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Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

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Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#141

Post by dylan604 »

paxys wrote: post #53

I don't understand why they are spending so much time and effort trying to put a positive spin on this whole for-profit thing. No one is buying it. We all know what's going on. Just say "we want to make lots of money" and move on with your lives.

> We all know what's going on

I've been looking for my broadbrush. I forgot I loaned it out.

It seems we've yet again forgotten that HN is an echo chamber. Just because the audience here "knows" something does not mean the rest of the vastly greater numbers of people do as well. In fact, so many people I've talked with don't have a clue about who makes/owns/controls ChatGPT nor would they recognize Sam's name if even OpenAI.

The PR campaign being waged is not meant for this audience. It is meant for everyone else that can be influenced.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#142

Post by bradleyjg »

jasode wrote: post #102
jrmg wrote: post #28

Our current structure does not allow the Board to directly consider the interests of those who would finance the mission and does not enable the non-profit to easily do more than control the for-profit. I kind of thought that was the point of the current structure.

>I kind of thought that was the point of the current structure. Yes, it is but if we only stopped the analysis right there , we could take pleasure in the fact that Sam Altman checkmated himself in his own blog post. "Dude, the non-profit is _supposed_ to control the profit company because that's how you formed the companies in the first place! Duh!!!" To go beyond that analysis, we have to at least entertain (not "a…

the original non-profit and profit structure was a mistake that was based on what they thought they knew at the time. (They thought they could be a "research" firm.)

There’s no slavery here. If Sam decided it was a mistake to dedicate his time to a non-profit, he’s perfectly free to quit and start an entirely new organization that comports with his current vision. That would be the honorable thing to do.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#143

Post by throw4847285 »

jerjerjer wrote: post #134

Start of the article: > OpenAI’s Board of Directors is evaluating our corporate structure in order to best support the mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI)1 Footnote 1: > A highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. A very interesting definition of AGI.

At least it's better than their secret internal definition.

https://gizmodo.com/leaked-documents-show-openai-has-a-very-...

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#144

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #113
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #45

Used car salesman promises to save humanity. What a bunch of pompous twits. In other news, one of OpenAI's top talents, and first author on the GPT-1 paper, Alec Radford, left a few days ago to pursue independent research. In additional other news, Microsoft and OpenAI have now reportedly agreed on a joint definition of relationship-ending AGI as "whatever makes $100B". Not kidding.

Prob made $10-20mn from OpenAI and has f u money.

Sure, but many of these people who have left still appear interested in developing AGI (not just enjoying their f u money), but apparently think they have better or same chance of doing so independently, or somewhere else ...

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#145

Post by throw4847285 »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #98

Sam Altman is evil fullstop. He is a pure machiavellian villain. His goal is to the most powerful person on the planet. The future cannot be controlled by him or other autistic human successionists.

He wants you to think he's a selfless hero, and if that fails he'll settle for machiavellian villain. He's really an empty suit.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#146

Post by maeil »

jasode wrote: post #102
jrmg wrote: post #28

Our current structure does not allow the Board to directly consider the interests of those who would finance the mission and does not enable the non-profit to easily do more than control the for-profit. I kind of thought that was the point of the current structure.

>I kind of thought that was the point of the current structure. Yes, it is but if we only stopped the analysis right there , we could take pleasure in the fact that Sam Altman checkmated himself in his own blog post. "Dude, the non-profit is _supposed_ to control the profit company because that's how you formed the companies in the first place! Duh!!!" To go beyond that analysis, we have to at least entertain (not "a…

> But to outsiders, it looks like a scam or bait-and-switch.

It doesn't look like one - it is one.

> We’re excited to welcome the following new donors to OpenAI: Jed McCaleb (opens in a new window), Gabe Newell (opens in a new window), Michael Seibel (opens in a new window), Jaan Tallinn (opens in a new window), and Ashton Eaton (opens in a new window) and Brianne Theisen-Eaton (opens in a new window). Reid Hoffman (opens in a new window) is significantly increasing his contribution. Pieter Abbeel (opens in a new window) (having completed his sabbatical with us), Julia Galef (opens in a new window), and Maran Nelson (opens in a new window) are becoming advisors to OpenAI.

[1] https://openai.com/index/openai-supporters/

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#147

Post by maeil »

Havoc wrote: post #35

The whole thing is a paper thin farce. Strong principled stance until the valuations got big (helped in no small measure by the principled stance)…and then backtracked it when everyone saw the riches there for the taking with a little let’s call it reframing

> Strong principled stance

There had never been one. Not with Sam Altman. It was a play put on to get $100+ million in donations. This was always the goal, from day 0. This is trivially obvious considering the person Sam Altman.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#148

Post by dgfitz »

ninth_ant wrote: post #120
chis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think often company spin like this is more targeted towards internal employees than the outside world. Employees on the inside are always going to have a decent percentage of “true believers” who have cognitive dissonance if they don’t believe they’re making the world better. And so companies need to provide a narrative to keep that type of employee happy.

I think this underestimates the degree to which the people on these companies legitimately believe what they’re saying. I’ve worked at one of these companies and absolutely would fall into your category of being a true believer at the time. People of all stripes are extremely willing to embrace ideas that justify their own personal benefit. A rich person might be more likely to believe in trickle-down economics becau…

[flagged]

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#149

Post by jefftk »

sobellian wrote: post #122
jefftk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon Musk strong claim to get a significant portion of the equity owned by the non-profit, given his sizable investment when a contemporaneous valuation of the company would have been small Sorry, what's the path to this? Musk's 'investment' was in the form of a donation, which means he legally has no more claim to the value of the nonprofit than anyone else.

So there's really no legal recourse if a 501c3 markets itself as a research institute / OSS developer, collects $130MM, and then uses those donations to seed a venture-backed company with closed IP in which the donors get no equity? One that even competes with some of the donors?

There is recourse, in that a 501c3 is limited in what it can do with it's assets: it must use them to advance its charitable purpose. In this case the OpenAI board will attempt to make the case that this approach, with partial ownership of a public benefit company, is what's best for their mission.

If donors got equity in the PBC or the owned PBC avoided competing with donor owned companies this would not be consistent with the non-profit's mission, and would not be compliant with 501c3 restrictions.

Re: Why OpenAI's Structure Must Evolve to Advance Our Mission

#150

Post by JohnnyMarcone »

I understand the criticisms in this thread and, based on tech leaders actions in the past, am inclined to agree with them. If only to not feel naive.

However, given the extremely competitive environment for AI, if Sam Altman and OpenAI were altruistic and wanted to create a company that benefited everyone, what options do they have moving forward? Do people here think that they can remain competitive with their current structure. Would they actually be able to get investor support to continue scaling the models?

The question remains in the back of my mind, can you create an organization like OpenAI claims they want to create in our current system? If someone came along and truly wanted to create that organization, would you be able to tell the difference between someone just grifting?

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