It seems like the lawsuit revolves around a claim that GPT-4 is "AGI." Seems kind of dubious but, of course, when these questions get to courts who knows what will happen.
Could it lead to probing and discovery?...
Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
291–300 of 1001 posts
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#292Allowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important
You are right, but regulatory sleight of hand is what passes for capitalism now. Remember Uber and Airbnb dodging regulations by calling themselves "ride-sharing" and "room-sharing" services? Amazon dodging sales taxes because it didn't have a physical retail location? Companies going public via SPAC to dodge the scrutiny of a standard IPO?
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well Elon was forced to buy Twitter that way
I think this is downvoted because (and I could be wrong) he could have paid a breakup fee instead of buying the business. So he wasn't compelled to actually own and operate the business.
> I think this is downvoted because (and I could be wrong) he could have paid a breakup fee instead of buying the business.
No, he couldn't, the widely discussed breakup fee in the contract was a payment if the merger could not be completed for specific reasons outside of Musk’s control.
It wasn’t a choice Musk was able to opt into.
OTOH, IIRC, he technically wasn't forced to because he completed the transaction voluntarily during a pause in the court proceedings after it was widely viewed as clear that he would lose and be forced to complete the deal.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that qualifies as "standing", but IANAL.
He was also a founding donor, so there is that. If I have a non-profit legally chartered save puppies, you give me a million dollars, then I buy myself cars and houses, I would expect you have some standing.
No, they spent $1m saving puppies, then raised more funds and did other things. That money Musk donated was spent almost a decade ago.
He has a competitor now that is not very good, so he is suing to slow them down.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can sue for many reasons. For example, when a party breaks a contract, the other party can sue to compel the contract to be performed as agreed.
Specific performance is a last resort. In contract law, the bias is towards making the plaintiff whole, and frequently there are many ways to accomplish that (like paying money) instead of making the defendant specifically honor the terms of the original agreement.
That's very interesting, thanks! I just learned that courts actually tend to grant monetary damages more frequently than specific performance in general.
However, I have always maintained that making the plaintiff whole should bias toward specific performance. At least that's what I gathered from law classes. In many enterprise partnerships, the specific arrangements are core to the business structures. For example, Bob and Alice agreed to be partners in a millions-dollar business. Bob suddenly kicked Alice out without a valid reason, breaching the contract. Of course, Alice's main remedy should be to be back in the business, not receiving monetary damage that is not just difficult to measure, but also not in Alice's mind or best interest at all.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#296There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.
Isn't this how drugs get developed? Even worse, the research is done using public funds, and then privatized and commercialized later.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#297Wouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?
A non-profit took his money and decided to be for profit and compete with the AI efforts of his own companies?
You would have an argument if Elon Musk didn't attempted to take over OpenAI, and proceeded to abandon it after his attempts were rejected and he complained the organization was going nowhere.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk...
I don't think Elon Musk has a case or holds the moral high ground. It sounds like he's just pissed he committed a colossal error of analysis and is now trying to rewrite history to hide his screwups.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#298There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.
They didn't "turn it into" a for-profit though, they created a separate for-profit arm. This one is unusually successful but that's not an unusual thing for even "regular" charities to do in order to engage in some activities that they wouldn't normally be able to.
Perhaps the regular charity version of this should also be challenged. This case looks somewhat egregious as the for profit arm was able to fire the board of the non-profit parent. Likewise, openAI is selling "PPU" units, it's entirely unclear if anybody knows what these actually are.
It's highly likely in my uneducated opinion that OpenAI will be told to adopt a standard corporate structure in the near term. They will likely have to pay out a number of stakeholders as part of a "make right" setup.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#299imo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778
"I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and me. Technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." You can find the number of letters of the redacted text and then guess who they are. It's fun!
> "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide."
It's hard not to be a bit cynical about such an arrangement.
Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
#300I don't even particularly like Musk, but I definitely despise M$ and their comic-book tier villanous shenanigans even more. Here's to hoping M$ gets fucked in this.
The mental gymnastics that some tech bro has to go through to like Musk over Microsoft to the point that they still use the 2001 meme of "M$FT" is hilarious. I know just about everything I could ever need to know about both companies and I have tons, tons of friends who absolutely love and have been at "M$FT" for 5-20 years. I don't know a single person who likes working at Tesla or SpaceX and I used to live in Austi…
Glad you're not a figurative linux kernel contributor