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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

#251

Post by [deleted] »

jasode wrote: post #202
bradleyjg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he was one of the original founders and co-chair of OpenAI -- so he feels he should have a say in pivoting it to something else No. Non-profit is a deal between those founders and society. That he was an original founder is irrelevant. I don’t care about Elon, it’s the pivoting that’s inherently dishonorable.

> Non-profit is a deal between those founders and society. Yes I get that but did OpenAI ever take any public donations from society? I don't think they did. It thought it was only funded by wealthy private donors. >, it’s the pivoting that’s inherently dishonorable. Would creating a new company (i.e. ClosedAI) that recruits OpenAI's employees and buys the intellectual property such that it leaves a "shell" of OpenAI…

[deleted]

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

#252

Post by CatWChainsaw »

fanatic2pope wrote: post #217
jmyeet wrote: post #171

To quote Bill Clinton, "it's the economy, stupid". Or, rather, it's economics . AGI can go one of two ways in humanity's future: 1. We all need to work less because so many menial tasks are automated. We get more leisure time. Fewer than half of us probably have to work at all yet we all benefit to varying degrees by sharing in the rewards; or 2. The decreasing size of the required labor pool is used to further suppr…

There is another far worse option that you seem to be missing. Why keep any significant number of people around at all?

So many billionaires talk about how the world needs more people that few actually question whether or not they mean that.

Meanwhile, they believe that AGI will render human workers (and humans?) obsolete, they understand that any resource is finite, including power, and although they talk big game about how it's going to be utopia, they have lived their entire lives being the most successful/ruthless in an economy that is, no matter what apologetics are spewed, a zero-sum game.

If I've lived in a world that has rewarded being duplicitous and merciless with great riches, and I know that having to share with an ever-increasing number of people also increases the likelihood that I won't live like a god-king, why wouldn't I sell a happy soma-vision while secretly hoping for (or planning) a great depopulation event?

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

#253

Post by atleastoptimal »

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.

I’m not sure it’s always the best move for an organization to cater exclusively to their most cynical critics.

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

#254

Post by jasode »

maeil wrote: post #234
jasode wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't look like one - it is one. > We’re excited to welcome the following new donors to OpenAI: ... The story is that OpenAI worked out some equity conversion of the for-profit co for the donors to the non-profit. Elon Musk was the notable holdout. Elon was offered some unknown percentage for his ~$40 million donation but he refused. Seems like the donors are ok with OpenAI pivot to for-profit ... except for El…

That does not make it less of a scam. These people "donated to a non-profit". They did not "invest in a for-profit". If the Red Cross suddenly turns into a for-profit and then says "well we'll give our donators of the past few years equity in our new company", this does not make it any less of a scam. > Seems like the donors are ok with OpenAI pivot to for-profit If you have information that shows this, feel free to…

>These people "donated to a non-profit". They did not "invest in a for-profit".

Sure, nobody wants to be tricked into donating to a charity and then have their money disappear into a for-profit company.

Based on the interviews I saw from some donors (Reid Hoffman, etc), there's more nuance to it than that. The donors also wanted an effective non-profit entity. The TLDR is that they donated to a non-profit under 2015 assumptions of AGI research costs that turned out to be wrong and massively underestimated.

- 2015... the non-profit OpenAI in its original idea of "charity research organization" was flawed from the beginning because they realized they couldn't attract A.I. talent at the same level as Google/Facebook/etc as those competitors offered higher salaries and lucrative stock options. Then, they realized the initial ~$100 million in donations was also not enough to pay for very expensive hardware like GPUs and datacenters. It's hard for researchers to make discoveries in AGI if there's no cutting edge hardware for them to work on. A non-profit tech charity getting billions in donations was not realistic. These money problems compound and lead to...

- 2019... create the for-profit OpenAI Global LLC as a vehicle for the Microsoft investment of $1 billion and also create stock incentives for recruiting employees. This helps solve the talent acquisition and pay-for-expensive-hardware problems. This for-profit entity is capped. (https://openai.com/our-structure/)

(Side note: other non-profit entities with for-profit subsidiaries to supplement funding include Goodwill, Girl Scouts of America, Salvation Army, Mozilla, etc.)

We can't know all the back room dealings but it seemed like the donors were on board with the 2019 for-profit entity. The donors understood the original non-profit was not viable to do AGI work because they underestimated the costs. The publicly revealed emails that as early as 2017, Elon was also pushing to switch OpenAI to be a for-profit company.[1] But the issue was Elon wanted to run it and Sam disagreed. Elon left OpenAI and now he has competing AI businesses with xAI Grok and Tesla AI which makes his lawsuit have some conflicts of interest. I don't which side to believe but that's the soap opera drama.

Now in 2024, the 2019 for-profit OpenAI Global LLC has shown structural flaws because the next set of investors with billions don't want to put money into that LLC. Instead, the next investors need a public incorporated company with ability to IPO as the vehicle. That's where Sam wants to create another for-profit OpenAI Inc without the cap. We should be skeptical but he argues that a successful OpenAI will funnel more money back to the non-profit OpenAI than if it were a standalone non-profit that didn't take billions in investment.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+emails+revealed+op...

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

#255

Post by mikeyouse »

Drew_ wrote: post #192
mikeyouse wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true and is at the heart of much of the 'confusion' about e.g. tax evasion vs. tax avoidance. You can do illegal things if you don't get prosecuted for them and a lot of this type of legal wrangling is to give your lawyers and political allies enough grey area to grab onto to shout about selective prosecution when you're called out for it.

I don't see how that's relevant. In what case is the difference between tax evasion and avoidance just the motive/explanation? I'm pretty sure the difference is purely technical. Moreover, I don't think a lack of prosecution/enforcement makes something legal. At least, I don't think that defense would hold up very well in court.

> I'm pretty sure the difference is purely technical.

It's really not - there is a ton of tax law that relies on e.g. the fair market value of hard-to-price assets or if all else fails and a penalty is due, there's an entire section of the CFR on how circumstances surrounding the underpayment can reduce or eliminate the liability.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.6664-4

If you've only ever filed a personal tax return, you're dramatically under-appreciating how complicated business taxes are and how much grey area there really is. Did you know you can pay your 10-year old to work for you as a means to avoid taxes? Try looking up the dollar amount where avoid turns to evade... there isn't one. The amount paid just has to be "reasonable and justifiable" and the work they perform has to be "work necessary to the business".

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

#256

Post by int_19h »

remus wrote: post #218
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern hiring process, esp culture fit, is designed to ensure that fraction of true believers inside the company is meaningfully higher compared to the outside.

I think it is simpler than that: people generally tend to work for companies who's products they think are interesting and useful. It's much easier to go into work each day when you think you're spending your time doing something useful.

It works both ways. Sure, when you're looking for more people to join your cult, it helps to get those who are already drawn to you. But you also need to screen out those who would become disappointed quickly, and brainwash the ones that join to ensure continued devotion.

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

#257

Post by rvba »

dragonwriter wrote: post #194
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 often company spin like this is more targeted towards internal employees than the outside world. Probably is more ti employees than the general public, but it is even more targeted to the growing number of lawsuts against the conversion, since the charity nonprofit’s board is required to act in the interest of its charitable purpose even in a decision like this. It is directed at defeating the idea, express…

There are tons of examples of non profit that are run for profit (mostly profit / career advancement of those in charge and their families and friends).

Firefox spend a ton on pet projects to boost careers. Now the core product lost most matketshare and is not what people want.

Wikipedia collects a ton of money and wastes it on everything bar wikipedia (mostly salaries and pet proje ts).

There are those charities where 95% of collected money is spent on own costs and only 5% reaches those in need / the topics that they should solve.

Control over non profits is a joke. People in charge respond to nobody.

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

#258

Post by int_19h »

jasode wrote: post #159
maeil wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (…

>It doesn't look like one - it is one. > We’re excited to welcome the following new donors to OpenAI: ... The story is that OpenAI worked out some equity conversion of the for-profit co for the donors to the non-profit. Elon Musk was the notable holdout. Elon was offered some unknown percentage for his ~$40 million donation but he refused. Seems like the donors are ok with OpenAI pivot to for-profit ... except for El…

It's not just about those whose money is at stake. The whole point of having non-profits as an option for corporations in the first place is to encourage things that broadly benefit society. Effectively turning a non-profit into a for-profit company is directly counter to that, and it means that society as a whole was defrauded when non-profit status was originally claimed with its associated perks.

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

#259

Post by darkhorse222 »

mapt wrote: post #118
latexr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but how exactly is OpenAI’s vision of making AGI going to “benefit humanity as as a whole”? Considering their definition of AGI is “makes a lot of money”, it’s not going to—and was never designed to—benefit anyone else. https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/26/microsoft-and-openai-have-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjQUCpeJG1Y What else could we have expected from someone who made yet another cryptocurrency scam? ht…

The seasoned advice from experts is that AGI could very easily END humanity as a whole. But they need to pay their mortgage right now, and uhh... if we don't do it our competitors will. We're basically betting our species' future on these guys failing, because for a short period of time there's a massive amount of shareholder value to be made.

Isn't the idea that AGI could replace a bunch of labor allowing us to help more poor and increase net positive vibes or just have more leisure time?

Obviously the way our economy and society are structured that's not what will happen, but I don't think that has much to do with tools and their tendency to increase our efficiency and output.

Put another way, there are powerful benefits from AGI that we will squander because our system sucks. That is not a critique against AGI, that is a critique of our system and will continue to show up. It's already a huge point of conversation in our collective dialogue.

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

#260

Post by droopyEyelids »

rvba wrote: post #257
dragonwriter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think often company spin like this is more targeted towards internal employees than the outside world. Probably is more ti employees than the general public, but it is even more targeted to the growing number of lawsuts against the conversion, since the charity nonprofit’s board is required to act in the interest of its charitable purpose even in a decision like this. It is directed at defeating the idea, express…

There are tons of examples of non profit that are run for profit (mostly profit / career advancement of those in charge and their families and friends). Firefox spend a ton on pet projects to boost careers. Now the core product lost most matketshare and is not what people want. Wikipedia collects a ton of money and wastes it on everything bar wikipedia (mostly salaries and pet proje ts). There are those charities whe…

None of your examples are legally profit though.
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