the same thing as for-profit OpenAI, and OpenAI nonprofit partnered with them in order to get their AI ideas implemented (for free). OpenAI nonprofit is basically getting a good deal.
MSF could similarly create an external for-profit hospital, funded by external investors. The important thing is that the nonprofit (donated, tax-free) money doesn't flow into the forprofit section.
Of course, there's a lot of sketchiness in practice, which we can see in this situation with Microsoft influencing the direction of nonprofit OpenAI even though it shouldn't be. I think there would have been real legal issues if the Microsoft deal had continued.
> The important thing is that the nonprofit (donated, tax-free) money doesn't flow into the forprofit section.
I am sure that is true. But the for-profit uses IP that was developed inside of the non-profit with (presumably) tax deductible donations. That IP should be valued somehow. But, as I said, I am sure they were somehow able to structure it in a way that is legal, but it has an illegal feel to it.
One funny thing about this mess is that "Team Helen" has never mentioned anything about safety, and Emmett said "The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety".
The reason everyone thinks it's about safety seems largely because a lot of e/acc people on Twitter keep bringing it up as a strawman.
Of course, it might end up that it really was about safety in the end, but for now I still haven't seen any evidence. The story about Sam trying to get board control and the board retaliating seems more plausible given what's actually happened.
Adam is likely still on the "decel" faction (although it's unclear whether this is an accurate representation of his beliefs) so I wouldn't really say they lost yet.
I'm not sure what faction Bret and Larry will be on. Sam will still have power by virtue of being CEO and aligned with the employees.
People have families, mortgages, debt, etc. Sure, these people are probably well compensated, but it is ludicrous to state that everyone has the stability that they can leave their job at a moment's notice because the boss is gone.
They didn't actually leave, they just signed the pledge threatening to. Furthermore, they mostly signed after the details of the Microsoft offer were revealed.
"Context on the negotiations to bring Sam back as CEO of OpenAI:
The biggest sticking point was Sam being on the board. Ultimately, he conceded to not being on the board, at least initially, to close the deal. The hope/expectation is that he will end up on the board eventually."
Of course, the employees want the company to continue, and weren't told much at this point so it is understandable that they didn't like the statement.