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Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

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Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#61

Post by andrewflnr »

eightnoteight wrote: post #45
thereisnoself wrote: post #27

Allowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important

once it converts into profit-seeking venture, it won't get the tax benefits one could argue that they did R&D as a non-profit and now converted to for-profit to avoid paying taxes, but until last year R&D already got tax benefits to even for-profit venture so there really is no tax-advantage of converting a non-profit to for-profit

But it keeps the intangible benefits it accrued by being ostensibly non-profit, and that can easily be worth the money paid in taxes.

Otherwise, why do you think OpenAI is doing it?

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#62

Post by eightnoteight »

svnt wrote: post #56
eightnoteight wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

once it converts into profit-seeking venture, it won't get the tax benefits one could argue that they did R&D as a non-profit and now converted to for-profit to avoid paying taxes, but until last year R&D already got tax benefits to even for-profit venture so there really is no tax-advantage of converting a non-profit to for-profit

The tax advantage still exists for the investors.

I don't believe non-profits can have investors, only donors i.e an investor by definition expects money out of his investment which he can never get out of a non-profit

only the for-profit entity of the OpenAI can have investors, who don't get any tax advantage when they eventually want to cash out

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#63

Post by [deleted] »

bart_spoon wrote: post #22
jp_nc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he thinks GPT-4 is AGI, Elon should ask a team of GPT-4 bots to design, build and launch his rockets and see how it goes. If “economically valuable work” means creating terrible, wordy blog posts then yeah I guess it’s a risk.

I don’t think GPT-4 is AGI, but that seems like a foolish idea. An AGI doesn’t need to be hyperproficient at everything, or even anything. Ask a team of any non-aeronautical engineers to build a rocket and it will go poorly. Do those people not qualify as intelligent beings?

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#64

Post by svnt »

bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #29
ungreased0675 wrote: post #20

I do wonder if OpenAI is built on a house of cards. They aren’t a nonprofit, aren’t open, and stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material to get started. But, by moving fast and scaling quickly, are they at the Too Big to Fail stage already? The attempted board coup makes me think so.

When people say too big to fail, normally they're referring to companies which if they fail they would bring down other important parts of society's infrastructure (think biggest banks), and so someone (the gov) will last minute change the rules around to ensure they don't fail. The openai fails, absolutely nothing happens other than its shareholder losing their paper money. So no, they're not too big to fail.

If they fail, other entities with little to no American oversight/control potentially become the leading edge in artificial intelligence.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#68

Post by dang »

neom wrote: post #38

imo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778

(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559597, but we merged that thread hither.)

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#69

Post by hx8 »

abfan1127 wrote: post #43
thereisnoself wrote: post #27

Allowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important

if you're not profitable, there should be no tax advantage, right?

OpenAI was a 501C3. This meant donors could give money to it and receive tax benefits. The advantage is in the unique way it can reduce the funders tax bill.
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