Letter signing looks like a masterful use of the bandwagon effect. Quickly reframing the issue, going to attack, and creating a sense of outrage and hurry. People start quickly pressuring each other because there is a need to be unity for the scheme to work and no time to think.
Within hours, messages dismissed the board as illegitimate and decried Altman’s firing as a coup by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, according to the people.
people identified as current OpenAI employees also described facing intense peer pressure to sign the mass-resignation letter.
“Half the company had signed between the hours of 2 and 3am,”
This is also consistent with some number of OpenAI operators wanting Altman removed, and then discovering that the company's long-term financial outlook, and their accrued compensation in particular, was highly contingent on him staying. It's pretty normal for people to believe that they could, if all else was equal, have a better or more healthy management culture. But people rarely act on that belief precisely because earnestly pursuing it can end up threatening everyone's future well-being.
It's also consistent with OpenAI's board comprehensively botching their response to those concerns, even if had been clear that over the medium term Altman needed to be managed out. That's why there's a term for this ("managed out").
Instead, the OpenAI board created news cycle after news cycle of palace intrigue by seeming obliviousness to how their actions would be read.
Incentives are the force behind almost everything.
"Well, I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther." -- Charlie Munger
How do you distinguish between bandwagoning and genuine consensus? How unpopular does someone need to be before they can cry "bandwagoning" whenever they're unaminously criticized?
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Letter signing looks like a masterful use of the bandwagon effect. Quickly reframing the issue, going to attack, and creating a sense of outrage and hurry. People start quickly pressuring each other because there is a need to be unity for the scheme to work and no time to think.
This is also consistent with some number of OpenAI operators wanting Altman removed, and then discovering that the company's long-term financial outlook, and their accrued compensation in particular, was highly contingent on him staying. It's pretty normal for people to believe that they could, if all else was equal, have a better or more healthy management culture. But people rarely act on that belief precisely because earnestly pursuing it can end up threatening everyone's future well-being.
It's also consistent with OpenAI's board comprehensively botching their response to those concerns, even if had been clear that over the medium term Altman needed to be managed out. That's why there's a term for this ("managed out").
Instead, the OpenAI board created news cycle after news cycle of palace intrigue by seeming obliviousness to how their actions would be read.
Incentives are the force behind almost everything.
"Well, I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther." -- Charlie Munger
The board fired Altman and maintained discretion. It was Altman that instigated the circus after that.
And?
How do you distinguish between bandwagoning and genuine consensus? How unpopular does someone need to be before they can cry "bandwagoning" whenever they're unaminously criticized?
Speed. Consensus usually implies self-reflection. Know thyself and all that jazz. If there's no time to know thyself, it's hard to get true consensus.