There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.
I'm not at all clear on what a "not for profit" status even does, tax wise. In any jurisdiction. They are still able to actually make a profit (and quite often will, because careful balancing of perfect profit and loss is almost impossible and loss is bad), and I thought those profits were still taxed because otherwise that's too obvious as a tax dodge, it's just that profit isn't their main goal?
Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
441–450 of 1001 posts
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no reliable evidence that AGI is an existential threat, nor that it is even achievable within our lifetimes. Current OpenAI products are useful and technically impressive but no one has shown that they represent steps towards a true AGI.
There's plenty of reliable evidence. It's just not conclusive evidence. But a lot of people including AI researchers now think we are looking at AGI in a relatively short time with fairly high odds. AGI by the OpenAI economic-viability definition might not be far off at all; companies are trying very very hard to get humanoid robots going and that's the absolute most obvious way to make a lot of humans obsolete.
“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Show me a robot that can snake out a plugged toilet. The people who believe that most jobs can be automated are ivory-tower academics and programmers who have never done any real work in their lives.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
From: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We h…
Wait, Peter Thiel is/was heavily involved in YC?
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still not as big as Halliburton, I feel it’s the opposite the government isn’t detaining these obvious frauders and now they run amock.
Halliburton was protected by the government because their top dogs were literally running the country. It's a very different scenario from OpenAI.
Let's not give Sam Altman any ideas!
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#445Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#446There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.
I'm not at all clear on what a "not for profit" status even does, tax wise. In any jurisdiction. They are still able to actually make a profit (and quite often will, because careful balancing of perfect profit and loss is almost impossible and loss is bad), and I thought those profits were still taxed because otherwise that's too obvious as a tax dodge, it's just that profit isn't their main goal?
In the case of many/most (honest) non-profits, the operating costs are paid out of a combination of the dividends of an invested principal (endowment, having been previously donated by donors) and grants/current donations. Any operating profit could then be returned to the endowment, allowing the organization to maintain higher operating costs indefinitely, thus giving the organization more capacity to further their mission.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#447grabs popcorn
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#448Now that Google, Meta, Mistral, etc, all have great open source models, it seems rather untenable for OpenAI to 1. keep "open" in the name 2. stay closed source 3. pretend to be a non-profit at least one of those things must go, right?
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#449Many would argue, reasonably so, that OpenAI is now a de facto subsidiary of the largest company in the world by market cap, Microsoft (Apple is second and Saudi Arabian Oil is third).
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of their charter is not to make money, it's to develop AI for the benefit of all, which I interpret to mean putting control and exploitation of AI in the hands of the public. The reality: we don't even get public LLM models, let alone source code, while their coffers overfloweth. Awesome for OpenAI and their employees! Every else goes without. Public benefit my arse.
I've been really hung up on the irony of "Open" part of the OpenAI name. I figure "Open" must mean "open for business". What is open about OpenAI?
Someone took inspiration from this.