Hopefully the DOJ and the various AGs involved are going to be proactive here and stop this. If non profits are allowed to become for profit entities it breaks the entire system. Then every startup should start as a non profit, allow everyone to write off all of their investments, operate with no taxes, and once they are big enough switch to a for profit entity.
I got the impression that existing investors were potentially getting screwed here too, but if Altman is getting ownership are they getting chunks as well?
Money always wins. There’s a sort of irresistible momentum that happens when enough money pools together, and no person can resist it. You see it with apple’s customer-hostile app store policies that are a result of the money being too good, and now with OpenAI. I wonder how this problem ever gets solved at the level of society. Enough money pooling together always wins out over public interest.
AI is pretty much the culmination of technocapital, so frankly the idea that a nonprofit without deep government support would be the leading AI company is a little unrealistic in the first place. Especially considering the heavy capital requirements to even make this stuff functional in the first place. I think you’d need a government organization on the level of Manhattan Project to really compete, but unfortunatel…
The public has no stomach for collective action anymore. All for one and one for all? Nah, man, what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.
Can you share a public video that demonstrates this? I've never seen it. Not saying it can't be true.
Here's a Reddit comment! https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the...
The tone of that comment does sound a bit "dick-ish", but I can't be totally sure without knowing his history with that CEO. Thanks and I'll keep an eye out for more evidence like this. In videos he seems pretty nice to me, although it could of course be a facade.
AI is pretty much the culmination of technocapital, so frankly the idea that a nonprofit without deep government support would be the leading AI company is a little unrealistic in the first place. Especially considering the heavy capital requirements to even make this stuff functional in the first place. I think you’d need a government organization on the level of Manhattan Project to really compete, but unfortunatel…
The public has no stomach for collective action anymore. All for one and one for all? Nah, man, what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.
Agreed but historically at least this came from a strong executive, not from collective action. FDR, for example.
Other commenters are quick to point out that commercial interests always win, which is somewhat true, but misses an important point: OpenAI wasn’t originally a commercial company. This is basically someone stealing a nonprofit organization — structurally not dissimilar to someone robbing the funds a charity for children with cancer. I don’t get why people shrug, or even celebrate this, instead of demanding jail time.
Many people like to think they're on the same team as winners, even if those winners couldn't care less or even have contempt for them. Acknowledging the naked truth of power is too depressing for them. See also: Sports, politics.
Also in this case, in this forum, I think you also have some people who are suffering from a kind of techno-fetishism that desperately wants to see realized one of the technologies they read about in sci-fi, so they're willing to align with anything or they think will do that.
Other commenters are quick to point out that commercial interests always win, which is somewhat true, but misses an important point: OpenAI wasn’t originally a commercial company. This is basically someone stealing a nonprofit organization — structurally not dissimilar to someone robbing the funds a charity for children with cancer. I don’t get why people shrug, or even celebrate this, instead of demanding jail time.
I honestly wasn't aware that OpenAI was registered as non-profit, and I assumed it's a normal company with a misleading name.
Sam Altman looks more and more like Lex Luthor in the last Superman franchise... He is not releasing any kind of alien creature on the world, of course... Wait...