Will Hurd is plausibly quite concerned about AI Risk[1]. It’s hard to know for sure because his campaign website is framed in the language of US-China competition (and has unfortunate-by-my-lights suggestions like “Equip the Military and Intelligence Community with Advanced AI”), but I think a lot of the proposed policies are relevant to AI risk.
Shivon Zilis left OpenAI allegedly because she had Elon Musk’s children and this was seen as a COI[2]. To the extent that there’s bad blood still between Altman and Musk, if instead of framing the board’s decisions are “doomer” vs “non-doomer”, we frame it as as “skeptical of giving Sam free rein” and “fine with letting Sam do whatever”, there’s a reasonable case that Zilis agrees with Musk enough that she would not side with the pro-Sam faction.
(EDIT 2023/12/04: Changed wording to be slightly more precise and slightly less strong) So there’s at least some evidence that any or all of Hoffman/Hurd/Zilis (the 3 board members that left recently) would’ve opposed Sam trying to ouster Toner. Far from certain, but I’d currently say[3] >50% (EDIT: that at least one of them would be opposed). Especially if it turns out that one or all of them were themselves pushed out by Altman and they started sharing notes. Of course, ousting Altman in retaliation is a pretty big move, and the more politically savvy ones might’ve found a better compromise solution.
His wikipedia page says “On September 20, 2023, Hurd unveiled a detailed plan for how he would regulate AI if elected President, comparing AI to nuclear fusion, and proposing creating a branch of the executive to deal solely and directly on the issue of AI, and proposing strict regulations on civilian AI usage.” The last one in particular doesn’t sound necessarily conducive to OpenAI/Microsoft’s advanced AI ambitions.
Of course, this counterfactual is hard to verify. The Twitter backlash + OAI revolt probably means people would be hesitant to be publicly pro-Toner, now.
Re 2: It’s plausible, but I’m not sure that this is true. Points against:
Reid Hoffman was reported as being specifically pushed out by Altman: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/19/2023/reid-hoffman-was-privately-unhappy-about-leaving-openais-board
Will Hurd is plausibly quite concerned about AI Risk[1]. It’s hard to know for sure because his campaign website is framed in the language of US-China competition (and has unfortunate-by-my-lights suggestions like “Equip the Military and Intelligence Community with Advanced AI”), but I think a lot of the proposed policies are relevant to AI risk.
Shivon Zilis left OpenAI allegedly because she had Elon Musk’s children and this was seen as a COI[2]. To the extent that there’s bad blood still between Altman and Musk, if instead of framing the board’s decisions are “doomer” vs “non-doomer”, we frame it as as “skeptical of giving Sam free rein” and “fine with letting Sam do whatever”, there’s a reasonable case that Zilis agrees with Musk enough that she would not side with the pro-Sam faction.
(EDIT 2023/12/04: Changed wording to be slightly more precise and slightly less strong) So there’s at least some evidence that any or all of Hoffman/Hurd/Zilis (the 3 board members that left recently) would’ve opposed Sam trying to ouster Toner. Far from certain, but I’d currently say[3] >50% (EDIT: that at least one of them would be opposed). Especially if it turns out that one or all of them were themselves pushed out by Altman and they started sharing notes. Of course, ousting Altman in retaliation is a pretty big move, and the more politically savvy ones might’ve found a better compromise solution.
His wikipedia page says “On September 20, 2023, Hurd unveiled a detailed plan for how he would regulate AI if elected President, comparing AI to nuclear fusion, and proposing creating a branch of the executive to deal solely and directly on the issue of AI, and proposing strict regulations on civilian AI usage.” The last one in particular doesn’t sound necessarily conducive to OpenAI/Microsoft’s advanced AI ambitions.
Convoluted wording because of “executives claimed that they were born via in vitro fertilization (IVF).”
Of course, this counterfactual is hard to verify. The Twitter backlash + OAI revolt probably means people would be hesitant to be publicly pro-Toner, now.