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OpenAI to become for-profit company

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#371
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short history: 1986: Geoffrey Hinton publishes the backpropagation algorithm as applied to neural networks, allowing more efficient training. 2011: Jeff Dean starts Google Brain. 2012: Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey Hinton publish AlexNet, which demonstrates that using GPUs yields quicker training on deep networks, surpassing non-neural-network participants by a wide margin on an image categorization competition. 2013…

I know this is just a short history but I think it is inaccurate to say "2015: Ilya Sutskever founds OpenAI." I get that we all want to know what he saw etc and he's clearly one of the smartest people in the world but he didn't found OpenAI by himself. Nor was it his idea to?

Ilya may not be the only founder. Sam was coordinating it, Elon provided vital capital (and also access to Ilya).

But out of the co-founders, especially if we believe Elon's and Hinton's description of him, he may have been the one that mattered most for their scientific achievements.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#372

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…

It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species.

The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what got us here and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. The only alternative is not having done it.

Given the path it has put as in, people either are insanely cruel or just completely detached from reality when it comes to what is necessary to do entirely new things.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk absolutely has standing, as one of the biggest donors to the nonprofit. I assume he will settle for some ownership in the for-profit, though.

Didn't he already refuse the shares offered to him?

I'm sure they just didn't offer him enough shares.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#374
Any reporting on the impact this is having on lower level employees? My understanding is they are all sticking around for their shares to vest (or RSU's I guess).

but still, you'd think some of them would have finally had enough and have enough opportunities elsewhere that they can leave.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what got us here and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. The only alternative is not having done it. Given the path it has put as in, people either are insanely cruel or just completely detached from reali…

> It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species.

"Hugely beneficial" is a stretch at this point. It has the potential to be hugely beneficial, sure, but it also has the potential to be ruinous.

We're already seeing GenAI being used to create disinformation at scale. That alone makes the potential for this being a net-negative very high.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#376
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not paying taxes while losing money sounds like fraud to you? What do you propose should be taxed, exactly?

True, non-profits don't pay taxes on any revenue regardless of expense. How do you know they had no profit with all of the deals with major companies and having one of the most popular software services in existence? Non-profits can earn profit, they just don't have to pay taxes on those profits and they can't distribute those profits to stakeholders -- it goes back to the business. They are also a private company, a…

> How do you know they had no profit with all of the deals with major companies and having one of the most popular software services in existence?

By reading their Form 990 filings, which are publicly accessible here: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810....

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what got us here and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. The only alternative is not having done it. Given the path it has put as in, people either are insanely cruel or just completely detached from reali…

> it's hugely beneficial to our species.

Perhaps the biggest “needs citation” statement of our time.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#379

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…

Copyright law is whatever we agree it is. At some point there will have to be either a law or a court case that comes up with rules for AI training data. Right now it's sort of unknown.

I do not have confidence in the Supreme Court in general, and I think there's a real risk that in deciding on AI training they upend copyright of digital materials in a way that makes it worse for everyone.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what got us here and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. The only alternative is not having done it. Given the path it has put as in, people either are insanely cruel or just completely detached from reali…

This is a bit of a hot take.

> The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me

I don't see s lot of anti AI but instead I see a concern for how it's just being managed and controlled by the larger companies with resources that no start up could dream. Open AI was to release it's models and be well.. Open but fine they're not. But their behaviour of how things are proceeding are questionable and unnecessarily aggravating.

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