How many safety-focused people have left since the board drama now? I count 7, but I might be missing more. Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Daniel Kokotajlo, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Cullen O’Keefe, Pavel Izmailov, William Saunders.
This is a big deal. A bunch of the voices that could raise safety concerns at OpenAI when things really heat up are now gone. Idk what happened behind the scenes, but they judged now is a good time to leave.
Possible effective intervention: Guaranteeing that if these people break their NDA’s, all their legal fees will be compensated for. No idea how sensible this is, so agree/disagree voting encouraged.
Legal fees may not be these individuals’ big exposure (assuming they have non-disclosure / non-disparagement agreements). That would be damages for breaking the NDA, which could be massive depending on the effects on OpenAI’s reputation.
It seems as if the potential of the damages could make the vast majority of defendants “judgment-proof” (meaning they lack the assets to satisfy the judgment).
I wonder about the ethics of an organization that had the policy of financially supporting people (post-bankruptcy) who made potentially extremely high EV decisions that were personally financially ruinous.
I probably would be OK with that from an ethics standpoint. After all, I was not a party to the contracts in question. We celebrate (in appropriate circumstances) journalists who serve as conduits for actual classified information. Needless to say, I find the idea of being an enabler for the breach of contractual NDAs much less morally weighty than being an enabler for the breach of someone’s oath to safeguard classified information.
Legally, such an organization would have to be careful to mitigate the risk of claims for tortious interference with contract and other theories that the AI company could come up with. Promising financial support prior to the leak might open the door for such claims; merely providing it (through a well-written trust) after the fact would probably be OK.
How many safety-focused people have left since the board drama now? I count 7, but I might be missing more. Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Daniel Kokotajlo, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Cullen O’Keefe, Pavel Izmailov, William Saunders.
This is a big deal. A bunch of the voices that could raise safety concerns at OpenAI when things really heat up are now gone. Idk what happened behind the scenes, but they judged now is a good time to leave.
Possible effective intervention: Guaranteeing that if these people break their NDA’s, all their legal fees will be compensated for. No idea how sensible this is, so agree/disagree voting encouraged.
Legal fees may not be these individuals’ big exposure (assuming they have non-disclosure / non-disparagement agreements). That would be damages for breaking the NDA, which could be massive depending on the effects on OpenAI’s reputation.
It seems as if the potential of the damages could make the vast majority of defendants “judgment-proof” (meaning they lack the assets to satisfy the judgment).
I wonder about the ethics of an organization that had the policy of financially supporting people (post-bankruptcy) who made potentially extremely high EV decisions that were personally financially ruinous.
I probably would be OK with that from an ethics standpoint. After all, I was not a party to the contracts in question. We celebrate (in appropriate circumstances) journalists who serve as conduits for actual classified information. Needless to say, I find the idea of being an enabler for the breach of contractual NDAs much less morally weighty than being an enabler for the breach of someone’s oath to safeguard classified information.
Legally, such an organization would have to be careful to mitigate the risk of claims for tortious interference with contract and other theories that the AI company could come up with. Promising financial support prior to the leak might open the door for such claims; merely providing it (through a well-written trust) after the fact would probably be OK.