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OpenAI to become for-profit company

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#341

Post by lolinder »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #340
lolinder wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was never above page 4 (position 90): https://hnrankings.info/41651548/ This version of the thread is the first to have had any traction on the front page. When the algorithm artificially stops a topic from surfacing to the front page, the article that finally makes it past the algorithm's suppression is not a duplicate, it's the canonical copy.

So what if it didn't make the front page. That doesn't mean ppl didn't see it. Doesn't mean ppl aren't commenting on it. Maybe it's just not that interesting. There was also a lot of other big news at the same time with Meta etc taking attention. And followed by the other OpenAI news with Mira. Again, the discussion is there.

You're seriously going to argue that OpenAI changing to a for profit wasn't interesting enough to rise above page 4 of Hacker News? Doesn't the existence of this second thread disprove that claim pretty thoroughly?

I'm pretty sure that what happened is that the Murati thread was id'd by the algorithm as the canonical OpenAI discussion, artificially suppressing the more interesting topic of the complete restructuring of the most important company in existence today.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#343

Post by csomar »

freedomben wrote: post #57
csomar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a tax specialist but from my understanding a non-profit is a for-profit that doesn't pay dividends. Why would the government care?

No, a non-profit is one in which there are no shareholders. The non-profit entity can own a lot and be extremely successful and wealthy, but it cannot give that money to any shareholders. It can pay out large salaries, but those salaries are scrutinized. It doesn't prevent abuse, and it certainly doesn't prevent some unscrupulous person from becoming extremely wealthy with a non-profit, but it is a little more compli…

> No, a non-profit is one in which there are no shareholders.

Again, I am not a lawyer but that makes no sense. Otherwise, anyone can claim the non-profit? So clearly there are some beneficial owners out there somehow.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#344

Post by ChrisArchitect »

lolinder wrote: post #341
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what if it didn't make the front page. That doesn't mean ppl didn't see it. Doesn't mean ppl aren't commenting on it. Maybe it's just not that interesting. There was also a lot of other big news at the same time with Meta etc taking attention. And followed by the other OpenAI news with Mira. Again, the discussion is there.

You're seriously going to argue that OpenAI changing to a for profit wasn't interesting enough to rise above page 4 of Hacker News? Doesn't the existence of this second thread disprove that claim pretty thoroughly? I'm pretty sure that what happened is that the Murati thread was id'd by the algorithm as the canonical OpenAI discussion, artificially suppressing the more interesting topic of the complete restructuring…

The front page doesn't matter if lots of ppl are still seeing it. 300+ upvotes is plenty and the usual for a major news story in a week. It is in no way buried. Discussion can still be/should be merged. Then it'll have 1000 upvotes etc. Representing its true significance and not making us duplicate all of our discussion comments!

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#345

Post by ummonk »

Eliezer wrote: post #236
lenerdenator wrote: post #174

Are you meaning to tell me that the whole nonprofit thing was just a shtick to get people to think that this generation of SV "founders" was going to save the world, for real this time guys? I'm shocked. Shocked! I better stock up on ways of disrupting computational machinery and communications from a distance. They'll build SkyNet if it means more value for shareholders.

This is not how nonprofits usually work. This is blatant fraud. I cannot think of any other case besides OpenAI of this particular shenanigan being pulled.

The question isn't whether it has happened before, but whether they will get away with it.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#346

Post by lolinder »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #344
lolinder wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously going to argue that OpenAI changing to a for profit wasn't interesting enough to rise above page 4 of Hacker News? Doesn't the existence of this second thread disprove that claim pretty thoroughly? I'm pretty sure that what happened is that the Murati thread was id'd by the algorithm as the canonical OpenAI discussion, artificially suppressing the more interesting topic of the complete restructuring…

The front page doesn't matter if lots of ppl are still seeing it. 300+ upvotes is plenty and the usual for a major news story in a week. It is in no way buried. Discussion can still be/should be merged. Then it'll have 1000 upvotes etc. Representing its true significance and not making us duplicate all of our discussion comments!

A lot of people get their tech news by looking at the front page of HN. An algorithm artificially stopping the day's most important news story from surfacing there, leading to the discussion only being found by people who actively go looking for that specific discussion because they learned about it elsewhere, is absolutely a big deal.

I'm just glad that the Murati story falling off the front page allowed this one a second chance.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#347

Post by jsheard »

opdahl wrote: post #288
jsheard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones selling the shovels are doing well, but otherwise yeah nobody is making any money. For the true believers that's just a temporary setback on the way to becoming trillionaires though.

Well they are spending billions to make shovels that they are selling for millions (roughly).

The shovel salesmen in this case are the likes of Nvidia, Huggingface and Runpod who are on the receiving end of the billions that AI model salesmen are spending to make millions in revenue. HF are one of the vanishingly few AI-centric startups who claim to already be profitable, because they're positioned as a money sink for the other AI-centric startups who are bleeding cash.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#348

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

int_19h wrote: post #302
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point of anyone acquiring OpenAI - especially not Microsoft, Google, Meta, Anthropic, X.ai, all of which have developed the same tech themselves. The real assets are the people, who are leaving ship and potentially hireable. With this much turmoil, its hard to imagine we've seen the last of the high level exits.

Of the companies you've listed, Microsoft's AI products that are actually useful are all based on GPT-4, and the rest of them don't have any models that are truly on par with it.

o1 seems to be a step ahead for certain applications, but before that it seems that Claude Sonnet 3.5 was widely seen as the best model, and no doubt we'll be seeing next models from Anthropic shortly.

For corporate use cost/benefit is a big factor, not necessarily what narrow benchmarks your expensive top model can eke out a win on.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#349

Post by kibwen »

fumar wrote: post #261
philipov wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Introducing Sam Altman, inventor of artificial intelligence! o_o

Is it in the history books?

History books, what are those? This is what the AI told me, and the AI is an impartial judge that can't possibly lie.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#350

Post by neycoda »

lioeters wrote: post #104
bayindirh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most surprising thing to me in this is that the non-profit will still exist. That entity will scrape the internet and train the models and claim that "it's just research" to be able to claim that all is fair-use. At this point it's not even funny anymore.

Scraping the entire internet for training data without regard for copyright or attribution - specifically to use for generative AI to produce similar content for profit. How this is being allowed to happen legally is baffling. It does suit the modus operandi of a number of American companies that start out as literally illegal/criminal operations until they get big and rich enough to pay a fine for their youthful mis…

Honestly every Copilot response I've gotten cited sources, many of which I've clicked. I'd say those work basically like free advertising.
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