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OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

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171–180 of 595 posts

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#171
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of non-OSI open source licenses are ironically motivated by other forms of bad corporate behavior: take open source, SaaSify it, make massive profits, give nothing back. In some cases they go so far as to rebrand it and give no credit. Licenses like the SSPL try to restrict this behavior.

The AGPL (also) does this explicitly, but really there should be a general OSS license that forbids commercial use. That way the software stays where it is most needed and doesn't get abused to make profit. Is there such a license?

I recall the FSF being pretty adamant that a license restricting commercial use would be a non-free license by default.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#172
post #39

Nice grift by Sam Altman taking all the donations and good will a non profit gets just to flip 180. He probably would have done the same with his crypto scam startup worldcoin if it would not have failed in every way before he could scam.

It's weird to me that this is even possible legally (turning a nonprofit into a for-profit).

They technically didn’t get rid of the non profit but instead formed a partially owned for profit subsidiary.

In theory non profits are subject to oversight by the state of incorporation’s attorney general. In practice it’s mostly a free for all.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#173
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's lost himself in the fake popularity of being a social media celebrity. He started believing that having 100 million followers on a web site really means that a continent's worth of people adore you. For all his complaints about bots after he got cold feet on the Twitter purchase, he seems strangely naïve about how social media really works and what's real there. “This is ridiculous,” he said, according to multip…

So the real reason behind him buying Twitter was to force the entire site to be his followers? Lmao.

The ""evil"" version of Tom from Myspace.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#174
post #39

Nice grift by Sam Altman taking all the donations and good will a non profit gets just to flip 180. He probably would have done the same with his crypto scam startup worldcoin if it would not have failed in every way before he could scam.

It's weird to me that this is even possible legally (turning a nonprofit into a for-profit).

You can't. In the U.S., the assets of charity must be permanently dedicated to an exempt purpose.

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz...

OpenAI is still a nonprofit. Their Financials are public. A lot of folks use "profit" in a hand-wavey sense to describe something they don't like, like an organization sitting on cash or paying key employees more than they expect. The organization may not be doing what donors thought it would with their money, but that doesn't necessarily mean cash retained is profit.

Recent filings show the organization has substantially cut its compensation for key employees year after year. It's sitting on quite a bit of cash, but I think that is expected given the scope of their work.

That said, their Financials from 2019 look a little weird. They reported considerable negative expenses, including negative salaries (what did they do, a bunch of clawbacks?), and had no fundraising expenses.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810...

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#175

Step by step, ever since the calling the diver a "pedo", every since the "funding secured" i've began to realise just how petty and pathetic elon is. Every opportunity he has he seems to show just how vindictive he really is. Man child who now has way too much money. Buying Twitter on a whim is the latest in a string of decisions which do not align with the "let's get to Mars and save earths environment" stuff he lik…

I think it’s a weird narcissistic need to feel that they are the center of the conversation and so they are important. What is so interesting about Elon is that he was objectively quite important prior to Twitter... but that wasn't enough.

Whatever your target, whatever you achieve... it is not enough.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#176
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is quite intriguing. In my view, mainstream media refers to media organisations that are prominent in the current cultural and political environment. In my opinion, these organisations have largely turned against the tech industry, perceiving it as a competitor and a generally negative force. For instance, The Verge is owned by Vox, which I personally consider with all due respect an extremely biased le…

> "mainstream media refers to media organisations that are prominent in the current cultural and political environment" So Fox News and Breitbart are mainstream media? Fox is the most watched TV channel in the United States — hard to argue they're not an essential part of the current political environment. And Breitbart is certainly more prominent and influential than a niche site like The Verge. The latter's editors…

Fox News yes, Breitbart nope. They haven't been in the zeitgeist for years.

Its worth nothing that although there are no strict definitions of what counts as mainstream vs independent, the populist wings of both parties loosely group them in the same buckets.

A lifetime ago, I used to consider myself populist-left and since then there hasn't been much if any difference in what I consider as mainstream.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve blocked him - it was getting too much and I really don’t care what his view on things are. I had a lot of admiration for him until he became more public - now, I think he is a cruel person who’s politics do not align one bit with me.

Same here. I just did a quick survey of his tweets going back to roughly February 24th. 7 Meme 1 Twitter Ad 11 American Culture War/Politics 1 Spacex 8 Starlink/Spacex Retweets 2 Tesla Retweet 2 AI Hot Take 3 Irrelevant This is a real bad noise-to-signal ratio for me. Everything I'm interested in I can get from company accounts (SpaceX/Tesla) and/or third party reporting. As a consequence, I decided to keep him block…

It gets worse if you look at his replies. About 50% of them are just "cry-laugh emoji", but the interesting ones are who gets a "looking into it".

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, is there anyone naive enough to have swallowed any of their trips? Corporations don't have ethical compasses, much less corporations founded by VCs aka professional salesmen.

Isn't that the point that it wasn't founded as a corporation, nor by Sam Altman? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#:~:text=The%20organizat... .

"Non-profit" refers to the tax-exempt status. "Corporation" is an organizational structure. The designations do not have to overlap but sometimes do. [1] It isn't clear from the wiki page whether it was founded as a corporation or not. The content of the filings are the only way to tell.

[1] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-nonprofit...

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#179
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's lost himself in the fake popularity of being a social media celebrity. He started believing that having 100 million followers on a web site really means that a continent's worth of people adore you. For all his complaints about bots after he got cold feet on the Twitter purchase, he seems strangely naïve about how social media really works and what's real there. “This is ridiculous,” he said, according to multip…

I mean if its true and he has 100 million followers and he has only 10000ish impression then there is something seriously wrong. Because that flat out makes no sense. Even if you assume 60% bods, and 70% of users not reading their timeline.

The timeline of people you actively follow isn’t the default any more. They push the machine learning driven feed as the default option and switch back to it when you restart the app.

With that in mind, Elons main option is to ask the algorithm for more impressions in the black box feed. That will get him into the feeds of non followers and show his tweets to followers when they eventually log in.

I experienced something similar on LinkedIn. I used to have a lot of followers and high engagement. At some point it changed such that the algorithm could bury you or promote you as it sees fit. At that point the only option is to write content that the algorithm promotes rather than content which your followers find interesting. Everyone worked this out and started writing their vulnerable virtue signalling stories for engagement, and the platform went downhill.

Re: OpenAI is now everything it promised not to be: closed-source and for-profit

#180
post #39

Nice grift by Sam Altman taking all the donations and good will a non profit gets just to flip 180. He probably would have done the same with his crypto scam startup worldcoin if it would not have failed in every way before he could scam.

It's weird to me that this is even possible legally (turning a nonprofit into a for-profit).

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