There go my hopes and dreams of the whole situation ending up being a good thing for open source and the competition in the AI space.
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Lmao. Microsoft was never going to let that happen.
They looked at the mobile market and see they fucked up, they looked at the browser market and see they fucked up, they look at Google's online presence and see they fucked up, etc.
Sure, their enterprise sector is doing amazing, but they'll want to diversify and maintain a strong public presence for general consumers.
Microsoft saw "Open"AI and started salivating. As far as they're concerned, this is their chance to win big, and they want to control it with an iron grip.
I don’t think he’s going to get far without AI researchers and it’s yet to be seen who goes where.
It’ll be amusing to see if top AI talent ends up going to OpenAI (assuming this is to pivot back to “safe” AI research).
edit 5 hrs later: lmao what is even going on right now with this
Still could be. Something smells off with this whole thing.
Is this embrace or extend? I'm not looking forward to extinguish.
This is extend, embrace would be when they invested in OpenAI as a way to fund them.
Isn't Bing in some kind of partnership with Open AI?
Hmmm.
Yeah, it was a massive coup for Microsoft. As people are pointing out, MS has been falling behind in consumer spaces for a while now. Investing early and obtaining a substantial edge in AI would help bolster their position in coming years across all markets.
They moved in and invested in OpenAI the way they did because of this. And then all of a sudden Altman and a bunch of top researchers leave all at the same time? The most Microsoft thing they could have done is exactly what they did: swoop him up and promise him the moon (in this case, the promise is clearly that they'll give him a lot of latitude so he doesn't feel too much like he lost out by not forming his own company -- they even said something around this in their press release) to get him on their side and his name on paperwork before he has a chance to seriously reconsider.
Altman probably thinks he got one over on OpenAI, but really, Microsoft got one over on him and OpenAI.
That's treating him like an idiot, he might know what Microsoft is thinking and maybe he has no problem going along with it
Microsoft plays these games all the time. They raid startups and accumulate all the IP and talent for themselves. It often involves a leveraged buyout, but if the company has an internal fight and their darling CEO takes most of the top talent with him, and MS owns a 49% stake in the ~~victim~~ company in question, swooping the CEO and all the top talent is a great way to start driving the price down on any leftover IP/talent left at OpenAI they might be interested in. They just sabotage the company until it collapses then they offer a "fair price"
Basically, if you look at MS's history with founders and startups, you'd have to be either a complete idiot, or really hurting and in a very emotional place (come on, the board stabbed him in the back and tried to get rid of him like he was an incompetent middle manager, they even tried to do it on a Friday like he was some clerk) to think Microsoft's offer isn't just a ploy to grab up all your IP and talent, and that once you've helped them get all your top researchers, you'll have any independence or ability to do anything other than be a cog in Microsoft's machine.
Just because Altman's a human who is able to be manipulated by a big, evil corporation with an infamous track record for manipulating people like him doesn't make him an "idiot," it makes him a human being. What are you, a Vulcan?
It does and Microsoft poured a ton of money into OpenAI. Including offering some of their services exclusively via Azure.
From what I've read they didn't pour any money directly, it's all in the form of credit to use azure
Microsoft owns 49% of the for-profit operating company. Maybe they got those or part of those via Azure credits?
That's exactly what I read
As far as we know Microsoft has access to some of their IP but not much else. Judging by the output of their own research division they're anxious to replace them.
They have access to the IP and own the compute resources running OpenAI's services.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sam Altman is joining Microsoft, the tech-giant has announced, ending speculation he might return to OpenAI just 48 hours after his chaotic ousting.
He is considered one of the most influential figures in the fast-growing generative artificial intelligence (AI) space, and his sacking sent shockwaves across the industry.
It sparked an outpouring of support from Silicon Valley bosses, including former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt who called Mr Altman "a hero of mine" and said that he had "changed our collective world forever".
On Friday, when OpenAI announced it was firing Mr Altman, it accused him of not being "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities".
On Sunday evening, the board said it "firmly stands by its decision as the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI," according to an internal memo, seen by The New York Times.
Mr Altman testified before a US Congressional hearing to discuss the opportunities and risks created by the new technology and also appeared at the world's first AI Safety Summit in the UK at the beginning of November.
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
i think this is all fake to save face by everyone doing AI, if the AI boss is down people will stop investing in AI, and bigtech doesn’t want that, IMO. Right here Microsoft came to save the day but they pretty much saved the whole AI industry.
Nah. The greatest benefit to Microsoft here is now no competitors can hire him.
I am cautious to think he’s all that innovative, but rather was the figurehead. He might be able to poach the innovators though.
Yeah I doubt he was magic on his own, but if a competitor hired him he would utilise his insider OpenAI knowledge to make day to day decisions that might help a competitor close the gap or supersede OpenAI. Better to pay him millions of dollars a year to keep that knowledge in house and deprive competitors of the opportunity.
Doubt
ok 🤷 i did write IMO
they pretty much saved the whole AI industry
Sam Altman could've vanished from the face of the Earth, and AI would be fine. There are so many big players (including Microsoft) in the game and so many other AI researchers that things would've likely continued going strong.