Comment by caidan
15 hours ago
How incredibly unsurprising. This is why it is pointless to make moral stands as employees when you do not ultimately have power over the companies decisions. The only power you have is to quit.
I wonder how many will do so, and how many will simply accept Sam’s AI written rationalization as this own and keep collecting their obscene pay packages…
> The only power you have is to quit.
This is an incredible power when exercised en-masse.
And behind the quitting decision is very little safety net and usually substantial financial obligations keeping people handcuffed. Something has to give. The power employees had during covid was the way it should be, or something more closely approximating that.
I guarantee you that most OAI employees have well into the multiple millions at this point.
There is no "financial safety net" they need to care about. That is just an excuse.
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Ironically this ends up with Chinese H1Bs remaining loyal while Americans have to fall on their sword
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--and then, all the decent people no longer work there, and it's like certain other careers populated entirely with psychopaths
Wouldn't staying feel like implicitly condoning the actions of the "psychopaths"?
Psychopaths tend to be dumb (but not always), and the smartest researchers that actually care about getting humanity to AGI tend to be safety conscious.
This has been a huge talent advertisement for Anthropic. Their recruiting just got easier for the next 6 months.
I am sure openAI will struggle to find replacement for the lost headcount
At some point, yes, they absolutely would struggle.
Top researchers are more valuable than datacenters
It's perhaps too late in this case, but this is what unions are for. Sam Altman + a handful of scabs can't keep the lights on at OpenAI if a critical mass of engineers refuse to work until this decision is reversed (or, even better, not made at all, since the union would be part of that process).
The OpenAI employees had the power to have Sam Altman reinstated when he was ousted by the board two years ago.
> The only power you have is to quit.
Employees often have the power to oust the owner and take over the company; and more often than that have the power to have business grind to a halt. It does take a strong union and a culture of solidarity and sticking together of course, which I doubt we would find in a place like OpenAI.