… I think there are many nearby fact patterns on which the Sam firing could have worked. This is evident from the fact that, in the period of days after November 17, prediction markets gave much less than 90% odds—and for many periods of time much less than 50%—that Sam would shortly come back as CEO.
This seems confused to me, because the market is reflecting epistemic uncertainty, not counterfactual resilience. It could be the case that the board would reliably fail in all nearby fact patterns but that market participants simply did not know this, because there were important and durable but unknown facts about e.g. the strength of the MSFT relationship or players’ BATNAs.
Would we say that the President is powerless just because the other branches of government can constrain her (e.g., through the impeachment power or ability to override her veto) in many cases?
I think it would be fair to describe some Presidents as being effectively powerless with regard their veto yes, if the other party control a super-majority of the legislature and have good internal discipline.
In any case I think the impact and action-relevance of this post would not be very much changed if the title was instead a more wordy “Maybe Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust is as powerless as OpenAI’s was”.
It could be the case that the board would reliably fail in all nearby fact patterns but that market participants simply did not know this, because there were important and durable but unknown facts about e.g. the strength of the MSFT relationship or players’ BATNAs.
I agree this is an alternative explanation. But my personal view is also that the common wisdom that it was destined to fail ab initio is incorrect. I don’t have much more knowledge than other people do on this point, though.
I think it would be fair to describe some Presidents as being effectively powerless with regard their veto yes, if the other party control a super-majority of the legislature and have good internal discipline.
(Emphasis added.) I think this is the crux of the argument. I agree that the OpenAI board may have been powerless to accomplish a specific result in a specific situation. Similarly, in this hypo, the President may be powerless powerless to accomplish a specific result (vetoing legislation) in a specific situation.
But I think this is very far away from saying a specific institution is “powerless” simpliciter, which is what I disagreed with Zach’s headline. (And so similarly would disagree that the President was “powerless” simpliciter in your hypo.)
An institution’s powers will almost always be constrained significantly by both law and politics, so showing significant constraints on an institution’s ability to act unilaterally is very far from showing it overall completely lacks power.
This seems confused to me, because the market is reflecting epistemic uncertainty, not counterfactual resilience. It could be the case that the board would reliably fail in all nearby fact patterns but that market participants simply did not know this, because there were important and durable but unknown facts about e.g. the strength of the MSFT relationship or players’ BATNAs.
I think it would be fair to describe some Presidents as being effectively powerless with regard their veto yes, if the other party control a super-majority of the legislature and have good internal discipline.
In any case I think the impact and action-relevance of this post would not be very much changed if the title was instead a more wordy “Maybe Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust is as powerless as OpenAI’s was”.
I agree this is an alternative explanation. But my personal view is also that the common wisdom that it was destined to fail ab initio is incorrect. I don’t have much more knowledge than other people do on this point, though.
(Emphasis added.) I think this is the crux of the argument. I agree that the OpenAI board may have been powerless to accomplish a specific result in a specific situation. Similarly, in this hypo, the President may be powerless powerless to accomplish a specific result (vetoing legislation) in a specific situation.
But I think this is very far away from saying a specific institution is “powerless” simpliciter, which is what I disagreed with Zach’s headline. (And so similarly would disagree that the President was “powerless” simpliciter in your hypo.)
An institution’s powers will almost always be constrained significantly by both law and politics, so showing significant constraints on an institution’s ability to act unilaterally is very far from showing it overall completely lacks power.