More about Sam Altman

Recently, I told a brief story here about how Sam Altman got fired by the board of his artificial-intelligence oriented company, then days later returned in triumph to the head of the company, and with a re-jiggered subservient board. Now I return to that subject with further thoughts.

Why did the board attempt to fire Altman? They weren't at all specific about it.

On November 17, 2023, noon on the west coast OpenAI's board of directors announced they were firing him, effective immediately, because he had not been "consistently candid in his communications." Nothing more. That lack of particulars smelled to some people like a lack as well of ... candidness.

One prominent theory that has developed over the subsequent weeks is that Altman was playing hardware against software. OpenAI is a software concern, but Altman apparently had aspirations to, and even raised money for, the founding of an AI chip company.

THAT sounds like the sort of thing that might create conflicts, or that directors at any rate might expect would cause conflicts. In some imagined near future, will Altman be trying to do deals that play off the real or possible synergy between the two companies? Might that turn out to be something that fails to maximize the value of OpenAI equity?

Furthermore, the possibility of surreptitious work to create a complementary chip company sounds like the sort of thing that might cause the unhappy directors to say the company's CEO has been less than consistently candid.

On the other hand, there ARE other theories. Heck,. IIRC (I'm not going to research this) Elon Musk is floating a theory that OpenAI may be onto something that constitutes an existential threat to humanity. Altman was trying to cover up the threat, the Board was trying to expose it, but now the Board has decided it has to go along with the cover-up.

Musk should try harder to be a good steward of his own companies, including what is left of X, fka Twitter instead of inventing random theories about random other peoples' motivations.

If you love conspiracy theories, go with Musk on this. And maybe add a theory about how the aliens at area 51 (imaged above) might save us from the AI monster that Altman's underlings at OpenAI are creating with his complicity and cover.

I suspect it is just the hardware/software thing, personally.

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti

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Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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