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OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

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Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#41

Post by jeroenhd »

A Cloudflare captcha AND a Google captcha and I'm not even on TOR. I don't know what this website is defending against but it must be botted to hell!

I'm not sure what the relationship between the alleged victim of fraud and the alleged perpetrators is, but I doubt "being a member of humanity" is good enough to imply a contractual obligation.

The allegation of copyright infringement due to AI stealing and remixing/republishing online content may hold water if the argument is constructed well, but I don't think this lawsuit is going to be the one answering that important open question.

The litigant filing pro se also doesn't give me much confidence that this lawsuit will succeed. This seems like a rather spurious lawsuit to me. I don't know why you would possibly throw such resources against the court, but I'd expect someone suing a billion dollar company to at least get a(nother) lawyer.

Honestly, the claim that both not wanting to generate something nice about Donal Trump and that YC seems to be democrat-aligned are somehow "Banned Political Activities" makes me think this person needs help. If one politician's values match more with an organization's goal or algorithmic output that's not "political campaigning", that's just a symptom of thinking alike. If reading all the internet has to say about Trump means the algorithm concludes there's nothing good to say, it's probably time to reevaluate your political compass rather than sue the tool for disagreeing with you.

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#42

Post by crdrost »

minimaxir wrote: post #17
godfrzero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but my reading of this was quite different. It seems to me like the core of the argument is that "OpenAI" wants non-profit benefits while clearly profiting. While the complaint document itself is verbose, I imagine this is the kind of thing that eventually contributes to setting a precedent for how training data is handled in the legal system as well?

IANAL too, but if there is indeed a legal case for material misrepresentation, it would make more sense to be brought by OpenAI shareholders or the FTC, not some random dude from Texas.

That will probably be an early point of litigation, does the non-profit’s behavior of depriving you from these tools like GPT4 amount to damages such that you have standing to bring this case. So that's a huge hurdle. Might be why it's brought pro se.

In some ways it's a more powerful result if plaintiff prevails though, as it dramatically increases the amount of legal stakeholders in the activity of OpenAI... “You filed as a non-profit, now if you start acting like a for-profit, anyone who is systematically excluded from your business dealings can sue you.”

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#43

Post by riazrizvi »

godfrzero wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #3

The argument in the complaint is that "OpenAI said they would develop software for everyone, but they gave early favoritism to YC companies, so they went back on their promise." This complaint sounds like a high-effort shitpost. The plantiff is filing this pro se. Just see the full list of defendants: SAM ALTMAN, an individual; REID HOFFMAN, an individual; GREG BROCKMAN, an individual; ILYA SUTSKEVER, an individual;…

Not a lawyer, but my reading of this was quite different. It seems to me like the core of the argument is that "OpenAI" wants non-profit benefits while clearly profiting. While the complaint document itself is verbose, I imagine this is the kind of thing that eventually contributes to setting a precedent for how training data is handled in the legal system as well?

I thought non-profits were allowed to make money?

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#44

Post by RC_ITR »

crdrost wrote: post #42
minimaxir wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL too, but if there is indeed a legal case for material misrepresentation, it would make more sense to be brought by OpenAI shareholders or the FTC, not some random dude from Texas.

That will probably be an early point of litigation, does the non-profit’s behavior of depriving you from these tools like GPT4 amount to damages such that you have standing to bring this case. So that's a huge hurdle. Might be why it's brought pro se. In some ways it's a more powerful result if plaintiff prevails though, as it dramatically increases the amount of legal stakeholders in the activity of OpenAI... “You f…

Non profits are completely within their right to choose who they offer services to.

They can select most at risk populations, etc.

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#45

Post by brookst »

mindvirus wrote: post #10

Managed to load the PDF. It seems to be pretty scattershot, basically a collection of every complaint we've all heard about AI. Not a lawyer but key complaints seem to be: * Despite OpenAI’s mission to ‘benefit all of humanity in a broad and distributed manner,’ early stakeholders that are part of the YC network or bought in are now getting commercially invaluable early access to these systems. * These GPTs have been…

That last bullet explains the whole thing.

Suddenly conservatives are worried about the legitimacy of nonprofits, and uninterested in free speech for corporations. Shocking.

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#46

Post by rlt »

skilled wrote: post #34
rlt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you actually had to manually put in the work and the hours to try and piece together multiple key points from 10 different sources to create one unique perspective It’s supposed to be a bad thing that OpenAI is making the world more efficient?

It is yes, at everyone else's expense while making a profit from it. What's your point exactly?

It’s not a zero sum game. Yes, some people will get screwed in the short term, as they have in every past technological revolution, but all of humanity will benefit in the long run (well, if it doesn’t destroy us)

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#47

Post by brookst »

eek2121 wrote: post #7
generationP wrote: post #2

TL;DR anyone? The filing takes an ungodly amount of time to load and the server might croak under HN pressure.

Multiple claims, all related to 'fraud'. Claims that OpenAI is committing fraud because they are a for-profit disguised as a non-profit, for example.

Would these people even have standing for that claim?

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#48

Post by cowsandmilk »

godfrzero wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #3

The argument in the complaint is that "OpenAI said they would develop software for everyone, but they gave early favoritism to YC companies, so they went back on their promise." This complaint sounds like a high-effort shitpost. The plantiff is filing this pro se. Just see the full list of defendants: SAM ALTMAN, an individual; REID HOFFMAN, an individual; GREG BROCKMAN, an individual; ILYA SUTSKEVER, an individual;…

Not a lawyer, but my reading of this was quite different. It seems to me like the core of the argument is that "OpenAI" wants non-profit benefits while clearly profiting. While the complaint document itself is verbose, I imagine this is the kind of thing that eventually contributes to setting a precedent for how training data is handled in the legal system as well?

This is the kind of thing that gets thrown out of court. And that is the judge feels sorry for the person who filed the suit. It is also possible th person who filed gets hit with not only court fees, but also paying for 5-10 hours of a lot of high priced lawyers for the defendants.

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#49

Post by redeux »

minimaxir wrote: post #31
rat9988 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the guy from texas that he shouldn't do it?

No standing.

I agree with you, but based on recent precedent [1], standing no longer seems to be a major concern of the judiciary.

1. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics/student-loan-supreme...

Re: OpenAI Sued for Fraud Allegations

#50

Post by brookst »

duskwuff wrote: post #29
eek2121 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple claims, all related to 'fraud'. Claims that OpenAI is committing fraud because they are a for-profit disguised as a non-profit, for example.

There's some pretty kooky claims and generally bizarre statements buried in the filing, such as: * "Altman and the other parties to this suit are increasing the risk of global human extinction or actual world domination by a small set of individuals for a chance to personally gain extended lifespans. It is the reasonable explanation for taking such massive risks with this technology and flaunting the law so obviously…

I was going to give you a hard time for the pejorative "kooky", but it turns out you were being generous and charitable.
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