OpenAI board received letter warning of powerful AI
By JordanStone @ 2023-11-23T00:16 (+26)
This is a linkpost to https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/
“Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity…”
Xing Shi Cai @ 2023-11-23T00:40 (+3)
Was it a mistake to start an organization like openai? People with good intentions creates a beast which they cannot uncreate. I had same feeling after watching Oppenheimer.
Ailanthus @ 2023-11-23T14:55 (+3)
It might still be better than the counterfactual if an AI arms race was likely to happen soon anyway. I'd prefer the AI leader has some safety red tape (even if it's largely ignored by leaders and staff) as opposed to being a purely for-profit entity.
Nonetheless, there's a terrible irony in the organization with the mission "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity" not only kicking off the corporate arms race, but seemingly rushing to win it.
It's clear that the non-profit wrapper was inadequate to constrain the company. In hindsight, perhaps the right move would have been investing more in AI governance early on, and perhaps seeking to make OpenAI a government body. Though, I expect taking AI risk to DC in 2015 would have been a tough sell.