OpenAI ‘was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff’
www.theguardian.com
Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking

OpenAI was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff::Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking

  • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caEnglish
    123·
    10 months ago

    So staff requested the board take action, then those same staff threatened to quit because the board took action?

    That doesn’t add up.

    • FrostyTrichs@lemmy.worldEnglish
      109·
      10 months ago

      The whole thing sounds like some cockamamie plot derived from chatgpt itself. Corporate America is completely detached from the real world.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
      51·
      10 months ago

      OpenAI loves to “leak” stories about how they’ve developed an AI so good that it is scaring engineers because it makes people believe they’ve made a massive new technological breakthrough.

      • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
        12·
        10 months ago

        Meanwhile anyone who works tech immediately thinks “some csuite dickhead just greenlit ED-209”

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      10 months ago

      More like:

      • They get a breakthrough called Q* (Q star) which is just combining 2 things we already knew about.

      • Chief scientist dude tells the board Sam has plans for it already

      • Board says Sam is going too fast with his “breakthroughs” and fires him.

      • Original scientist who raised the flag realized his mistake and started supporting Sam but damage was done

      • Microsoft

      My bet is the board freaked out at how “powerful” they heard it was (which is still unfounded and from what they explain in various articles, Q* is not very groundbreaking) and jumped the gun. So now everyone wants them to resign because they’ve shown they’ll take drastic actions without asking on things they don’t understand.

    • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
      12·
      10 months ago

      There’s clearly a good amount fog around this. But something that is clearly true is that at least some OpenAI people have behaved poorly. Altman, the board, some employees, the mainstream of the employees or maybe all of them in some way or another.

      What we know about the employees was the petition which had ~90% sign it. Many were quick to point out the weird peer pressure that was likely around that petition. Amongst all that, some employees being alarmed about the new AI to the board or other higher ups is perfectly plausible. Either they were also unhappy with the poorly managed Altman sacking, never signed the petition or did so while really not wanting Altman back that much.