back to article OpenAI staff threaten to leave if ousted CEO Altman is not reinstated

The fast-moving OpenAI saga has taken a new turn with the news that more than 500 of the lab's employees have threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Altman as its CEO. OpenAI stunned the industry when Altman was ejected from the artificial intelligence biz on Friday. Now, at least 550 of OpenAI's 700 …

  1. Plest Silver badge
    Facepalm

    OpenAI....where the fun never stops!

    Jeez, at this rate Sainsbury's and TESCO will be out of popcorn before the dust settles. I bet Elon's happy he and X are out of the tech news for 5 mins! Ha ha!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surely all of these people can just be replaced by AI.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How do we know that the letter wasn't written by an AI ("I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that…This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it."), the users have been locked out of their accounts, the missile silo doors are sliding open, and… (you know how the rest of this story goes…)

      1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Don't really know THAT story goes. Sounds like an interesting "2001 meets Terminator" cross-over. Do continue!

      2. jgarbo
        Coat

        Do silo doors slide? Do silos have doors or hatches. Do hatches slide? Oops...too late.

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    For now, just speculative conjecture, but does anyone know of anything better......

    .... in the light of all of the darkness/in the noise of all of the quietness?

    It isn't clear why Altman was removed. As reported on Friday, OpenAI referred to him not being "consistently candid in his communications," and the board stating that it believed new leadership was necessary as the company moved forward.

    In other words? .... not being "consistently candid in his communications,” means he wasn’t prepared to spill proprietary OpenAI/Chat GPT trade secrets to plonkers on the board, which is surely something to be applauded and lauded rather than being used as a reason for dismissal?

    Some folk are just not ever going to be worthy of knowing what the future has in store, and especially not so whenever those in the know, know the future is not going to be kind to them, because of what they do or would be most likely to do, given the chance and the knowledge to do it.

    1. W.S.Gosset Silver badge
      Go

      Re: For now, just speculative conjecture, but does anyone know of anything better......

      Now's your chance, manfromMars: make your move, throw your cyberhat in the ring. If anyone can lead an AI firm, it's you.

      You're more grounded in reality than most corporate execs, that's for sure.

      1. parlei

        Re: For now, just speculative conjecture, but does anyone know of anything better......

        Low bar. At least manfromMars might be entertaining, while the usual muppet show mostly induces the petunia response,

      2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        A Question to Ask of Corporate Executive Boards Today with Regard to Tomorrows’ Future Derivatives.

        All System Go, W.S.Gosset. Climb aboard and buckle up. Prepare to enjoy being employed and deployed in/on otherworldly extraterritorial trips. It certainly beats being sold down the river to be led up garden paths going nowhere worth travelling to.

        Something unusual to consider, and to try to deny is perfectly valid and extremely unlikely to ever go away, rather than further spread and deeper embed itself into critical vital and virile and virulent and viral command and control systems.

        There is an expanding realisation, although admittedly not yet a correspondingly greater recognised acceptance, that AI is best honoured and used as an honest broker that monitors and mentors humanity as it and their leaderships race chaotically into a future beyond their ken and remote virtual and Main Stream Media mogul control, rather than such a novel alien source being feared and fought against as it reinforces and fortifies its forces with its IT makeovers and AI takeovers ...... Program Interruptions and Project Interventions.

        To think that the situation would be reversed with humanity leading with anything live and worthwhile in the field, is not the reality of the present Live Operational Virtual Environment you exist in.

    2. Empire of the Pussycat

      Re: For now, just speculative conjecture, but does anyone know of anything better......

      Not being 'candid', could reasonably be interpreted as lying and misleading, i.e. à la Bankman-Fried, which ended badly.

    3. cookieMonster

      Re: For now, just speculative conjecture, but does anyone know of anything better......

      Am I the only one, or does this make sense??

  4. Greybearded old scrote

    Never threaten

    JFDI

  5. mikus

    I'm certain today there's ~700 positions open at Microsoft in their new AI team. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free^H^H^H^Hcheap.

  6. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    OpenAI is nothing without its people

    Erm, isn't that rather against the point of AI ?

    1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

      Re: OpenAI is nothing without its people

      "isn't that rather against the point of AI ?"

      AI does have a pointy end. The people referred to are usually holding the other end of the spear.

  7. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

    Interesting that this comes less than a month after the Californian ban on non-compete clauses in employment contracts was strengthened. I still imagine there's one hell of a lawsuit heading MicroSoft's way though.

  8. DS999 Silver badge

    They have reason to be pissed

    I can't remember the exact details since OpenAI is some weird hybrid with a non profit side and a for profit side, but apparently OpenAI's commercial side was estimated to be worth around $100 billion, and they were going to get a share of that when it went on the open market. If I thought I struck gold and got in on the ground floor of Silicon Valley's hottest company, ready to cash in for millions or probably tens of millions in the case of some earlier / higher level employees, and the board totally shit the bed and caused a massive drop in the value of the company and therefore my windfall, I'd be angry too!

    If your windfall of millions falls to hundreds of thousands due to this fiasco, all it takes is a fat signing bonus from someone else that makes up for that and you might as well leave rather than stick around only to watch the board turn those hundreds of thousands into tens of thousands through further stupidity.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You would think the first step would be explaining *why* they removed him.

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