I just saw a video this morning of Sam Altman talking about how in 2026 he's worried that AI is going to be used for bioweapons. I think this is just more fear mongering, I mean, you could use the internet/google to build all sorts of weapons in the past if you were motivated, I think most people just weren't. It does kind of tell a bleak story though that the company is removing safety as a goal and he's talking about it being used for bioweapons. Like, are they just removing safety as a goal because they don't think they can achieve it? Or is this CYOA?
OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
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Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#62This is something I noticed in the xAI All Hands hiring promotion this week as well. None of the 9 teams presented is a safety team - and safety was mentioned 0 times in the presentation. "Immense economic prosperity" got 2 shout-outs though. Personally I'm doubtful that truthmaxxing alone will provide sufficient guidance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVnB88Cd1A
xAI is infamous for not caring about alignment/safety though. OpenAI always paid a lot more lip service.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#63It's all beginning to feel a bit like an arms race where you have to go at a breakneck pace or someone else is going to beat you, and winner takes all.
But what if AI turns out to be a commodity? We're already replacing ChatGPT by Claude or Gemini, whenever we feel like it. Nobody has a moat. It seems the real moat is with hardware companies, or silicon fabs even. The arms race is just to keep the investors coming, because they still believe that there is a market to corner.
If it’s a commodity then it’s even more competitive so the ability for companies to impose safety rules is even weaker.
Imagine if Ford had a monopoly on cars, they could unilaterally set an 85mph speed limit on all vehicles to improve safety. Or even a 56mph limit for environmental-ethical reasons.
Ford can’t do this in real life because customers would revolt at the company sacrificing their individual happiness for collective good.
Similarly GPT 3.5 could set whatever ethical rules it wanted because users didn’t have other options.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#64It's all beginning to feel a bit like an arms race where you have to go at a breakneck pace or someone else is going to beat you, and winner takes all.
But what if AI turns out to be a commodity? We're already replacing ChatGPT by Claude or Gemini, whenever we feel like it. Nobody has a moat. It seems the real moat is with hardware companies, or silicon fabs even. The arms race is just to keep the investors coming, because they still believe that there is a market to corner.
I think the winner will be who can keep operating at these losses without going bankrupt. Whoever can do that gets all the users, my bet is Google uses their capital to outlast OpenAI, Anthropic, and everyone else. Apple is just going to license the winner and since they're already making a deal with Google i guess they've made their bet.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#65Yes. ChatGPT "safely" helped[1] my friend's daughter write a suicide note. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opinion/chat-gpt-mental-h...
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Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#66C'mon folks. They were always a for-profit venture, no matter what they said.
And any ethic, and I do mean ANY, that gets in the way of profit will be sacrificed to the throne of moloch for an extra dollar.
And 'safely' is today's sacrificed word.
This should surprise nobody.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#67Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#68Yes. ChatGPT "safely" helped[1] my friend's daughter write a suicide note. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opinion/chat-gpt-mental-h...
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They're in an impossible situation they created themselves and inflict on the rest of us. Forgive us if we don't shed any tears for them.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#69Nobody should have any illusion about the purpose of most business - make money. The "safety" is a nice to have if it does not diminish the profits of the business. This is the cold hard truth. If you start to look through the optics of business == money making machine , you can start to think at rational regulations to curb this in order to protect the regular people. The regulations should keep business in check wh…
This is no longer about money, it's about power.
Money is power, and nothing but.
Re: OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission
#70Yes. ChatGPT "safely" helped[1] my friend's daughter write a suicide note. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opinion/chat-gpt-mental-h...
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The leaders of these LLM companies should be held criminally liable for their products in the same way that regular people would be if they did the same thing. We've got to stop throwing up our hands and shrugging when giant corporations are evil