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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]

#851

Post by _heimdall »

richardw wrote: post #840
stubish wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of the discussion here is about being a non-profit, but per your quote I think the key is open source. Here we have people investing in an open source company, and the company never opened their source. Rather than open source technology everyone could profit from, they kept everything closed and sold exclusive access. I think it is going to be hard for OpenAI to defend their behavior, and a huge amount of da…

I might be too generous, but my interpretation is that the ground changed so fast that they needed to shift to continue the mission given the new reality. After ChatGPT, every for-profit and its dog is going hard. Talent can join the only Mother Teresa in the middle, or compete with them as they stupidly open all the source the second they discover anything. You can’t compete with the biggest labs in the world who ha…

Unless the charter leaves room for such a drastic pivot, I'm not sure how well this would hold up. Whether the original charter is binding is up for lawyers to debate, but as written it seems to spell out the mission clearly and with little wiggle room for interpretation. Maybe they could go after the definition of when open sourcing would benefit the public?

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

#852

Post by ethbr1 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #662
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.

From the Articles of Incorporation: "The specific purpose of this corporation is to provide funding for research, development and distribution of technology related to artificial intelligence. The resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable." Based on this, it would be extremely hard to show that they are doing something v…

The "when applicable" is ambiguous, but IANAL.

Does it become applicable to open source when "The resulting technology will benefit the public"?

That seems the clearest read.

If so, OpenAI would have to argue that open sourcing their models wouldn't benefit the public, which... seems difficult.

They'd essentially have to argue that the public paying OpenAI to use an OpenAI-controlled model is more beneficial.

Or does "when applicable" mean something else? And if so, what? There aren't any other sentences around that indicate what else. And it's hard to argue that their models technically can't be open sourced, given other open source models.

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

#853

Post by thayne »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #824
stubish wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of the discussion here is about being a non-profit, but per your quote I think the key is open source. Here we have people investing in an open source company, and the company never opened their source. Rather than open source technology everyone could profit from, they kept everything closed and sold exclusive access. I think it is going to be hard for OpenAI to defend their behavior, and a huge amount of da…

It says "will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable" they have open sourced a number of things, Whisper most notably. Nothing about that is a promise to open source everything and they just need to say it wasn't applicable for ChatGPT or DallE because of safety.

I think that position would be a lot more defensible if they weren't giving another for-profit company access to it. And there is definitely a conflict of interest when not revealing the source gives them a competitive advantage in selling their product. There's also the question of if the source is too dangerous to make public, how can they be sure the final product is safe? An argument could be made it isn't safe.

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

#854

Post by _heimdall »

shp0ngle wrote: post #712
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.

They claim that this is about the end result, but in the meantime, they can license the not-yet-done AI to Microsoft.

If that's the interpretation, its cpletely open ended and OpenAI has full rights to move goal posts for as long as they wish by redefining "done".

Technologies are never "done" unless and until they are abandoned. Would it be reasonable for OpenAI to only open source once the product is "done" because it is obsolete or failed to meet performance metrics?

And is that open sourcing of the training algorithm, the interpretation engine, or the produced data model?

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

#856

Post by _heimdall »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #819
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.

Unfortunately you can also easily show that they ARE doing these things too. Open source. Check - they have open source software available. Private Gain of any person. Check (Not hard to see it's a non-profit. People that make private money from a non-profit is obviously excluded) Now to me, personally, I think all non-profits are for-profit enterprises. The "mission" in nearly all cases isn't for the "people it serv…

I don't expect a case against OpenAI to be given the leeway to bring into question the entire notion of a nonprofit. There are long standing laws (and case law) for nonprofit entities, it won't all get thrown out here.

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

#857

Post by awb »

starbugs wrote: post #777
awb wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The document says they will open source “when applicable”. If open sourcing wouldn’t benefit the public, then they aren’t obligated to do it. That gives a lot of leeway for honest or dishonest intent.

> The document says they will open source “when applicable”. If open sourcing wouldn’t benefit the public, then they aren’t obligated to do it. From their 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 just thought it might be important to provi…

Didn’t see anything definitive. Care to explain your point or link to a relevant comment?

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

#858

Post by llamaLord »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #650
btown wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - the very existence of a widespread concern that open sourcing would be counter to AI safety, and thus not "for the public benefit," would likely it very hard to find OpenAI in violation of that commitment. (Not a lawyer, not legal advice.)

Given there have is a thriving open source AI scene, not sure how it would stand.

Yeah but has that community grown because of OpenAI, or in spite of it.

IMO the only real involvement OpenAI has had in that movement is suddenly getting REAL hand-wringy Infront of Congress about how dangerous AI is the moment OpenAI no longer held the only set of keys to the kingdom.

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

#859

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#860

Post by the_optimist »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #848

Sour grapes. This is a power move. Elon wants to be the sole savior of humanity who just so happens to have more power than anyone in history. No coincidence this came out soon after OpenAI announced its partnership with Figure, making them a direct competitor to Tesla Optimus + Xai.

This is sorta a boring fanfic take. Please show us how you read the materials to establish your conclusion.
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