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OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

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Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#131

Post by lokar »

vlovich123 wrote: post #79
iso1631 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People whose houses are robbed are against robbery, people who rob houses are very much for it.

That’s a false analogy. You have two parties who want to enter into a contract and a third party unrelated to the contract that doesn’t for whatever reason. Just based on contract law and common sense the unrelated party shouldn’t have standing. Now if there’s externalities to the contract that impact that unrelated party sure, but only insofar as to get those externalities addressed. This is not the same as a robber…

Yeah, IME, if the guests of the rental acted exactly like locals, and the units were not removed from the local housing supply (not sure how that could be), or the local housing supply was in excess to the needs of the population (not sure where that is), it would be fine.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#132

Post by lokar »

parineum wrote: post #71
lokar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were (and mostly still are) very opposed to Airbnb rentals in their neighborhood.

That's none of their business. There are already laws in place against the kinds of behavior that neighbors are afraid will happen.

Noise, litter, etc, "nuisance" laws are on the books, but mostly depend on people following them voluntarily. The local authorities don't have the time/staff to investigate and resolve them all the time.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#133

Post by deadbabe »

rfv6723 wrote: post #40
crazygringo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. There are good reasons why it's a problem in financial markets but NOT usually a problem in prediction markets: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/02/18/why-insider-tra... > In prediction markets, informed trading is not a crime or an injustice—it is a valuable service. A big exception, however, is using prediction markets to make predictions on events regarding publicly traded companies.

The concept of a valuable service falls apart if players can influence the actual event. Without equal footing and basic honesty, you aren't measuring reality so much as you are subsidizing those with the power to manipulate it.

There's a feel good story where a parent can't afford a very expensive medical procedure to save a child, so someone tells them to place a massive bet in a prediction market for a certain event that may happen, and then they make it happen, therefore siphoning off money from the other gamblers for a good cause. Just a small way everyday people use the system against itself as a way to survive.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#134

Post by Havoc »

strix_varius wrote: post #85
Havoc wrote: post #55

Good. I do hope corporations in general take a harder stance on this. From a society perspective people with inside knowledge fleecing randoms is not a win. We've got that somewhat under control on the stock exchange, but have this absurd situation where on prediction markets it is a free for all and everyone pretends this is fine. I also think corporations should distance themselves from individuals willing to fleec…

Honestly it seems stupid but fine to me. Like if someone random comes up to me on the sidewalk and says hey if OpenAI announces a browser tomorrow, you give me $100. If not I'll give you $1000. Obviously I'm not going to take them up on it, they clearly have inside information. If you're betting on a prediction market without insider information then you're just... The fool who is soon parted from his money one way o…

>Like if someone random comes up to me on the sidewalk and says hey if OpenAI announces

Then you hopefully understand that randoms approaching you is no equal to reality.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#135

Post by agons »

tossaway0 wrote: post #130
vkou wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insider has perverse incentives as an employee.

I’m probably overlooking something, but if you have insider info, you just bet on that info with certainty. Why would you need to create a different outcome to bet on it? If I know my company is going to do something on March 16th, I can bet against it happening until that day, and then bet big it will happen that day. I don’t need to influence the company to change what it’s going to do to make money on it.

The problem comes when there are lucrative odds for some unlikely scenario, which you can influence into realisation, and that outcome might be counter to the company's goals (i.e. sabotage)

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#137

Post by pclmulqdq »

JasonADrury wrote: post #107
ruined wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't "change the password" on a wallet, so a "used" wallet is highly unattractive. anything you put in it could be taken by the original keyholder who sold it to you.

Oh but you can. You can swap out the seed and generate any new addresses using that. Yes, the old addresses will be compromised. That's fine. The point is that nobody can tell that you aren't actually using the same keys to generate new addresses anymore.

This is no different on the outside from making a new account.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#138

Post by idiotsecant »

ambicapter wrote: post #98
idiotsecant wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. The point is not to make individual players money (that does sometimes happen as a side effect) it's to leverage their greed to find truth.

Except it's not "truth" as much as it is whatever has the most financial incentive to happen.

To some approximation, the two are the same.

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#139

Post by hephaes7us »

ddp26 wrote: post #84

Prediction markets are interesting when they are predicting future things nobody knows for sure. "Predicting" private, known information is the wrong use case.

This is just one way information goes from being private to being public. It is sensible that people who provide intelligence to the market be compensated, whether they're better at inferring/predicting or whether they just know something we don't.

Obviously, in a case like this, an individual would be violating the terms of their employment/non-disclosure agreement. I agree that is bad!

I don't think that damns the concept of "predicting known information".

Re: OpenAI fires an employee for prediction market insider trading

#140

Post by cjonas »

deadbabe wrote: post #133
rfv6723 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of a valuable service falls apart if players can influence the actual event. Without equal footing and basic honesty, you aren't measuring reality so much as you are subsidizing those with the power to manipulate it.

There's a feel good story where a parent can't afford a very expensive medical procedure to save a child, so someone tells them to place a massive bet in a prediction market for a certain event that may happen, and then they make it happen, therefore siphoning off money from the other gamblers for a good cause. Just a small way everyday people use the system against itself as a way to survive.

Seems pretty naive to think that this type of thing is happening in favor of the "everyday person".
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