| > I can think of exactly zero other reasons to have engineered the privatization of a charity, other than greed. The question has recently been asked by Lex Fridman and answered by Sam Altman. This is the clip: https://youtu.be/qQdqFZFZQ6o To quote: "We learned early on that were gonna need far more capital than we were able to raise as a non-profit" (you can listen in on it being expanded over 3 Minutes) Now, since I can almost feel the goal-post-shifting coming, this seems like a good time to align: You claimed you could see no reason. Their reason is: They had a model. Then they figured it was wrong. They adjusted their model. This is not an insane or unreasonable process. This is how we know things get adjusted all the time. We agree with it on principle. Now, of course, there are a lot of possible, unfavorable interpretations, even if we can agree up to here. A couple: a) Despite the process making sense, that's not what happened. Sam might be lying or deceiving. He may be leaving things unsaid, or it could all be a long-planned con, etc. All of this might be entirely possible, and I did not do the work to disprove this option. BUT: as a general rule, we always agree that the burden of proof is on the accuser, in court and in civil discourse. Walking up to people and saying "You stole!", them being irritated, and you saying "Well! Prove me otherwise!" is just not how we do things. I am aware that in practice we often are willing to apply different rules to the very poor, the very rich, or people we just dislike. b) Sam is incompetent or delusional. Someone else could have made it work without going the route they did. Maybe it would have worked, and he is just... bad at math? Certainly a possibility. Similar to the above, if you want to make this claim without discrediting yourself: Show your work. Reason us through it. c) This move was illegal. I am not a lawyer, but since I wouldn't rate this thought as particularly groundbreaking, I am okay with assuming someone raised the concern during the transition, lawyers were consulted, and it was a legal option. d) It's simply immoral to go on, at best the exploitation of a loophole, at worst the biggest treason to humankind. If "open" cannot mean "open source" anymore, before making this transition, letting the company fail was the right move. This is an entirely understandable position, and I can empathize with the feelings it triggers. It requires no evidence, and it requires no claims about greed. It's an opinion piece. Fair enough. |
I'll preface this by saying I am neither judge nor prosecutor, and we are not at trial.
Where we are is in a position of considering, before it is too late, the honesty and motives of a man who has taken a charity private because they "needed money".
Needed money for what, exactly? Well, the mission of OpenAI, according to https://openai.com/about their mission is Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
So how does this newfound capital help that mission? By hiding the details of GPT4, so that no one outside of OpenAI can benefit. I don't even know how many parameters the damn thing has or what kind of growth trajectory we are on, and neither does anyone outside of OpenAI.
Here's a man who stands to control a large part of what resembles AGI, financially benefit to an almost indescribable degree, and control, arguably, a large part of the direction of society (given the number of jobs this will cost), especially if the regulators limit access by Mere Mortals. They won't even tell us the basics of their new models (and newfound powers). So much for "Open" and "benefiting all of humanity".
If someone stands to gain this kind of money and power, and does things that on their face seem dishonest and inimical to society at large, and to the goals of the very charity he privatized, should he be immune to questioning and suspicion?
I am suspicious. I think his actions merit suspicion. I think you all should be suspicious too, based on the events so far.