541–550 of 746 posts
Huh, so Elon's lawsuit worked? The nonprofit will retain control? Or is this just spin on a plan that will eventually still sideline the nonprofit?
I see OpenAI's original form as the last gasp of a kind of liberal tech; in a world where "doing good" was seen as very important, the non-profit approach made sense and got a lot of people on board. These days the Altmans and the pmarcas of the world are much more comfortable expressing their authoritarian, self-centered world views; the "evolving" structure of Open AI is fully in line with that. They want to be the…
That world never existed. Yes, pockets did - IT professionals with broadband lines and spare kit hosting IRC servers and phpBB forums from their homes free of charge, a few VC-funded companies offering idealistic visions of the net until funding ran dry (RIP CoHost) - but once the web became privatized, it was all in service of the bottom line by companies. Web 2.0 onwards was all about centralization, surveillance,…
When we already have efficient food production that drove down costs and increased profits (a good thing), what else is there for companies to optimize for, if not loading it with sugar, putting it in cheap plastic, bamboozling us with ads?
This same dynamic plays out in every industry. Markets are a great thing when the low hanging fruit hasn't been picked, because the low hanging fruit is usually "cut the waste, develop basic tech, be efficient". But eventually the low hanging fruit becomes "game human's primitive reward circuits".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They want to be the kings they always thought of themselves as, and now they get to do so without couching it in "doing good". You mean, AGI will benefit all of humanity like War on Terror spread democracy?
Why are you changing the subject? The “War on Terror” was never intended to spread democracy as far as I know; democracy was a means by which to achieve the objective of safety from terrorism.
Regardless of intent, it was most definitely sold to the American public on that premise.
Huh, so Elon's lawsuit worked? The nonprofit will retain control? Or is this just spin on a plan that will eventually still sideline the nonprofit?
Here’s a breakdown of the *key structural changes*, and an analysis of *potential risks or concerns*: --- ## *What Has Changed* ### 1. *OpenAI’s For-Profit Arm is Becoming a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC)* * *Before:* OpenAI LP (limited partnership with a “capped-profit” model). * *After:* OpenAI LP becomes a *Public Benefit Corporation* (PBC). *Implications:* * A PBC is still a *for-profit* entity, but legally req…
From least to most speculative: * The nonprofit is staying the same, and will continue to control the for-profit entity OpenAI created to raise capital * The for-profit is changing from a capped-profit LLC to a PBC like Anthropic and Xai * These changes have been at least tacitly agreed to by the attorneys general of California and Delaware * The non-profit won’t be the largest shareholder in the PBC (likely Microsof…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Donating millions to a fascist president (in Altman’s case) seems pretty authoritarian to me. And he seems happy enough hanging out with Thiel and other Yarvin groupies.
I think this is more a symptom of the level of commonplace corruption in the American regulatory environment than any indication of the political views of the person directing such donations. Tim Apple did it too, and we don’t assume he’s an authoritarian now too, do we? I imagine they would probably have done similarly regardless of who won the election. It sure seems like an endorsement, but I think it’s simply mod…
As for the shareholders, Cook was more than happy to "do the right thing" in the past, even when under pressure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AGI can't really be a winner take all market. The 'reward' for general intelligence is infinite as a monopoly and it accelerates productivity. Not only is there infinite incentive to compete, but theres decreasing costs to. The only world in which AGI is winner take all is a world in which it is extremely controlled to the point at which the public cant query it.
Remember however that their charter specifies: "If a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project" It does have some weasel words around value-aligned and safety-conscious which they can always argue but this could get interesting because they've basically agreed not to compete. A fairly insane thing to do in retros…
"Instead of our current complex non-competing structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal competing structure where ..." is all it takes