Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sam Altman also allegedly had no interest in equity.
When you get to tell the ASI what to do, money has little value any more.
Until then the $10.5B in equity might come in handy.
OpenAI to become for-profit company
671–680 of 809 posts
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for another polite response! I think this is the fundamental misunderstanding: What assets were gifted, exactly? ...It's currently a useless appendage and will never have any real power or resources until either OpenAI is in the black and sending profit up to it, or they can sell OpenAI shares. The charity will gift its control of a $100B company for some undisclosed "minority stake" (via a complex share dilut…
> The charity will gift its control of a $100B company for some undisclosed "minority stake" (via a complex share dilution scheme), in exchange for nothing other than "the people we're gifting it to have promised to do good with it". It's really that simple. The charity never was intended to draw profit from the for-profit. That's not my interpretation. It sounds like the restructuring is part of the deal that values…
Hmm, fair points, especially on there not being a strict norm for charities. Thanks for taking more time to clarify.
I’d say we disagree about the following somewhat indeterminate points:
1. Whether OpenAI has/could-have-had staying power without raising immense amounts of venture capital. I will readily admit that they’ve gone so far down this road that they are now somewhat trapped by their massive investments and contracts, not to mention losing almost all their top researchers.
2. Whether the people in charge of this deal can be trusted to propose a fair outcome for the charity other than “their mission ineffably lives on in us” (and as a corollary, whether a fair outcome is likely).
3. Whether the private technical assets of OpenAI (GPT, DALLE, and Sora) are meaningfully unique in their potential for impact, knowing what the public knows in the current moment — which I will admit is far from the complete competitive picture.
4. Whether OpenAI’s mission could be meaningfully achieved by passing out grants to a diverse body of scientists.
I’d be happy to “debate” (lol) any of those particulars if you want, but I think it’s otherwise best to leave it at “we assess the known facts differently”. If we let some time pass, that’ll at least settle question 2…
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#673Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#674About a year ago (I believe), Sam Altman touted his mission to promote safe AI with claims that he has no equity in OpenAI and was never interested in getting any. Look where we are now, well played Sam.
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Weridly this is the second time this has been repeated in this thread, but Sam wasn't even a teenager anymore when he met PG the first time (but would have just turned 20), and was 25 when Stripe was founded, so your story is obviously wrong.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#675I remember a time when promises meant something. Lots of epics in human time (Greek, Hindu), people would stick to their word and commitment was respected. Written word was much more powerful than spoken. People appreciated depth. Wish we could teach and learn from those times.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
How has the Internet? How has automobiles? Feels like a rather aimless question.
The internet has allowed for near instant communication no matter where you are, improved commerce, vastly improved education, and is directly responsible for many tangible comforts we experience today. Automobiles allow people to travel great distances over short periods of time, increase physical work capacity, allow for building massive structures, and allow for farming insane amounts of food. Both the internet an…
AI has given us an infinitely patient mentor, teacher, and conversation partner. AI has freed us from of many areas of rote work requiring basic reasoning capacity. AI has allowed people with little to no coding abilities to realize their ideas as working prototypes. AI has lowered the communication barrier between parties with different primary languages.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The charity will gift its control of a $100B company for some undisclosed "minority stake" (via a complex share dilution scheme), in exchange for nothing other than "the people we're gifting it to have promised to do good with it". It's really that simple. The charity never was intended to draw profit from the for-profit. That's not my interpretation. It sounds like the restructuring is part of the deal that values…
Hmm, fair points, especially on there not being a strict norm for charities. Thanks for taking more time to clarify. I’d say we disagree about the following somewhat indeterminate points: 1. Whether OpenAI has/could-have-had staying power without raising immense amounts of venture capital. I will readily admit that they’ve gone so far down this road that they are now somewhat trapped by their massive investments and…
> 2. Whether the people in charge of this deal can be trusted to propose a fair outcome for the charity other than “their mission ineffably lives on in us” (and as a corollary, whether a fair outcome is likely).
Since Sam Altman is on the board of OpenAI Inc, I expect this deal will be under extreme scrutiny for self dealing. He has flown under the radar so far by not taking any equity but this changes the second he does (IANAL). California, Delaware, and the feds will be looking closely at the deal.
I don't think the danger for OpenAI the charity is as great as people make it out to be. They'll be able to do a lot more than hand out grants with an 11 figure endowment.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#678It's worth noting that of OpenAI's 13 original founders, 10 have now left the company and 1 more is on leave, leaving only Sam and Wojciech.
Safe AI, altruistic AI, human-centric AI, are all dead. There is only money-generating AI. Fuck.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#679I’m confused by this news story and the response here. No one seems to understand OpenAI’s corporate structure or non profits at all. My understanding: OpenAI follows the same model Mozilla does. The nonprofit has owned a for-profit corporation called OpenAI Global, LLC that pays taxes on any revenue that isn’t directly in service of their mission (in a very narrow sense based on judicial precedent) since 2019 [1]. I…
It isnt a tax thing or a money thing, its a control and governance thing. The board of the non-profit fired Altman and then Altman (& MS) rebelled, retook control, & gutted the non-profit board. Then, they stacked the new non-profit board with Altman/MS loyalists and now they're discharging the non-profit. It's entirely about control. The board has a legally enforceable duty to its charter. That charter is the proble…
>That charter is the problem Altman is solving
We worry about the existential threat of AI becoming a paperclip factory while many humans are already.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about programmers? I never consented to have my code consumed by LLMs.
Any case where someone's work was used without respecting the terms is included in my answer. That's why I used `et cetera` here: > The work of artists, authors, etc.
I wanted to make sure I understood which side of the equation I fell on. And I must say, it looks to me like a lot of people in the "weak" camp aren't helpless martyrs though, myself included. People are excited and enthusiastic about AI and are actively reaping the benefits of progress. I don't think your analogy is quite apt.