Finding the right prompt to solve a query like OpenAI
If I asked ChatGPT to write a story that started with the firing of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman what do you think it would write? Would it come up with anything as bizarre as the real story?
That’s the one that goes: CEO of AI company ousted by the board. He’s out. A couple of days later, he announces he’s joining Microsoft. A couple of days later, it’s announced he is rejoining OpenAI as CEO with a new board.
You couldn’t make it up, although AI probably could. After a while.
I must admit to finding all the headlines and breathless reporting a bit disorientating. With all the other big stories in the world, it seems a bit odd for a man being sacked from a tech company to take up so much space.
Admittedly, it was the very sexy subject of AI and the company and the CEO involved had achieved a spectacular breakthrough with the launch of ChatGPT but still, there are far more pressing issues, aren’t there?
One amusing byproduct of the saga was to see what appeared, on the surface, to be an inspirational story of the power of the workers united against the big bosses. According to various reports, 95% of staff had threatened to leave OpenAI if Altman wasn’t reinstated. It’s the kind of thing that, in different circumstances, you might expect to hear Christy Moore or Billy Bragg singing about.
Another quirky part of the story was Altman’s statement when the news broke about his return. You might recall he was all set to join Microsoft just a few days earlier. Writing on the site formerly known as Twitter, he stated: “I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together.”
That must have warmed many a heart among the workers at OpenAI although they might have had some pause for thought at the next part: “When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team.” Luckily, none of them rushed to make good on their threat before the “best path” took a different turn three days later. Something of a u-turn, in fact.
There has been some speculation, raised by a report in The Verge, that Altman was given the heave-ho because some of the board were worried he was pushing AI too aggressively, moving too fast at the expense of research and safety. As the story pointed out, the board’s stated mission is not to maximise shareholder value but to ensure the creation of “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence.
Which raises the possibility that Altman was fired because the board didn’t think the company was staying true to its purpose of creating “broadly beneficial” AGI. Which, in turn, suggests the employees busy agitating for Altman’s reinstatement were fighting for the cause of faster, greater commercialisation of AGI. I’m not sure that’s something Billy Bragg would be rushing to write a song about.
Anyway, Altman is set to return as the conquering hero and everything is back to the way it was before he was kicked out. It will be interesting to see if the board’s remit has changed in the interim. Hopefully, they won’t get AGI to write that.
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