The OpenAI debacle (a retrospective)

Practical AI: Machine Learning, Data Science, LLM

Daniel & Chris conduct a retrospective analysis of the recent OpenAI debacle in which CEO Sam Altman was sacked by the OpenAI board, only to return days later with a new supportive board. The events and people involved are discussed from start to finish along with the potential impact of these events on the AI industry.

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Featuring:

• Chris Benson – Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
• Daniel Whitenack – Twitter, GitHub, Website

Show Notes:

• OpenAI | Wikipedia
• How OpenAI’s origins explain the Sam Altman drama
• OpenAI chaos: A timeline of firings, interim CEOs, re-hirings and other twists
• OpenAI researchers warned board of AI breakthrough ahead of CEO ouster, sources say
• Everyone’s talking about OpenAI’s Q*. Here’s what you need to know about the mysterious project.
• It is Time to Profit off of the OpenAI Drama
• Yann LeCun | LinkedIn
• Advent of GenAI Hackathon

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

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1. Welcome to Practical AI (00:00:08)

2. Sponsor: Traceroute (00:00:35)

https://deploy.equinix.com/traceroute/

3. AI soap opera (00:02:23)

4. Parallel journeys (00:04:18)

5. OpenAI's origins (00:05:51)

6. Microsoft's relationship (00:08:31)

7. 2 OpenAIs (00:08:57)

8. Capped profit model (00:12:35)

9. OpenAI's huge influence (00:15:29)

10. AI supercomputers (00:16:56)

11. Early exploration (00:17:59)

12. Actually open AI / GPT-2 (00:19:39)

13. GPT-3 / Start-up vs non-profit (00:20:38)

14. Public awareness of AI (00:22:20)

15. Regulation vs innovation (00:23:55)

16. Sam gets fired (00:25:41)

17. Microsoft's stakes (00:27:13)

18. Microsoft's offer (00:28:29)

19. A CEO a day / The CEO list (00:30:12)

20. Internal issues (00:30:52)

21. What else is out there? (00:31:39)

22. New board new goals? (00:34:15)

23. Employee's voices (00:35:24)

24. Scary new AI (00:35:57)

25. Q* hysteria (00:37:39)

26. Rise of AI risk management (00:40:18)

27. Wake up call to regulators (00:42:30)

28. Notion around AGI (00:43:35)

29. Advent of Gen AI (00:44:57)

30. Outro (00:46:22)