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OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

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Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#251

RIP. Suchir was a man of principles, he probably had to give up his OpenAI options as a result of his stance - OpenAI is reported to have a very restrictive offboarding agreements [1] " It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it. If a departing employee declines to sign the document, or if they violate it, they can…

> It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it.

Can someone with legal expertise weigh in on how likely this would be to hold up in court?

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes there is. It is wrong to kill or perform any violence or harm against children in any war context.

Every single developed country today touting moral rights has its foundation in those "wrongs". Its citizens gleefully consuming the resources those "wrongs" have created, so they can preach morality online. It is the nature of life itself to "kill and perform violence", children and otherwise. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must". Death is, as of now, life's only mechanism for iteration…

Thanks for summarizing so eloquently what is WRONG with the precept that might equals right. If she floats she's a witch, if she drowns she must have been innocent is the flip side fallacy, but what you just outlined amounts to: "i am bad on purpose, what are YOU gonna do about it?"

I am disgusted that this is still proferred as a valid moral philosophical principle. No. A thousand times no.

The answer is A SYSTEM.

The answer to bully predator logic is human society and systematic thought. This provides the capability to resist such base immorality as you and historical predators have proposed.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#253
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before others post about the definition of whistleblower or talk about assassination theories just pause to consider whether, if in his position, you would that want that to be written about you or a friend. Yes, if I was a few months away from giving the court a statement and I "suicided" myself, I'd rather have people tribulate about how my death happened than expect to take the suicide account without much push.…

I don’t think you’re using the word tribulate correctly here.

Missing the forest for the trees.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also most certainly have a dead man's switch releasing everything I know. I would have given it to an attorney along with a sworn deposition.

Why would you give it to anyone? That’s not how a dead man’s switch works.

A 'human dead mans switch' may well be more reliable than technology, so long as you pick the right person.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stealing data" seems pretty strong. Web scraping is legal. If you put text on the public Internet other people can read it or do statistical processing on it. What do you mean he was "stealing data"? Was he hacking into somewhere?

In a lot of ways, the statistical processing is a novel form of information retrieval. So the issue is somewhat like if 20 years ago Google was indexing the web, then decided to just rehost all the indexed content on their own servers and monetize the views instead linking to the original source of the content.

It’s not anything like rehosting though. Assume I read a bunch of web articles, synthesize that knowledge and then answer a bunch of question on the web. I am performing some form of information retrieval. Do I need to pay the folks who wrote those articles even though they provided it for free on the web?

It seems like the only difference between me and ChatGPT is the scale at which ChatGPT operates. ChatGPT can memorize a very large chunk of the web and keep answering millions of questions while I can memorize a small piece of the web and only answer a few questions. And maybe due to that, it requires new rules, new laws and new definitions for the better of society. But it’s nowhere near as clear cut as the Google example you provide.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#256

RIP. Suchir was a man of principles, he probably had to give up his OpenAI options as a result of his stance - OpenAI is reported to have a very restrictive offboarding agreements [1] " It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it. If a departing employee declines to sign the document, or if they violate it, they can…

Ha, that gives a pretty good picture how "open" Openai is. They want to own their employees, enslave them in a way. One might even think the cause of that whistleblower's death is contagious upon publishing.

Really ridiculous how afraid Openai is of criticism. Acting like a child that throws a tantrum, when something doesn't go its way, just that one needs to remind oneself, that somehow there are, with regard to age at least, adults behind this stuff.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#257
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is one of those rare cases in modern history where there is a clear right vs. wrong. There is no right or wrong in politics.

Yes, yes there is. It is wrong to kill or perform any violence or harm against children in any war context.

Do you think killing a child's parents does not harm them?

You haven't thought this through.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#258
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also most certainly have a dead man's switch releasing everything I know. I would have given it to an attorney along with a sworn deposition.

What if you'd die from a genuine accident?

I'd love to see a statistical analysis of whistleblower deaths on the US over the last 15 years. I'd be extremely susprised if it wasn't enormously anomalous.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very naive to believe in 'European press'. To get the idea check Ukrainian war coverage. What you'll see first is how single sided it is. This is such a wild take from my POV, a person in the EU. Have you considered the possibility that the nearest imperialist power beginning to violently invade Europe again is likely to trigger a common reaction? This is one of those rare cases in modern history where there i…

I can explain a bit. Russians living in Empire of Evil can see all internet including US and EU news. At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU. In EU only one side is available. This creates an information bubble, as intended. Which is a basic crowd control technique used to drive public opinion. In this case to support the war. The result is obvious, EU polls show much stronger support than the…

> At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU.

I don't think that's true. You can find a lot of that online, with or without commentary. There are even European comentators siding with adjecent views. Though it doesn't leak into European public media too much (although some of its more absurdist concepts sadly do).

It's just that "the other side of the story" is something that vast majority of Europeans are repulsed by because of its intrinsic idiocy, blatant disingenuity and evilness. Some of the European countries that got out from under russian influence remember it from the times of poverty and oppression. That's where the part of the opinion bias on that subject between Europe and the rest of the world comes from. Firsthand expeirience with russia. Supporting Ukraine is both helping Ukraine with their current russian expeirience and possibly a hope of saving all future Europeans from having russian expeirience ever again.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#260
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm a whistleblower in an active case and I end up dead before testifying, I absolutely DO want the general public to speculate about my cause of death.

I feel the same way but I’m not sure if I should. The internet wildly speculating would probably get back to my mom and sister which would really upset them. Once I’m gone my beliefs/causes wouldn’t be more important than my family’s happiness.

Wouldn't your family want your believes followed through at least?
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