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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]

#501

Post by mrguyorama »

emodendroket wrote: post #299
Jun8 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and me. Technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." You can find the number of letters of the redacted text and then guess who they are. It's fun!

> "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." It's hard not to be a bit cynical about such an arrangement.

They all genuinely believe themselves to be benign gods over the rest of us. They drink their own KoolAid. At a certain point, influence breaks your brain. Hairless monkeys with a Dunbar number of 150 can't cope with that amount of control over others, so the brain tells itself stories about how everything bad is not it's fault and everything good is.

Here's a hint: If you ever think "I can't trust anyone else with this", you are probably doing something wrong.

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

#502

Post by russdill »

siliconc0w wrote: post #248

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.

Ok, but that sounds like something that requires a change in legislation. Suing companies for doing something permissible under the current legal structure just doesn't make sense.

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

#503

Post by tombert »

paxys wrote: post #150

While I have no doubt everything in the complaint is correct, it's hard to see it as Elon being genuinely concerned about open and safe AI vs just having FOMO that he isn't part of it anymore and doesn't get to call the shots. For example his own AI startup is exactly as closed off and unregulated as OpenAI. Why is that not equally concerning?

I don't really want to defend Elon, because I very much dislike him, but there's a bit if a difference between OpenAI vs his own AI startups, which is that his AI startup isn't called Open AI. There's no compunctions about it being a for-profit enterprise, unlike OpenAI which kind of gives a veil of a non-profit.

Like, if a doctor in Manhattan found out that Doctors Without Borders was charging Manhattan medical rates to all the people it was treating in Uganda, that doctor might criticize them for doing that, and I don't think it'd be a good excuse for DWB to say "You charge Manhattan medical rates at your practice, how is that not equally concerning???" because the obvious retort would be to say "Yeah but I'm not pretending to be a non-profit.".

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

#504

Post by baobabKoodaa »

guhidalg wrote: post #461
stickfigure wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand how taxes work. Unprofitable businesses of every sort don't pay income taxes. Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. And investors don't get a writeoff merely for investing in a nonprofit; it's not like a donation to a nonprofit (which would be deductable).

> Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. Where is my $20/month for GPT-4 going then?

Revenue. Your $20/month is going on the revenue line of accounting. The income line on the accounting can be negative despite your generous $20 donation.

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

#505

Post by ant6n »

cpill wrote: post #475
troupe wrote: post #438

If OpenAI became a non-profit with this in its charter: “resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable. The corporation is not organized for the private gain of any person" I don't think it is going to be hard to show that they are doing something very different than what they said they were going to do.

yeah, the lawyers will have the whole case on those two words: "where applicable"

Rather „not organized for the private gain of any person“

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

#506

Post by russdill »

ph_dre wrote: post #440

I uploaded the PDF to ChatGPT4 with the original name and got "Unable to upload musk-v-altman-openai-complaint-sf.pdf" multiple times I changed it to "defnotalawsuit.pdf" and it worked...

I had zero problems, worked on the first try without any re-naming.

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

#507

Post by wmf »

mrinterweb wrote: post #433
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #351

Earlier 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?

They changed their minds and didn't change the name. That's all.

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

#508

Post by tombert »

paxys wrote: post #258
karaterobot wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be in the position of defending Elon Musk, but in this case his complaint seems to be that OpenAI claims one thing and does another. If X.ai started out telling everyone it's for-profit and closed off, then it's not hypocritical at all for it to be that. It's something else, sure.

From x.ai's home page: > At xAI, we want to create AI tools that assist humanity in its quest for understanding and knowledge. How is it doing that by being a closed, for-profit enterprise?

I don't think that follows; Apple is a closed-off, for-profit company, but I do think that a Macbook or an iPhone can be used to assist humanity in its quest for understanding and knowledge. I would agree it might be more helpful for them to be open, but it doesn't imply that it's inherently unhelpful if they're not.

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

#510

Post by treflop »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #324
siliconc0w wrote: post #248

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.

The replies that say "well the profits go to the non-profit, all's good" miss the reality of these high profit nonprofits: the profits invariably end up in the pockets of management. Most of those are essentially scams, but it doesn't mean that OpenAI isn't just a more subtle scam. The hype and the credulity of the general public play right into this scam. People will more or less believe anything Sam the Money Gushi…

Not to speak about OpenAI specifically, but people who know what they’re doing still cost a buttload of $$$$.

Even I as a software engineer have a minimum salary I expect because I’m good at my job.

Just because it’s a non-profit doesn’t mean I’m going to demand a smaller salary.

And if the non-profit can’t afford me and gets a more junior dev and they’re not very good and their shit breaks… well, they should have paid full price.

That said, there ARE a lot of dirty non-profits that exist just to pay their executives.

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