What OpenAI shares with Scientology - by Henry Farrell
▻https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/look-at-scientology-to-understand
When Sam Altman was ousted as CEO of OpenAI, some hinted that lurid depravities lay behind his downfall. Surely, OpenAI’s board wouldn’t have toppled him if there weren’t some sordid story about to hit the headlines? But the reporting all seems to be saying that it was God, not Sex, that lay behind Altman’s downfall. And Money, that third great driver of human behavior, seems to have driven his attempted return and his new job at Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s biggest investor by far.
The drama at OpenAI and the firing of Sam Altman is the first skirmish in a war.
▻https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/openai-sam-altman-ai-microsoft-eacc-effective-altruism.html
The confounding saga of Sam Altman’s sudden, shocking expulsion from OpenAI on Friday, followed by last-ditch attempts from investors and loyalists to reinstate him over the weekend, appears to have ended right where it started: with Altman and former OpenAI co-founder/president/board member Greg Brockman out for good. But there’s a twist: Microsoft, which has been OpenAI’s cash-and-infrastructure backer for years, announced early Monday morning that it was hiring Altman and Brockman “to lead a new advanced AI research team.” In a follow-up tweet, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declared that Altman would become chief executive of this team, which would take the shape of an “independent” entity within Microsoft, operating something like company subsidiaries GitHub and LinkedIn. Notably, per Brockman, this new entity will be led by himself, Altman, and the first three employees who’d quit OpenAI Friday night in protest of how those two had been treated.