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OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

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Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#31

Post by JumpCrisscross »

WarmWash wrote: post #27
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #25

Nobody should have any illusion about the purpose of most business - make money. The "safety" is a nice to have if it does not diminish the profits of the business. This is the cold hard truth. If you start to look through the optics of business == money making machine , you can start to think at rational regulations to curb this in order to protect the regular people. The regulations should keep business in check wh…

This is no longer about money, it's about power.

> This is no longer about money, it's about power

This is more Altman-speak. Before it was about how AI was going to end the world. That started backfiring, so now we're talking about political power. That power, however, ultimately flows from the wealth AI generates.

It's about the money. They're for-profit corporations.

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#33

Post by fghorow »

lbeckman314 wrote: post #26
fghorow wrote: post #18

Yes. 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...

https://archive.is/fuJCe (Apologies if this archive link isn't helpful, the unlocked_article_code in the URL still resulted in a paywall on my side...)

Thank you. And shame on the NYT.

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#34

Post by overgard »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #9

It's all beginning to feel a bit like an arms race where you have to go at a breakneck pace or someone else is going to beat you, and winner takes all.

I mean, the leaders of these companies and politicians have been framing it that way for a while, but if AGI isn't possible with LLMs (which I think is the case, and a lot of important scientists also think this), then it raises a question: arms race to WHAT exactly? Mass unemployment and wealth redistribution upwards? So AI can produce what humans previously did, but kinda worse, with a lot of supervision? I don't hate AI tech, I use it daily, but I'm seriously questioning where this is actually supposed to go on a societal level.

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#35

Post by LeoPanthera »

lbeckman314 wrote: post #26
fghorow wrote: post #18

Yes. 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...

https://archive.is/fuJCe (Apologies if this archive link isn't helpful, the unlocked_article_code in the URL still resulted in a paywall on my side...)

We probably shouldn't be using the "archive" site that hijacks your browser into DDOSing other people. I'm actually surprised HN hasn't banned it.

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#37

Post by simonw »

You can see the official mission statements in the IRS 990 filings for each year on https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810...

I turned them into a Gist with fake author dates so you can see the diffs here: https://gist.github.com/simonw/e36f0e5ef4a86881d145083f759bc...

Wrote this up on my blog too: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/13/openai-mission-stateme...

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#38

Post by slibhb »

I'm more worried about the anti-AI backlash than AI.

All inventions have downsides. The printing press, cars, the written word, computers, the internet. It's all a mixed bag. But part of what makes life interesting is changes like this. We don't know the outcome but we should run the experiment, and let's hope the results surprise all of us.

Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

#39

Post by maplethorpe »

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #25

Nobody should have any illusion about the purpose of most business - make money. The "safety" is a nice to have if it does not diminish the profits of the business. This is the cold hard truth. If you start to look through the optics of business == money making machine , you can start to think at rational regulations to curb this in order to protect the regular people. The regulations should keep business in check wh…

It's not long ago they were a non-profit. This sudden change to a for-profit business structure, complete with "businesses exist to make money" defence, is giving me whiplash.
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