Earlier quoted context omitted.
Renaming to "TheAI" would match their ambition for AGI.
Drop the "The", just "AI"
Altman Intelligence Inc.
OpenAI to become for-profit company
91–100 of 809 posts
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#92Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#93Converting to a for-profit changes the tax status of donations. It also voids plausibility for Fair Use exemptions. I can see large copyright holders lining up with takedowns demanding they revise their originating datasets since there will now be a clear-cut commercial use without license.
A non-profit entity will continue to exist. Likely for the reasons you stated.
Any reasonable court would see right through “well we trained it for the public good, but only we can use it directly”. That’s not really a legal loophole as much as an arrogant ploy. IMO, IANAL
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#94I never understood why people take non profit companies as more altruistic than for profit companies. The non profit doesnt mean no profits at all they still have to be profitable. It's just boils down to how the profits are distributed. There are plenty of sleezy institutions that are non profit like the NCAA.
Foundations and charitable organizations that pubically get their funding are a different story but I'm talking about non profit companies.
I even had one fellow say that the green bay packers were less corrupt than the other for profit nfl teams , which sounds ridiculous.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#95Can anyone trust the next "non-profit" startup ? So easy to attract appeal with a lie and turn around as soon as you are in a dominant position.
Yes, you should still trust cooperatives and syndicates. I am surprised they’re attempting such a brazenly disrespectful move, but in general, the people who started this company were self-avowed capitalists through-and-through; the fact that they eventually reverted to seeking personal gain isn’t surprising in itself. That’s basically their world view: whatever I can do to enrich myself is moral because Ethical Egoism/Free Market/etc.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only hard if you're that kind of person. Not everyone is like that. And those kind of people have difficulty believing this.
Everyone is like that when the number is potentially in the trillions. There are just people who are like that and people who think they aren’t because they’ve never been within a digit grouping of it.
Illustrating that part of the parent comment:
> And those kind of people have difficulty believing this.
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#97Relatedly, dalant979 found this fascinating bit of history: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the... Yishan Wong describes a series of actions by Yishan and Sam Altman as a "con", and Sam jumps in to brag that it was "child's play for me" with a smiley face. :)
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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#98[deleted]
Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#99"Shocking!" It's a shame that one of the biggest advancements of our time has come about in as sleazy a way as it has. Reputationally... the net winner is Zuck. Way to go Meta (never thought I'd think this).
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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company
#100Relatedly, dalant979 found this fascinating bit of history: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the... Yishan Wong describes a series of actions by Yishan and Sam Altman as a "con", and Sam jumps in to brag that it was "child's play for me" with a smiley face. :)
> and Sam jumps in to brag I never read that as a brag, but as a sarcastic dismissal. That’s why it started with “cool story bro” and “except I could never have predicted”. I see the tone as “this story is convoluted” not as “I’ll admit to my plan now that you can’t do anything about it”. That’s not to say Sam isn’t a scammer. He is. It just doesn’t seem like that particular post is proof of it. But Worldcoin is. htt…
If I understand the history correctly, Yishan (the former Reddit CEO) is talking about himself when he talks about a CEO in this story, and so Yishan's post is a brag, with a thin denial tacked on at the end. That's why I believe that Sam (Yishan's friend) is also engaging in thinly-veiled bragging about these events.
Here is Yishan's comment with his name spelled out for clarity instead of just saying "CEO":
In 2006, reddit was sold to Conde Nast. It was soon obvious to many that the sale had been premature, the site was unmanaged and under-resourced under the old-media giant who simply didn't understand it and could never realize its full potential, so the founders and their allies in Y-Combinator (where reddit had been born) hatched an audacious plan to re-extract reddit from the clutches of the 100-year-old media conglomerate.
Together with Sam Altman, they recruited a young up-and-coming technology manager [named Yishan Wong] with social media credentials. Alexis, who was on the interview panel for the new reddit CEO, would reject all other candidates except this one. The manager was to insist as a condition of taking the job that Conde Nast would have to give up significant ownership of the company, first to employees by justifying the need for equity to be able to hire top talent, bringing in Silicon Valley insiders to help run the company. After continuing to grow the company, [Yishan Wong] would then further dilute Conde Nast's ownership by raising money from a syndicate of Silicon Valley investors led by Sam Altman, now the President of Y-Combinator itself, who in the process would take a seat on the board.
Once this was done, [Yishan Wong] and his team would manufacture a series of otherwise-improbable leadership crises, forcing the new board to scramble to find a new CEO, allowing Altman to use his position on the board to advocate for the re-introduction of the old founders, installing them on the board and as CEO, thus returning the company to their control and relegating Conde Nast to a position as minority shareholder.
JUST KIDDING. There's no way that could happen.
My understanding of what Sam meant by "I could never have predicted the part where you resigned on the spot" was that he was conveying respect for Yishan essentially out-playing Sam at the end (the two of them are friends) by distancing himself (Yishan) from the situation and any potential liability in order to leave Sam "holding the bag" of possible liability.