[itsaquicknote]

Replying to both responses because they're all good points. My argument boils down to the fact that some private companies end up becoming social utilities and once that happens, the rules (should) change as part of the social contract which means, yeah, they can't simply "pull the rug". The research is important precisely because its into systemically significant systems.

I get that it's difficult to define the line where that gets crossed. But the idea to provide a publicly funded trust that manages legacy versions of things like this is not a bad idea.

[dahart]

No matter how you define it, or whether people even agree companies should be obligated to provide certain public services, we are just nowhere near that line yet in this case, net even remotely close. It’s hand-wavy to say it’s important, but this is all brand new, there are only a handful of researchers involved, the critical mass to justify what you’re suggesting does not yet exist, it won’t for some time, and there’s no guarantee it ever will. I’m not sure what you mean by publicly funded trust, but that’s typically quite different from privately funded public services. Assuming that cost is even the reason here, then if someone wants to establish a trust and engage OpenAI, they can.

That said, what if OpenAI shut down codex because it has dangerous possibilities and amoral “researchers” started figuring out how to exploit them? What if it was fundamentally buggy or encouraging misleading research? What if codex was accidentally leaking or distributing export-controlled or other illegal (copyright, etc.) information? I’m explicitly speculating on possibilities, while you’re making unstated assumptions, so entertain the question of whether OpenAI is already doing a public service by shutting it down.

[itsaquicknote]

Agree to disagree.

[dahart]

Feel free to elaborate, if you can. I gave you some added reasoning, so it doesn’t help anyone to flatly state disagreement without offering any justification. Why even bother to say you disagree?

What evidence is there that OpenAI’s codex has become a social utility? How many people used it to publish? Do you think the US government agrees? How likely is this case to go to court, and result in OpenAI being ordered to provide ongoing access to codex? That seems pretty far fetched to me, but I’m willing to entertain the possibility that I’m wrong.

Are you certain there aren’t problems with codex, that OpenAI isn’t working on something better, and/or shutting it down because it’s causing harm? If so, why are you certain?