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Evolving OpenAI's Structure

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Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#651

Post by mtrovo »

pi-err wrote: post #133
jjani wrote: post #107

SamA is in a hurry because he's set to lose the race. We're at peak valuation and he needs to convert something now . If the entrenched giants (Google, Microsoft and Apple) catch up - and Google 100% has, if not surpassed - they have a thousand levers to pull and OpenAI is done for. Microsoft has realized this, hence why they're breaking up with them - Google and Anthropic have shown they don't need OpenAI. Galaxy ph…

Sounds a lot like "Google+ will catch Facebook in no time". OpenAI has been on a winning streak that makes ChatGPT the default chatbot for most of the planet. Everybody else like you describe is trying to add some AI crap behind a button on a congested UI. B2B market will stay open but OpenAI has certainly not peaked yet.

Not sure if Google+ is a good analogy, it reminds me more of the Netscape vs IE fight. Netscape sprinted like it was going to dominate the early internet era and it worked until Microsoft bundled IE with Windows for free.

LLMs themselves aren't the moat, product integration is. Google, Apple and Microsoft already have the huge user bases and platforms with a big surface area covering a good chunk of our daily life, that's why I think they're better positioned if models become a commodity. OpenAI has the lead now, but distribution is way more powerful in the long run.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#653

Post by croemer »

cs702 wrote: post #62
everybodyknows wrote: post #11

> transition to a Public Benefit Corporation Can some business person give us a summary on PBCs vs. alternative registrations?

The charter of a public-benefit corporation gives the company's board and management a bit of legal cover for making decisions that don't serve to maximize, or may even limit, financial returns to shareholders, when those decisions are made for the benefit of the public.

But the reverse isn't true, right? It doesn't prevent the board from maximizing financial returns even when doing so would harm the "public".

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#654

Post by nickpsecurity »

wrsh07 wrote: post #637
amelius wrote: post #608

> We did not really know how AGI was going to get built, or used (...) Altman keeps on talking about AGI as if we're already there.

I don't agree with Tyler on this point (although o3 really is a thing to behold) But reasonable people could argue that we've achieved AGI (not artificial super intelligence) https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/04/o3... Fwiw, Sam Altman will have already seen the next models they're planning to release

They still can't reliably do what humans can do across our attributes. That's what AGI was originally about. They have become quite capable, though.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#655

Post by km144 »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #650
thurn wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of these statements do you disagree with? - Superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity - Predicting the future is famously difficult - Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence - Even a 1-in-1000 existential threat would be extremely serious. If an asteroid had a 1-in-1000 chance of hitting Earth and obliterating humanity we shoul…

> Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence I think you realise this is the weak point. You can't rule out the current AI approach leading to superintelligence. You also can't rule out a rotting banana skin in your bin spontaneously gaining sentience either. Does that mean you shouldn't risk throwing away that skin? It's so outrageous that you need at…

Isn't the problem precisely that uncertainty though? That we have many data points showing that a rotting banana skin will not spontaneously gain sentience, but we have no clear way to predict the future? And we have no way of knowing the true chance of superintelligence arising from the current path of AI research—the fact that it could be 1-in-100 or 1-in-1e12 or whatever is part of the discussion of uncertainty itself, and people are biased in all sorts of ways to believe that the true risk is somewhere on that continuum.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#656

Post by AbstractH24 »

sebastiennight wrote: post #485
throwaway48476 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is true but no so much (a). If investors thought it would be winner take all and they thought ClosedAI would win they'd invest in ClosedAI only and starve competitors of funding.

Actually I'm thinking in a winner-takes-all universe, the right strategy would be to spread your bets on as many likely winners as possible. That's literally the premise of venture capital. This is a scenario where we're assuming ALL our bets will go to zero, except one which will be worth trillions. In that case you should bet on everything. It's only in the opposite scenario (where every bet pays off with varying R…

Y that sounds just like a certain startup incubator’s perspective on things.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#657

Post by throw101010 »

polynomial wrote: post #646
throw101010 wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how logic works. The GP is applying the precautionary principle: when there’s even a small chance of a catastrophic risk, it makes sense to take precautions-like restricting who can build superintelligent AI, similar to how we restrict access to nuclear technology. Changing the premise to "superintelligence is the only thing that can save us" doesn’t invalidate the logic of being cautious. It just shifts t…

Not really. If there is a small chance that this miraculous new technology will solve all of our problems with no real downside, we must invest everything we have and pull out all the stops, for the very future of the human race depends on AGI. Also, @tsimionescu's reasoning is spot on, and exactly how logic works.

It literally isn't, changing/reversing a premise and not adressing the point that was made is not a valid way to counter the initial argument in a logical way.

Just like your proposition that any "small" chance justifies investing "everything" disregards the same argument regarding the precautionary principle of potentially devastating technologies. You've also slipped in an additonal "with no real downside" which you cannot predict with certainty anyways, rendering this argument infalsifiable. At least tsimionescu didn't dare making such a sweeping (but baseless) statement.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#658

Post by LPisGood »

km144 wrote: post #655
quietbritishjim wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that uncertainty, we can't rule out the chance of our current AI approach leading to superintelligence I think you realise this is the weak point. You can't rule out the current AI approach leading to superintelligence. You also can't rule out a rotting banana skin in your bin spontaneously gaining sentience either. Does that mean you shouldn't risk throwing away that skin? It's so outrageous that you need at…

Isn't the problem precisely that uncertainty though? That we have many data points showing that a rotting banana skin will not spontaneously gain sentience, but we have no clear way to predict the future? And we have no way of knowing the true chance of superintelligence arising from the current path of AI research—the fact that it could be 1-in-100 or 1-in-1e12 or whatever is part of the discussion of uncertainty it…

There are lots of data points of previous AI efforts not creating super intelligence.

Re: Evolving OpenAI's Structure

#660

Post by jsnider3 »

lanthissa wrote: post #65
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #13

I think this is one of the most interesting lines as it basically directly implies that leadership thinks this won't be a winner take all market: > Instead of our current complex capped-profit 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 capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale,…

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.

Homo Sapiens wiped out every other intelligent hominid and every other species on Earth exists at our mercy. That looks a lot like the winners (humans) taking all.
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