The Tech Thread

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Apple Maps (and Google) in Israel and Gaza drop live traffic data at request of military - https://9to5mac.com/2023/10/24/apple-maps-israel-and-gaza/

[Rich]

Don't know if anyone has been following the drama happening at OpenAI this past week (creators of ChatGPT).

At a high level:

• The board of ChatGPT fired CEO Sam Altman as a big surprise to everyone
• Microsoft (which owns 49% of OpenAI) offered to hire him and give him his own department for AI to run
• 70 - 80% of OpenAI employees wrote an open letter to the board saying they would quit and go work for Microsoft if they didn't re-instate Sam Altman and resign from the board
• Some board member who voted to out Altman pretty quickly changed their mind
• It looks like Sam Altman will soon be returning to OpenAI with a new board.

What's interesting (aside from all of the above shenanigans) is this quote

Quote

It’s small (six members before Friday, and four without Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman) and includes several A.I. experts who hold no shares in the company. Its directors do not have the responsibility of maximizing value for shareholders, as most corporate boards do, but are instead bound to a fiduciary duty to create “safe A.G.I.” — artificial general intelligence — “that is broadly beneficial.” At least two of the board members, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, have ties to the Effective Altruism movement, a utilitarian-inspired group that has pushed for A.I. safety research and raised alarms that a powerful A.I. system could one day lead to human extinction. 

So rumour is the board thought Altman was moving too fast and reckless with AI, was not forthcoming / honest with the board in what he was doing, etc.

Will be really interesting to see where AI goes and what future iterations of ChatGPT are capable of over the upcoming years.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

11 minutes ago, Rich said:

Don't know if anyone has been following the drama happening at OpenAI this past week (creators of ChatGPT).

At a high level:

• The board of ChatGPT fired CEO Sam Altman as a big surprise to everyone
• Microsoft (which owns 49% of OpenAI) offered to hire him and give him his own department for AI to run
• 70 - 80% of OpenAI employees wrote an open letter to the board saying they would quit and go work for Microsoft if they didn't re-instate Sam Altman and resign from the board
• Some board member who voted to out Altman pretty quickly changed their mind
• It looks like Sam Altman will soon be returning to OpenAI with a new board.

What's interesting (aside from all of the above shenanigans) is this quote

So rumour is the board thought Altman was moving too fast and reckless with AI, was not forthcoming / honest with the board in what he was doing, etc.

Will be really interesting to see where AI goes and what future iterations of ChatGPT are capable of over the upcoming years.

Altman is the James Gunn of AI

 

[BaconNBigBlue]

I've started using AI to generate bits of PowerShell code.  Works very well and saves me the time of googling for hours to find the bits of code I need to make something work.  Thankfully I'm near the end of my career so I don't have to worry about AI taking my job away, which it could easily do in the not-too-distant future.