this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Sam Altman has been fired as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced on Friday.

“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said in its blog post.

EDITED TO ADD direct link to OpenAI board announcement:
https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition

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[–] Nobody@lemmy.world 265 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"AI is going to take away jobs."

"Wait... not like that."

[–] antrosapien@lemmy.ml 37 points 11 months ago

Oops... didnt see that coming

[–] yoz@aussie.zone 19 points 11 months ago (6 children)

He got billions in his account. I dont think he cares. For them job is something to do to not get bored, I guess?

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[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 94 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm more surprised that the folks at OpenAI saw fit to fire him than I am that he committed fireable offenses.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 50 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Because he lied to them instead of for them.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But what he lied about is probably bigger news.

This has corporate PR speak all over it, but it is clear that it was circumventing the desires of the Board, and the chairman of the Board steps down as well.

The absolute hell happened?

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

If I had to guess, about how interested he was in keeping it non-profit in spirit. Which direction he believed in, I have no idea. I don't know him or the board. The statement sounds like the board is leaning toward non-profit behavior, but I don't believe a company who merely says "do no evil".

[–] zorlan@lemmy.world 76 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The company is now actually being run by ChatGPT, Mira is just the face it's hiding behind.

[–] rynzcycle@kbin.social 48 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I asked Bard to give me a generic reason for firing a CEO.

Certainly, here are some vague reasons for firing the CEO of an AI company:
Leadership concerns: The CEO's leadership style or personal conduct was not in line with the company's values or culture. This could include issues such as lack of transparency, poor communication, or ethical breaches.

Yup.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bard is on copium with that last one.

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[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 32 points 11 months ago (2 children)

OpenAI also announced that co-founder Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board, though he will remain at the company.

Interesting. No way this isn't connected

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

Yeah. Given the language (Altman lied to them) and the chairman stepping down (but remaining in the C-suite) I'm starting to think that maybe Altman was trying to take something in an unapproved direction and present it as a fait accompli but got found out before he was ready to reveal it.

I added the direct link to the board's announcement to the post text so people can see it for themselves -- interesting how the board separated Altman's removal from Brockman's demotion by five paragraphs, adding Brockman's changed position just before the end almost as an afterthought. Which of course it isn't, lol.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Uhh.. Keep reading?

Hours after it was published, Brockman posted to X that he had quit “based on today’s news.”

Apologies, looks like that statement may have been added after the fact.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 30 points 11 months ago

He hallucinated to the board.

[–] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 30 points 11 months ago

Not exactly surprised here. Every time I've seen him on the news, it's always him fearmongering about the dangers of generative AI, when ChatGPT is burning through money and seemed to become more and more restrictive with every iteration. You can't run an organization if it is built on top of lies.

Actually open models (not open source, sadly) like specialized LLaMa 2 derivatives that could be ran and fine-tuned locally seems to be the future, because there seems to be a diminishing return in training/inference power to usefulness, and specialized smaller model tuned for specific applications are much more flexible than a giant general one that can only be used on somebody else's machine.

[–] sugarfree@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This is really big news, going to be interesting if anything leaks or if we stay in the dark. For Altman to be fired and for them to release a statement like this it has to be something drastic.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh no, anyways

This is unprecedented. They let that schmuck at Unity "retire" on a holiday but they fired Sam. Oof.

It sounds like there was a power struggle over the direction of OpenAI.

[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

My guess — and this is pure conjecture — MS canned him because Bing didn't eat Google's lunch.

[–] BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Microsoft doesn't have that power, and it has hurt their stock value. Their CEO's response suggests that Microsoft and other partners didn't know until everyone else did.

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[–] starbreaker@kbin.social 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

CEO? Fuck him. He'll be just fine.

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[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

On one hand, this was posted 15 minutes before you posted this... on the other hand, this is a much clearer headline

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Really? I searched by new before I posted, saw nothing about Sam Altman.

EDITED TO ADD you can color me blind, because yeah, there's one titled "OpenAI announces leadership transition" right before mine. Shit. Not sure how to handle this, but if the mods want to delete mine they can.

[–] papalonian@lemmy.world 43 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not sure how to handle this,

In times of great dishonor, the Samurai would commit seppuku with their sword.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have half a plastic knife I use on the cat food . . . will that do?

[–] EvilCartyen@feddit.dk 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Only if you post the video

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think I'm gonna need to upgrade my current drug regimen . . . be right back . . .

[–] MxM111@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Alternatively, you can do sudoku.

[–] Jerkface@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But he still has to do it with the plastic knife.

[–] MxM111@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago
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[–] Decoy321@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (6 children)
[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 46 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No idea, but given how sudden and out-of-the-blue this is, and the fact that he was co-founder of OpenAI (meaning that to some degree the board is pushing him out of his own company) you can make an educated guess that's it's huge.

~~My guess, personally, is financial malfeasance,~~ if only because personal misbehavior usually involves some hemming and hawing before a company concludes that the ejectee "is no longer a good fit and does not represent the values held by our organization." This was very sudden, no one saw it coming, and that's not too usual.

I guess we'll see, lol.

EDITED TO ADD I've changed my mind after a closer look at the wording of the board announcement. Given the language (Altman lied to them) and the chairman stepping down (but remaining in the C-suite) I’m starting to think that maybe Altman was trying to take something in an unapproved direction and present it as a fait accompli but got found out before he was ready to reveal it:

Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. (paragraph 3)

As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO. (paragraph 6)

[–] seaQueue@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Whatever it was it's spicy enough that they're trying to bury the press release in the late Friday afternoon news graveyard

Edit: even better, whatever they're trying to distance themselves from is so important they didn't even wait for the closing bell on the market.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I interpret their wording that he lied to the board repeadetly and made some unethical backdoor deals of evil.

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[–] mojo@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Probably because he went on his hype campaign trying to ask for regulations, except not ones that actually harm his company, and then the fear mongering.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Sam Altman has been fired as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced on Friday.

Chief technology officer Mira Murati will be the interim CEO, effective immediately.

When contacted by The Verge, OpenAI’s communications department declined to comment beyond the blog post.

This is an extremely sudden turn of events as Altman has largely been the face of OpenAI, which arguably kickstarted the current AI arms race with last year’s hugely popular ChatGPT.

Altman is a co-founder of OpenAI and initially served as a co-chair of the company alongside Elon Musk.

Musk left in 2018 to avoid a conflict of interest with Tesla — he has since founded his own AI company, xAI.


The original article contains 239 words, the summary contains 112 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] itsathursday@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (7 children)
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