Why? Now they'll just start their own company that is 100% for profit and OpenAI may eventually fade into nothingness as money chases the new venture, possibly even Microsoft and employees flee. There's a rumor that Microsoft is already interested in funding Sam's new venture.
They won't be able to catch up to and surpass OpenAI. At least not for a few years. I'm in the camp that we ought to solve alignment before we get to AGI and also of the camp that this is unlikely. Therefore, the pace of AI progress slowing and a point won by the safety side is a good thing based on my assumptions.
I get the sense that there was not a lot of time to do this before Sam was too difficult to remove and appropriated the brand and assets.
From the reading on this I did this evening (which was much more than I probably should have) I had seen it suggested that this might have been a limited window in time where the board was small enough to pull this off. It was 9 members not long ago before being reduced down to 6 (where 4 of them collaborated). Allegedly Sam was looking to grow the board back up.
