Discussion

• @carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x

  OpenAI is going through a similar problem Google has been going through for years. You hire a bunch of engineers and sell them on a mission but then it turns out their principles get in the way of the company making money so they feel betrayed. Then you start firing them. [image]

• @shakeelhashim Shakeel on x

  This bit is the most shocking to me: Aschenbrenner told the board that he was concerned about the company's security practices, and HR *reprimanded, and later fired him* for that. [image]

• @shakeelhashim Shakeel on x

  .@leopoldasch finally explains why he was fired from OpenAI: for sharing security concerns with the board, and for sharing a (non-confidential) document about safety ideas with external researchers. Just before he was fired, OpenAI lawyers quizzed him about his “loyalty”. [image]

• @leopoldasch Leopold Aschenbrenner on x

  Apparently this episode made Dwarkesh's editor quit because the AI discussion stressed him out too much. Enjoy!

• @garrytan Garry Tan on x

  I'm going to watch the full 4 hour thing later, but even flipping through the https://summarize.tech/ summary is pretty wild https://www.summarize.tech/...

• @shakeelhashim Shakeel on x

  And this bit — especially the lawyer asking what Aschenbrenner was up to during the board saga — looks an awful lot like Altman trying to purge the company of people who disagree with him. [image]

• @krishnanrohit Rohit on x

  One thing the Leopold interview shows is that there's enormous alpha in simply believing in straight lines on a graph. (not arguing this is True, arguing instead that this is true)

• r/singularity r on reddit

  Leopold Aschenbrenner: “OpenAI leadership had a plan laid out to fund and sell AGI by starting a bidding war between the governments of the United States, China, and Russia.”

• @brianstelter Brian Stelter on threads

  “When I signed up for OpenAI, I did not sign up for this attitude of 'Let's put things out into the world and see what happens and fix them afterward.'” https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social Jeff Jarvis on mastodon

  The problem with these AI “safety” stories is that we need to know whether safety is defined as current risk or doomer nuttiness to judge the parties & what they say....  OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @dwarkesh_sp Dwarkesh Patel on x

  .@leopoldasch on: - the trillion dollar cluster - unhobblings + scaling = 2027 AGI - CCP espionage at AI labs - leaving OpenAI and starting an AGI investment firm - dangers of outsourcing clusters to the Middle East - The Project Full episode (including the last 32 minutes cut [v…

• @jacobhhilton Jacob Hilton on x

  In order for @OpenAI and other AI companies to be held accountable to their own commitments on safety, security, governance and ethics, the public must have confidence that employees will not be retaliated against for speaking out. (Thread)

• @robbensinger Rob Bensinger on x

  If this summary by @leopoldasch was accurate, then it seems that “Leopold leaked OpenAI secrets” was a lie the whole time.

• @jachiam0 Joshua Achiam on x

  6/ But the disclosure of confidential information from frontier labs, however well-intentioned, can be outright dangerous. This letter asks for a policy that would in effect give safety staff carte blanche to make disclosures at will, based on their own judgement.

• @tolgabilge_ Tolga Bilge on x

  That they have got 4 current OpenAI employees to sign this statement is remarkable and shows the level of dissent and concern still within the company. However, it's worth noting that they signed it anonymously, likely anticipating retaliation if they put their names to it. [imag…

• @neelnanda5 Neel Nanda on x

  I second Jacob's reasons for why we signed this statement. Volunteer commitments are great, but robust whistleblower protections are important part of making them trustworthy and reliable, especially to broader society.

• @labenz Nathan Labenz on x

  I strongly support frontier AI lab employees' “Right to Warn” the rest of us about AI risks Good initiative here!

• @andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x

  A group of current, and former, OpenAI employees - some of them anonymous - along with Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Stuart Russell have released an open letter this morning entitled ‘A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence’. https://righttowarn.ai/ [image]

• @stefanfschubert Stefan Schubert on x

  Right to Warn seems like an example of how a warning sign (or shot, but that seems too strong) might work with respect to a specific issue. In my view, many underestimate the potential impact of such perceived warnings on people's actions. https://righttowarn.ai/

• @jacobhhilton Jacob Hilton on x

  Currently, the main way for AI companies to provide assurances to the public is through voluntary public commitments. But there is no good way for the public to tell if the company is actually sticking to these commitments, and no incentive for the company to be transparent.

• @d_m_ziegler Daniel Ziegler on x

  I worked at OpenAI from 2018 to 2021. Almost everyone I met there cared a lot about developing AGI in a way that would benefit society, and I'm sure the same is true at other AI companies.

• @d_m_ziegler Daniel Ziegler on x

  Frontier AI companies are aiming to build one of the most transformative technologies in history. For that to happen safely, it should be done in a context that encourages caution and public oversight.

• @neelnanda5 Neel Nanda on x

  I signed this appeal for frontier AI companies to guarantee employees a right to warn. This was NOT because I currently have anything I want to warn about at my current or former employers, or specific critiques of their attitudes towards whistleblowers. https://righttowarn.ai/

• @jachiam0 Joshua Achiam on x

  So - there is a letter circulating now from former and current AGI frontier lab staff, advocating for a particular policy around whistleblower protections on safety and risk issues ( https://righttowarn.ai/). I am not a signatory to this letter. Some thoughts.

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  5/15: My wife and I thought hard about it and decided that my freedom to speak up in the future was more important than the equity. I told OpenAI that I could not sign because I did not think the policy was ethical; they accepted my decision, and we parted ways.

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  10/15: Silencing researchers and making them afraid of retaliation is dangerous when we are currently some of the only people in a position to warn the public.

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  11/15: I applaud OpenAI for promising to change these policies!

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  9/15: Meanwhile, there is little to no oversight over this technology. Instead, we rely on the companies building them to self-govern, even as profit motives and excitement about the technology push them to “move fast and break things.”

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  2/15: I joined with the hope that we would invest much more in safety research as our systems became more capable, but OpenAI never made this pivot. People started resigning when they realized this. I was not the first or last to do so.

• @dkokotajlo67142 Daniel Kokotajlo on x

  14/15: Some of us who recently resigned from OpenAI have come together to ask for a broader commitment to transparency from the labs. You can read about it here: https://righttowarn.ai/

• @kevinroose Kevin Roose on x

  Breaking: a group of current and former OpenAI employees is speaking out about what they say is a culture of recklessness and secrecy at the company. They are asking for a “right to warn” for employees of frontier AI labs. [image]

• r/technews r on reddit

  OpenAI Employees Want Protections to Speak Out on ‘Serious Risks’ of AI |  Current and former staffers of OpenAI and Google DeepMind say …

• r/artificial r on reddit

  OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance