OpenAI Battles Safety Concerns and High-Profile Exits | Pivot

1. 0:00 – 0:30

   OpenAI’s latest “mess”: Jan Leike resigns and warns safety is losing to products

   1. KSKara Swisher0:00

      Things are getting messy at OpenAI again. Oh, man, is this the most, like, telenovela of a company? The company had other high profile departure again this week with the resignation of Jan Leike, uh, the head of Superalignment, which is the team focused on s- A- AI safety. That's the words. We're gonna be all super aligned. Uh, Leike explained his departure in a series of social media posts saying in part that OpenAI's safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products, and there's been a bunch of shiny products they showed off last week.

2. 0:30 – 1:00

   Superalignment team dissolved: OpenAI says safety will be “integrated” across research

   1. KSKara Swisher0:30

      Uh, Open- it's not- the things are not unrelated. Um, OpenAI has dissolved that Superalignment team. The company told Bloomberg the group will be integrated across research efforts to help achieve safety goals. Uh, S- Sam Altman put out a, a, a statement and also did OpenAI co-founder Gregg Brockman, uh, sharing their view of the p- the future. They said the company has "raised awareness of the risks and opportunities of AGI so the world can better prepare for it." Whether they're preparing for it or not is a big question. There's been at least 11 high profile exits in the last

3. 1:00 – 1:30

   A wave of departures and the pressure to ship before Big Tech catches up

   1. KSKara Swisher1:00

      few months. Um, you know, this is an issue, again, of speed versus safety. They have been rolling out the products 'cause they're deathly terrified of getting rolled over by the big companies. I can feel it. I can feel such a Netscape moment for them. Um, you know, uh, we'll see. Uh, we'll see what'll happen here. But it's definitely a company still shaking off or dealing with these issues that they've had, these two different types of people who are, um, involved in this company, which is some that, uh, think this is a, a

4. 1:30 – 2:13

   Off-boarding agreements controversy: NDAs, non-disparagement, and threatened equity loss

   1. KSKara Swisher1:30

      risk to humanity, others who are like, "Calm the fuck down. Let's make some stuff and we'll figure it out later." Um, uh, one of the things that got a lot of reporting was OpenAI's off-boarding agreements that have non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions. Not uncommon, but theirs were particularly stringent. If a departing employee violated these provisions, they were in danger of losing all their vested equity according to Vox. Sam Altman confirmed in a tweet there was a provision about potential equity cancellation for departing employees, but it was never enforced. The company is currently changing that language. Uh, it sounds like they're just, like, just tough customers on that thing. Um, it is further than other people do. It's usually more talent-friendly in general in Silicon Valley. Scott, what are your thoughts on all this?

5. 2:13 – 2:36

   Scott’s view: after the board coup, safety leaders were “dead man walking”

   1. SGScott Galloway2:13

      When Ilya was part of the board that-

   2. KSKara Swisher2:15

      Sutskever.

   3. SGScott Galloway2:16

      Yeah.

   4. KSKara Swisher2:16

      Yeah.

   5. SGScott Galloway2:16

      When, when he was part of the board that fired Sam Altman, (laughs) if you're gonna-

   6. KSKara Swisher2:20

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SGScott Galloway2:20

      ... stab their prince, you, you better kill him. When he came back-

   8. KSKara Swisher2:22

      Yeah.

   9. SGScott Galloway2:22

      ... Ilya became the information age equivalent of Prigozhin. He was dead man walking. He just wasn't-

   10. KSKara Swisher2:27

       Yeah.

   11. SGScott Galloway2:27

       ... going to survive. "Oh, no hard feelings for firing me." (laughs) Come on.

   12. KSKara Swisher2:32

       Yeah.

   13. SGScott Galloway2:32

       L- water under the bridge. That just wasn't gonna happen, and this is similar-

   14. KSKara Swisher2:36

       Yeah.

6. 2:36 – 2:47

   Trust & safety as corporate theater: comparison to Meta’s cycle of hiring then cutting

   1. SGScott Galloway2:36

      ... to Meta. The fastest way to get a severance check is to go to work for the trust and safety team 'cause every-

   2. KSKara Swisher2:41

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SGScott Galloway2:41

      ... once in a while, in response to real heat, they'll pretend to give a good goddamn and they'll create a trust and safety team. I doubt-

   4. KSKara Swisher2:47

      Mm-hmm.

7. 2:47 – 3:44

   “They’re a for-profit company”: Scott argues OpenAI should stop pretending

   1. SGScott Galloway2:47

      ... Mark listens to them or cares about them, and then under the cover of dark, fires most of them. I like the fact that OpenAI is becoming more like what they really are, and that is they are a for-profit company, and they're not pretending-

   2. KSKara Swisher2:57

      Tough, tough mothers.

   3. SGScott Galloway2:58

      And they're not pretending to be anything. I'd rather them be like New Yorkers. That's what- that's one of the reasons I love New York versus doing-

   4. KSKara Swisher3:04

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SGScott Galloway3:04

      ... business in California, is they-

   6. KSKara Swisher3:06

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SGScott Galloway3:06

      ... don't pretend to be something they aren't. And-

   8. KSKara Swisher3:11

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SGScott Galloway3:11

      ... i- i- this is a f- for-profit companies and OpenAI are gonna be so good at making profit, they shouldn't be trusted to do anything else. And the fact- and first off, and also-

   10. KSKara Swisher3:21

       Well, except they were founded with a slightly different idea, but go ahead. You can't-

   11. SGScott Galloway3:24

       Yeah, and then when they took $11 billion, those people wanted their money-

   12. KSKara Swisher3:27

       That's right.

   13. SGScott Galloway3:28

       ... back. (laughs) Uh-

   14. KSKara Swisher3:28

       Yes.

   15. SGScott Galloway3:28

       ... so they should have never taken that money. But i- the one thing, the one compensatory thing here is that any group of people that decides to call themselves Superalignment should be fired. That is-

   16. KSKara Swisher3:39

       (laughs) I thought you'd like that.

   17. SGScott Galloway3:40

       ... that is, those people should endure a certain amount of ridicule and pain. What are your thoughts?

8. 3:44 – 5:21

   Kara’s pushback: safety matters, but incentives guarantee money wins inside the company

   1. KSKara Swisher3:44

      Well, you know, AI is going to kill us, Scott! I mean, it's a really interesting thing because I- these people are, you know, there's a group over at Anthropic that are much more concerned in that regard, and I think they have a right to be, absolutely. I think w- I- listen, I've always been a safety, like, like, why are you not paying attention to any bit of safety from the very get-go? And so I would naturally be affiliated with the Superalignment people. At the same time, for them to think this is anything other than a for-profit institution is kind of... Well, then go on a bor- go on a- s- you know, go to Stanford and, and become a high profile naysayer of these things, or write a book like Burn Book, right? Um, because they're inside these companies. I think the- because of the amount of money here, there's just no way people aren't gonna be aligned around the money-making. And, you know, some people are like, "Oh, you like Sam Altman?" I said, uh, I said, "Yes, but he's a tough motherfucker." I was like, "Are you kidding? He's so aggressive." He's so much like all the people he... You know, he's just like, he's not like Elon because Elon's a toxic piece of shit sometimes, uh, most of the time. Uh, I don't consider Sam like that, but he is interested in not having this company die, uh, you know. He is interested in making it the most dominant com- com- I have no question he's hyperaggressive and just as feral as the rest of them. And so, um, you know, they're gonna have these things because what they wanna do is pretend that they care about the s- safety stuff, which they do peripherally, you know, more than other people I guess. They bring it up more, but they don't, uh, they just don't care about that issue, and they're not, they're not, they're not gonna be around to see the machines eating us alive or something li- you know what I mean? Like, it's-

   2. SGScott Galloway5:20

      It's not their job. M-

9. 5:21 – 6:08

   The “two parents” problem and the myth of heroic tech companies (Google’s ‘Don’t be evil’)

   1. KSKara Swisher5:21

      It's, it's... Well, y- but it, see, this is the problem, though. It, its birth was like, it was like two, it was like a hippie parent and a, a non-hippie parent, right? And they're fighting forever.

   2. SGScott Galloway5:33

      Mm-hmm.

   3. KSKara Swisher5:33

      This group, these groups of people are fighting forever, and so they are never gonna be... This whole company isn't gonna be in alignment. It started out out of alignment, and they're never gonna... I, I know that I'm using a term about the idea of making sure it's safe, but they will never, this company will never... It might be what kills them, right? It might be what kills them because they're gonna get unusual. It's like Google saying, "Don't be evil." That was just one big mistake, like, why did they do that, right? 'Cause they're evil some- not evil, that's too far, but you know what I mean? Like-... that, that, that whole cosplaying about being heroic has always been a problem for these-

   4. SGScott Galloway6:07

      Th- that's not-

   5. KSKara Swisher6:08

      ... tech giants.

10. 6:08 – 8:31

    Regulation is the real solution: don’t trust CEOs—pressure Congress instead

    1. SGScott Galloway6:08

       These companies always figure out, they're like, "Okay, unless we're REI or Ben & Jerry's, let's be honest, folks, we all want our own big home. We all wanna take care of our kids. We all want a broader selection set of mates than we deserve. So let's, let's stop, let's stop pretending." Where it's dangerous is that we keep thinking that Sam Altman is actually a better generation of leader, and we don't need to be as worried about AI because Sam's in charge. And he'll speak in hushed tones and say how concerned he is. And what it does is it dampens the urgency and the need to elect people who can craft legislation to regulate these guys.

    2. KSKara Swisher6:41

       That's right. It's not Sam's job to do this.

    3. SGScott Galloway6:42

       That's exactly right. His... Sam is doing his job. He's firing people who get in the way of him (laughs) making, being the... No, if Sam were to lose to, to Gemini or to LLaMA or whatever, or X.AI, they wouldn't say, "Yeah, but he was more ethical and more concerned, and we love him for that."

    4. KSKara Swisher7:03

       There ha- There, there, there do have to be-

    5. SGScott Galloway7:04

       He's not gonna get a statue for that.

    6. KSKara Swisher7:06

       Let's just say, there have to be ethical things. If you're working for this kind... Like, it's, working for, uh, Palantir, you're gonna make Defense Department stuff. Don't work there like that, you know? Or, you know, the Google employees, that's different, 'cause Google sort of gave them an in to c- to complain, 'cause they were like, "We're better than this," but they're really not better than this, right? So I think when you f- you sort of, you know, you, you pro- have a performative nature of being heroic, you're going to be slapped later, 'cause you're gonna let people down, period.

    7. SGScott Galloway7:34

       That's right.

    8. KSKara Swisher7:34

       And it's gonna be very clear. And again, the reason my first line of my book was, "And so it was capitalism after all," sticks. That's what it is. That's what's happening here. And I think you all should go off and form a group of people that s- that scares the fucking bejesus out of s- of the potential, and you go up to Congress, and you march in those offices, and you explain to them why they need to make legislation. That's what, that's what you need to do. I think a l- when people all backed Sam, a lot of people were like, "Oh, they love him." I'm like, "No, they love the money, and they wanna make money here." And they, you know-

    9. SGScott Galloway8:04

       That's right.

    10. KSKara Swisher8:05

        ... and, and they wanna make, they wanna be at... Na- not just make money, they wanna be at the coolest company making this shit, 'cause it's cool.

    11. SGScott Galloway8:09

        They wanna be at the winning company that makes them rich.

    12. KSKara Swisher8:11

        Winning c... Yeah, and also is the coolest company, right? That's... More than that, more than that. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I, I thought Jaan's, um... I thought his, his series of tweets was interesting, but it doesn't really... I'm sorry, Jaan. Do something else.

Episode duration: 8:31