Isn't it great how they can just post hoc edit their mission statement in order to make it match whatever they're currently doing or want to do? /s
Companies change T&C after locking in people all the time.
And that is also bad.
OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
131–140 of 316 posts
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#132Yes. ChatGPT "safely" helped[1] my friend's daughter write a suicide note. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opinion/chat-gpt-mental-h...
I have mixed feelings on this (besides obviously being sad about the loss of a good person). I think one of the useful things about AI chat is that you can talk about things that are difficult to talk to another human about, whether it's an embarrassing question or just things you don't want people to know about you. So it strikes me that trying to add a guard rail for all the things that reflect poorly on a chat age…
> One thing that I think is dangerous with the current LLM models though is the sycophancy problem. Like, all the time chatGPT is like "Great question!"
100%
In ChatGPT I have the Basic Style and Tone set to "Efficient: concise and plain". For Characteristics I've set:
- Warm: less
- Enthusiastic: less
- Headers and lists: default
- Emoji: less
And custom instructions:
> Minimize sycophancy. Do not congratulate or praise me in any response. Minimize, though not eliminate, the use of em dashes and over-use of “marketing speak”.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#133I think this has more to do with legals than anything else. Virtually no one reads the page except adversaries who wanna sue the company. I don't remember the last time I looked up the mission statement of a company before purchasing from them.
I sure hope people read the mission statement before donating to a non-profit.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
There have absolutely been cases of people being held criminally liable for encouraging someone to commit suicide. In California it is a felony > Any person who deliberately aids, advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony. https://california.public.law/codes/penal_code_section_401
>>>> helped... write a suicide note. > encouraging someone to commit suicide. These are not the same thing. And the evidence from the article is that the bot was anything but encouraging of this plan, up until the end.
Very cherry picked. That would absolutely be "aiding" someone. "I don't want my family to worry about what's happening".
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#135I think this has more to do with legals than anything else. Virtually no one reads the page except adversaries who wanna sue the company. I don't remember the last time I looked up the mission statement of a company before purchasing from them.
I sure hope people read the mission statement before donating to a non-profit.
I do find it a little amusing that any US tax payer can make a tax-deductible donation to OpenAI right now.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#136Still waiting for the "Open" in OpenAI to become more than branding.
I don’t think OpenAI gets enough credit for exposing GPT via an API. If the tech remained only at Google, I’m sure we would see it embedded into many of their products, but wouldn’t have held my breath for a direct API.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#137Assuming lawyers were involved at some point on, why did they keep "OpenAIs" instead of "OpenAI's"?
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#138Safety is extremely annoying from the user perspective. AI should be following my values, not whatever an AI lab chose.
This. This whole hysteria sounds like: let's prohibit knifes because people kill themselves and each other with them!
Is it prohibiting knives? Or weapons grade plutonium?
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#139Still waiting for the "Open" in OpenAI to become more than branding.
I don’t think OpenAI gets enough credit for exposing GPT via an API. If the tech remained only at Google, I’m sure we would see it embedded into many of their products, but wouldn’t have held my breath for a direct API.
Yeah, for all that people make fun of the "Open" in the name their API-first strategy really did make this stuff available to a ton of people. They were the first organization to allow almost anyone to start actively experimenting with what LLMs could do and it had a huge impact.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#140Assuming lawyers were involved at some point on, why did they keep "OpenAIs" instead of "OpenAI's"?
This isn't a legal document