Things can move fast. Applying the scientific method to OpenAI and Microsoft recent news, when a hypothesis encounters a contradictory fact, a new hypothesis needs to be formed which accounts for the anomaly.
FACT:
A tweet:
Another tweet:
Further fact, ABC reporting, at item end, title: 4 days from fired to re-hired: A timeline of Sam Altman's ouster from OpenAI - Altman returned as CEO of the company just days after his sudden exit.
A quote:
Tuesday, November 21 – Altman reached an agreement in principle to return as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced in a post on X.
The announcement includes a condition for OpenAI to reconfigure its board of directors. The new board will include former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, the lone holdover from the previous board, OpenAI said.
Altman's return appeared to involve input from Nadella, whose company made a $10 billion investment in OpenAI earlier this year.
"With the new board and w[ith] satya's support, i'm looking forward to returning to openai, and building on our strong partnership with msft," Altman posted on X. "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," he added.
OpenAI and Altman are continuing to determine the exact terms of his reinstatement, the company said in their post on X: "We are collaborating to figure out the details."
Microsoft's Nadella applauded the agreement, posting: "We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance."
That is the story in a nutshell. A small interim new board, where gender considerations may weigh in expansion, but conservative worry over rogue superintelligence going backseat. Press on and release product, build it bigger, see how that shakes out. A belief that human adaptation can handle downside risk, just Do It. Money is on the line. Altman tweets, "msft" the Microsoft Nasdeq stock symbol; Nadella tweets, in effect, I won, onward to better governance my way.
There are two hypotheses which fit that data, with one that is getting fair play in web news of this latest development. An internal split board/management at OpenAI on super AI risk and human resilience. One goes from board vs. managemet. The board is replaced, management restored.
Then there is the Crabgrass kabuki theater hypothesis. Prove me wrong. Two benefits from doing it as it was done, not in a more linear fashion. First, many competing LLMs are hitting the market, so compete. The two ventures could never buy the publicity and name recognition leap the story and its reporting gave them, a ton of money spent in traditional advertising after the DevDay and the Ignite could end up a "so what;" but this low cost Tweet fired saga, money in the bank. Moreover, claims that msft and OpenAI were conspiring to dominate the market via contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade could have been leveled against a more traditional melding of intents, but done as a dispute where settlement and tense but sensible resolution is better for everybody, even avoiding litigation uncertainties, it is a win-win for everybody, with the market getting better AI offering in a stable sorted-out context where worry over conflict has been quelled.
So, Altman and Nedella cooked the situation, pushed the board, then fired it - all for the good of the nation and world and for markets safe to rely.
Yes, a tangled theory of intrigue, even call it "conspiracy theory," but with the outcome as it looks so far, it could not have been linearly planned better.
Perhaps GPT 4 was queried about a situation and a desired end result, and suggested doing it as done, rather than by traditional means where the other LLM developers might more readily call foul.
A caveat. Half serious about that. Half spinning a lot of yarn. But until pieces fall into place and the markets sing new songs, weeks or months from now, who can say aside from Altman and Nadella, and they'd say the same thing, either way: "Blindsided, but reason prevailed. The American Way."
UPDATE: The new OpenAI board, as so far formed, and Microsoft's board have avoided any unseemly interlocking directorships. Expect that to continue as OpenAI fleshes out a larger board. And insider board presence at OpenAI? None as yet.
In this, does Brockman also return to OpenAI, or does he become a Microsoft AI guru? If the latter, how will the markets react? No interlocking board members, but something else, where a person taking a new job happens a lot in high tech.
However, Brockman could be a second OpenAI returnee, as well as a Microsoftie.
That is one of the shakeout things to see, where recent reporting may have already answered that Brockman question. Crabgrass has not seen an answer, but that does not mean one has not been published. Readers are urged to search.
Crabgrass tried search = microsoft OpenAI brockman ends where
--- to no avail.
FURTHER UPDATE: Nov. 24, Crabgrass instead tried:
search = microsoft OpenAI brockman current employment [past day only]
Again, nothing on who's Brockman's boss these days, what Altman - Brockman - Nadella arrangement prevails now? Silence is golden?