Seems most likely Sustkever wanted him fired and then realized his mistake. Ultimately the board was probably quietly seething about the direction the company was headed, got mad enough to retake the reigns with that stunt and then realized what that actually meant.

Now they are trying to unring the bell but cannot.

> Seems most likely Sustkever wanted him fired and then realized his mistake

We have as much evidence for this hypothesis as for any other. Not discrediting it. But let's be mindful of the fog of war.

> Now they are trying to unring the bell but cannot.

Well, they can unring the bell pretty easy. They were given an easy out.

Reinstate Sam (he wants to come back) and resign.

However, they CONTINUE to push back and refuse to step down.

Then they wouldn't be in control, which is what they really want.

You get it!

This is the correct answer. The people who have never had jobs in their lives wanted control of a 100B company.

What a pleasant career trajectory. Heck it was already great to go from graduated university -> board of OpenAI. If that's possible why not CEO?

> Well, they can unring the bell pretty easy. They were given an easy out.

> Reinstate Sam (he wants to come back) and resign.

Wasn't the ultimate sticking point Altmans' demand that the board issue a written retraction absolving him of any and all wrongdoing? If so, that isn't exactly an "easy" out given that it kicks the door wide open for extremely punishing litigation. I'd even go so far as to say it's a demand Altman knew full well would not and could not be met.

I'm going to be the only one in this thread calling it this.

But why does no one think it's possible these women are CIA operatives?

They come from think tanks. You think the US Intelligence community wants AGI to be discovered at a startup? They want it created at big tech. AGI under MSFT would be perfect. All big tech is heavily compromised: https://twitter.com/NameRedacted247

EDIT: Since this heavy speculation, I'm going to make predictions. These women will now try to force Ilya out the board, put in a CEO not from Silicon Valley, and eventually get police to shut down OpenAI offices. That's a CIA coup

Couldn't the CIA have sent people with, er, slightly more media experience and tactfulness and such? Did these few just happen to lose a bet or something...?

Maybe somebody there just really wanted to see the expression on Satya's face...

Weirdly plausible considering Tasha McCauley also works for the RAND Corporation

But the article's exact wording is "Sustkever is said to have offered two explanations he purportedly received from the board" key word being "purportedly received". He could be choosing words to protect himself, but it strongly implies that he wasn't the genesis of the action. Of course, he was convinced enough of it to vote him out (actually; has this been confirmed? they would have only needed 3, right? it was confirmed that he did the firing over Meet, but I don't recall confirmation that he voted Yet); which also implies that he was at some point told more precise reasoning? Or maybe he's being muzzled by the remaining board members now, and this reasoning he "received" is what they approved him to share, right now?

None of this makes sense to label any theory as "most likely" anymore.

Trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Trying to put the confetti back into the cannon.

Trying to put the Rip back into the closet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebiT8mlCvZY

Trying to pull the dye out of the water

As XKCD memorably observed, putting toothpaste back in the tube is trivial.

However, it may not yield a result anyone's actually happy with:

https://xkcd.com/2521/

it’s tough to hoe a row on the hill which they chose to cast their die

This is pretty parsimonious.

Smart, capable, ambitious people often engage in wishful thinking when it comes to analysing systems they are a part of.

When looking at a system from the outside it’s easier to realise the boundary between your knowledge and ignorance.

Inside the system, your field of view can be a lot narrower than you believe.

> Have they been feeding motions into chatgpt and asking “should add I do this?”

The CEO (at time of writing, I think) seems to think this kind of thing is unironically a good idea: https://nitter.net/eshear/status/1725035977524355411#m

It'd have to be a very stupid version of chatgpt

Doesn't this imply that there's one that's not?

Can the 3 board members also kick out Sustkever from the board?