Sam Altman: Back in charge

Sam Altman is back to leading OpenAI, and the people who fired him are now gone. This is war. Kill or be killed. In this post, I briefly look at who left and who took over.

Old Board:

All are beautiful, young and smart.

• Adam D’Angelo.
  A Caltech Computer Science Graduate and best known for founding Quora. He also worked on Instagram and has his own competing AI company, Poe. Despite his Caltech pedigree, D'Angelo does not appear to have any significant research publications.
• Helen Toner.
  An Australian who did significant work on AI safety, but nothing significant on the development side. Her most cited paper (790 citations) is on the malicious use of AI :
  
  The malicious use of artificial intelligence: Forecasting, prevention, and mitigation M Brundage, S Avin, J Clark, H Toner… - arXiv preprint arXiv …, 2018 - arxiv.org
• Tasha McCauley.
  Is surprisingly light weight, with a global net worth estimated at only 10 million. Worked as a firefighter in NY. No heavy duty science to be seen.
• Ilya Sutskever.
  Ilya was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia and grew up in Jerusalem. He was stolen by Elon Musk from Google. The loss on Ilya upset the Google founders so much, that Sergey Brin broke his friendship with Musk for making Ilya an offer he did not refuse.
  
  Ilya's most cited papers have over 40 000 citations, with plenty of papers cited over 10 000 times. Ilya is most likely the man who gave birth to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) at Open AI, and had the largest contribution of all to ChatGPT and other products.
  
  His citations are in the range of a Nobel Prize winner. That is, many people who win the Nobel prize are not as cited as Ilya. He is likely to win a Nobel Prize himself.
• Sam Altman.
  Sam himself is a great deal maker, and the political father of AGI. His research and expertise comes nowhere near Ilya. I do not believe he wrote the code. It is unclear he could create and progress the tools on his own. He did however get the money. He is the one who convinced Elon Musk, Microsoft and Sequoia Capital to invest in OpenAI.
  
  At under 1 billion, Sam's global net worth is relatively small, compared to his prominent position in the media and his expected impact on the world.
  
  Altman joined Y Combinator in 2011 and became president in 2014. The total valuation of Y Combinator companies had surpassed $65 billion, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Zenefits, and Stripe.
• Greg Brockman.
  Well cited scientist, with several papers over 1000 citations. At 50 million global net worth, he's not a light weight for where he comes from. Greg was the first to quit Open AI in solidarity with Altman. He's the kind of guy who can get another job anytime -- perhaps even better paid. Major contributor to the development of Open AI products, from the concept to the code.
• Mira Murati.
  The beautiful Albanian who briefly replaced Sam has gotten her hands dirty on AI research, but she's not Ilya. She's a surprisingly light weight, with a global net worth of about 5 million. Perhaps, less.
• Emmett Shear.
  He replaced Mira Murati after one day. At 0.5 Billion, his global net worth approaches Sam Altman's. He's not a light weight financially, but has no relevant experience or publications in the field of AI. He's not someone who discovers new algorithms. Emmett Shear is a founder of Justin.tv. He served as CEO of Twitch and is a part-time partner in Sam Altman's Y Combinator.

Now, the new board is formed from heavy duty politicians -- king makers and the kind of law breakers that we call law makers. These people have considerable experience in leading the world, or taking over the world.

• Bret Taylor.
  Former CEO of Salesforce
  Board member at Shopify
  Chair of board of Twitter, before Elon Musk took over. Played a major role in forcing Musk to pay for Twitter and complete the deal, which resulted in him leaving Twitter, alongside most employees.
  Taylor has his own AI startup.
  His global net worth is estimated at a quarter of a billion dollars.
  Bret Taylor does not appear to have any significant research.
  
• Larry Summers.
  Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration
  Former President of Harvard University
  He was punished for free speech, and forced to resign from this position when he commented that there may be differences between men and women in Academia.
  Summers went to MIT at 16, where he started as a Physicist and graduated as an Economist. After receiving his PhD from Harvard, Summers became Harvard's youngest professor at the age of 28. (Same as me, but it wasn't at Harvard) Larry Summers is a heavy weight in Academia and Politics, but, at a global net with of 40 million, not so successful with his finances -- probably a way to avoid becoming a target.
  An old man, 68, who had a PhD before the members of the previous board were born, and a cancer survivor, Larry does not have the intellectual power to advance and understand AI, but is a seasoned, experienced leader with fantastic political connections. The sort of man who gets fired from Harvard and lands a job in the White House.
• Adam D’Angelo.
  Is the only surviving member of the old board.

Sam Altman, the Oppenheimer of our Age, was fired from Open AI

Yesterday, in a shock announcement, the 6 person board of Open AI fired its most prominent member, Sam Altman. Alongside Altman, Greg Brockman, another founder and member of the 6 person board was fired. A majority decision would potentially require all other 4 members. Sam was replaced by Mira Murati, a 34 years old Albanian woman who started work at Goldman Sachs and then worked at Tesla. She has served as Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI since 2018.

At 38, Altman, is far from old, incompetent or otherwise expired. Many see him as the Oppenheimer of our age, who, just like the Greek God, Prometeus went up to the Gods to bring people AGI; AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, incarnated in Chat GPT) for Altmann, the Atomic Bomb for Oppenheimer and good old fire in the case of Prometeus -- all inventions changed the world in ways that were difficult to imagine before.

Sam played an interesting game in Sillicon Valley. Unlike Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Larry Page or Steve Jobs, he made the controversial decision to own no stock on Open AI. That is strange, as he could have had that for free. It isn't at all clear that he received a higher salary for having no stock. Companies like Open AI pay their founders in stock, not salary.

Apparently, Altman's global net worth is under 1 billion, despite being equally transformational and experiencing a more meteoric rise than the above. So in spite of his talent and impact on the world, Altman is remarkably poor. And, he could have had the money. Why not? Was he afraid of ending up in jail, like Sam Bankman-Fried, silenced like Julian Assange or dead like Turing and others? Or, did he want to be free to wage war against OpenAI? Free to switch sides? Free from personal bias that would arise from owning shares in the company he created?

What's next for Sam? The week before he got fired, he toured 22 countries, meeting presidents and prime ministers to talk about legal measures to keep the world safe from AI. Is he aiming to be the next US President? In a time of world war, he could be just what America needs to win. He'd sure make a strong candidate, who, unlike Elon Musk, is American born American. He's proven to be altruistic, by owning no shares in Open AI. He's a poor man for his intellectual ability and impact, attractive to both men and women, good looking, and has proven that he can change the world already. Then US electorate would have to choose between despicable figures like Trump and Biden and someone who truly has his marbles. Someone ready to rule both men and robots.

Or will he be killed? He's already lost OpenAI, which, one could reasonably argue, it's worth more than his private life, both in terms of arbitrary value, impact on the world, and experience. As a man with nothing to lose, he's not bound to act within political expectations, when doing things agains the order of society. He's also immune to financial losses, as one billion isn't much money to lose for Sam. Thus, if he needs to be controlled, he may have to be killed. If so when? Will he make it as far as Kennedy?

Update: After Microsoft offered to hire him and a fraction of the staff at OpenAI did not show up and were given the option to be at Microsoft instead, Sam got his job back and changed the executive board.

More about Sam: A fairly unfiltered and not very customer friendly blog. It looks real. Probably written by Sam himself. It's most recent post discusses cold fusion, and argues the cheap energy it will generate can solve climate change. If it works, it would replace fossil fuels and since energy would be, basically, free, it could be used to remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

a solution to the Palestinian problem? Open the borders and keep them open.

Are the Palestinians so different from other people? Why does no one want them? Why is nobody taking in the women and the children? Or, even the men? Surely, they'd now qualify for asylum in most countries. A safe place would give them a chance to start new lives in Europe or America. They could work, pay taxes, etc.

Is openning the borders a solution? If a significant number of Gazans left the area, Hamas would lose its tax base, its soldiers and its strength. By closing the borders, and keeping people in the conflict is allowed to continue, fester and grow.

Can the world afford Gazan refugees? Germany took refugees from Syria. Their economy is going strong. Shouldn't other countries follow suit? Natality is low througout Europe. Shouldn't we open our arms, and help the women and children of Gaza instead of watching this tragedy unford and making weak comments about temporary "humanitarian" pauses?

So is there a double standard? Yes, the world openned up to Ukrainian refugees, but it's closed for Gazans just like it was closed for Jews during WWII. We argue that the displaced Palestinians have not integrated in their host countries. It's been 75 years. Is it OK to keep the refugee status this long? Most groups of refugees settle somehow. Are these different? Or is the world holding onto a conflict, which would disappear otherwise, by trapping people in. Why do we want war and terrorism in the Middle East to fester and flourish?

Could the conflict in Gaza turn nuclear?

An Israeli minister was recently reprinted for mentioning the nuclear option in the war with Hamas in Gaza. So... can Israel do the unthinkable and use a nuclear bomb in Gaza?

Hamas demonstrated a desire, but not ability to carry out a new Holocaust. This is not acceptable to Israel or the US. It is however welcomed by many players in the Muslim world.

It is also the normal state of war. When people or monkeys are at war, they wish to kill their adversary. The sort of war where we try to not kill our enemy is a relatively new phenomenon.

Hamas did however fail miserably to kill Jews in Holocaust style. In the Holocaust, the jewish people killed very few Germans. The Russians had similar concentration camps which lasted some 50 years longer; they killed intellectuals and other undesirables. The mark of the Holocaust was the cold blooded murder of millions of Jews, without significant resistance and without significant losses on the German side (if we do not count the development of the atomic bomb by mostly German Jewish scientists and the US winning the World War with it. Jews play a prominent role in American politics, science and economy, just like they did in Germany before Hitler).

During the October 7 attack, Hamas lost about 1000 soldiers for about 1200 Israeli children, civilians, elderly and some soldiers killed. Thus, while Hamas dreams of a Holocaust, reality is nowhere near. October 7 was a balanced war between the elite of Hamas and the civilians of Israel, with little help from a very incompetent military, police and Mossad.

In the hostilities after October 7, Israel loses about 1 soldier to every 1000 Palestinians killed. This is closer to the Holocaust ratio. If we also consider the material losses to the Palestinian people and Hamas, or the ratio of these losses as a fraction of the GDP, the current war is more similar to the Holocaust than October 7 with palestinians playing the part of the jews.

Hamas is rich in people and poor in money and guns. Thus, if we calculate the equivalent in lives (that is how many lives of women and children would Hamas be willing to trade or exchange for the military losses) to the financial and military loses caused by Israel, the situation is bleak. Gaza is a very densely populated territory, with considerable defences. These defenses are difficult for the Israeli to overcome. Fighting in tunnels is hard, and can very easily result in dead soldiers. Snipers can easily hide inside buildings and behind children. Shooting these children one by one can be expensive, time consuming and result in international support for Hamas.

A Nuclear Bomb is a clean final solution to the Palestinian problem. It will keep the area empty for many years to come. Israel has already advised Palestinians to move away from North Gaza ahead of the planned demolition of the territory. This demolition is necessary to prevent Palestinians from coming back to their houses after the war. Unlike Hamas, Israel targets material assets more than people. Material assets can be destroyed without much international criticism, whereas little children carrying other injured children don't look too good in the world press. Also, Hamas is rich in people and poor in material assets. Thus, the Israeli policy makes sense.

Once all Palestinians that obey Israel have left North Gaza, a nuclear strike may be considered. It would only kill Hamas soldiers and their human shields. These human shields are often very young, innocent children because the International Community reacts more to dead children than to dead soldiers. Also, children are cheaper. Soldiers take longer to grow and eat more food on the way.

With North Gaza somewhat empty, a nuclear strike could kill remarkably few people. Surely, it would have to be a very small bomb. It is these small bombs that are the most difficult to make. Israel and the US have them. They can be used as a demonstration of power. The smallest nuclear bomb would only destroy a few buildings and, in a densely populated but somewhat evacuated area, only a few buildings. They are nuclear, but small affairs. It would be more of a psychological statement than a destructive act of war.

Nuclear bombs can be made tiny in various ways, one realized, perhaps accidentally, in North Korea, during their latest test. Mass produced small nuclear bombs do exist and are available. However, even the smallest nuclear bomb would set a dangerous precedent. It would only make sense to use it, if there is a plan to start this sort of war with other countries.

Another alternative would be non-nuclear explosives with explosive power in the nuclear range. There are the rods from God -- tungsten sticks that descend from orbit with extraordinary kinetic energy and are capable to wreak havoc in the nuclear range.

Or, just very many conventional bombs and rockets as until now. Israel has already destroyed 10% of the buddings in Gaza. It can easily destroy them all, one by one. Of course, if the war stops then the destruction would stop, and so many lives could be saved. When war starts, it is more reasonable to replace the hallucinating leadership (from both sides or we could be correct call it criminal leadership instead of hallucinating) that caused the war to start than to keep the same leaders in place to "see it through" as it is done now.

Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail

Sam Bankman - Fried was recently sentenced to 110 years in jail by a US court. He joins a bunch of other illustrious intellectuals who are either in jail or have been destroyed by the system. To name just a few:

• Elizabeth Holmes of Therano
• Julien Assange of Wikileaks
• Alexey Navalny
• Edward Snowden (free, but forced to stay in Russia)
• Jeffrey Epstein (suicided with(out) help in jail)

SBF was a gambler. He gambled everything, and won many times. All the way to 28 billion dollars. He even did the right thing and leave the US, when the whole thing collapsed. The mistake was that he didn't go far enough. Russia or China would have been viable options, whereas Bahamas proved to be too close and too easily influenced by the US.

His investors judged him. They judged him to be good enough to invest 28 billion in him. There are very many people who don't break the law and don't get 28 billion dollars to play with. Do the courts have a right to get between SBF and his investors and put him in jail?

If we put people like SBF in jail, who will be next? People like Elon Musk? Donald Trump and family? or are they too famous to be in jail, i.e., do they make enough money for the press outside jail, to stay out? When is that line crossed?

So, what is a life worth? . Most criminals would easily risk their lives for $1000. What do they lose by going to jail? Maybe $10 000? Or maybe they get free housing for the time they spend in jail and will find enough connections there to gain money when they get out.

SBF is a bigger fish. If indeed, he did commit fraud, why was this not discussed in a timely manner? That is, before he reached the 28 billion.

How could SBF have prevented this arrest? After all, he had what amounted to unlimited resources. What could he have invested his 30 billion in? What would have been immune to the current onslaught? Assets in China? Russia? A combination of different countries? Bitcoin? Locked behind passwords and hidden on secret hard drives? In support of the right politicians? After all Berlusconi was even relected after all sorts of shady business. or in buying or controlling the media? making friendships with actors like Elon Musk and Prince Harry do?

Or, maybe, something more human? Children? Surrogacy is legal in the US. What if he had 100 000 children? At 100 000$ each, this would cost 10 billion. Would these children survive and have a world changing effect despite his death or destruction in jail? Would they be strong enough to get him out of jail 20 years later? Elon Musk has a number of children. Will they amount to anything? Donald Trump's do.

He must have known that he was not going to be able to keep the money. So do people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Why not diversify the risk in an area that is immune to bankruptcy?

If we choose to put people like SBF in jail, who will have the courage to make the next FTX? How do we ensure we stay at the forefront of innovation? Last, but not least, is the world better off with SBF in jail? Or would be better for society to use his mind to something constructive? He's a Standford graduate. Just months ago, he could command millions an hour, as consulting fee. Maybe, the heavy arm of the law could make him cheaper. However, it does NOT make sense to waste him altogether.

Russia has liberated all criminals who want to fight in Ukraine. Why? Well, essentially, every liberated conscript provides the state with the savings that arise from hiring a paid soldier. Maybe 50 000? If that.

Could the US, maybe, too, find something worth enough to let people out of jail for? Maybe put a price on it? Shouldn't be as cheap as Russia, but, maybe, the American society could do with an SBF free, who will produce something to be taxed (FTX did generate billions in paid and, perhaps, more billions in unpaid taxes).

I have asked a lot of questions in this post, and provided very few answers. I want to conclude with one thought, which dwarfs all others. When we jail people like SBF and Julien Assange, we should remember that a society that kills its best and brightest will not get very far and that we are that society. Maybe our children will live long enough to wonder at how silly our society was, and how incompetent our justice system is. I hope they will, but the more I marvel at its stupidity the less certain I am.