[jelling]

> What exactly is the problem here? Is a non-profit expected to exclusively help impoverished communities or something?

Yes. Yes and more yes.

That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation. Because they are supposed to be improving society, not profiting from it.

[arrosenberg]

> That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation.

That's your belief. The NFL, Heritage Foundation and Scientology are all non-profits and none of them improve society; they all profit from it.

(For what its' worth, I wish the law was more aligned with your worldview)

[tsimionescu]

Ostensibly, all three of your examples do exist to improve society. The NFL exists to support a widely popular sport, the Heritage Foundation is there to propose changes that they theoretically believe are better for society, and Scientology is a religion that will save us all from our bad thetans or whatever cockamamie story they sell.

A non-profit has to have the intention of improving society. Whether their chosen means is (1) effective and (2) truthful are separate discussions. But an entity can actually lose non-profit status if it is found to be operated for the sole benefit of its higher ups, and is untruthful in its mission. It is typically very hard to prove though, just like it's very hard to successfully sue a for-profit CEO/president for breach of fiduciary duty.

[lordnacho]

I think GP deals with that in his parenthesis.

It would be nice if we held organizations to their stated missions. We don't.

Perhaps there simply shouldn't be a tax break. After all if your org spends all its income on charity, it won't pay any tax anyway. If it sells cookies for more than what it costs to make and distribute them, why does it matter whether it was for a charity?

Plus, we already believe that for-profit orgs can benefit society, in fact part of the reason for creating them as legal entities is that we think there's some sort of benefit, whether it be feeding us or creating toys. So why have a special charity sector?

[twelvechairs]

> OpenAIs goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. OpenAI believes that artificial intelligence technology has the potential to have a profound, positive impact on the world, so the companys goal is to develop and responsibly deploy safe AI technology, ensuring that its benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible.

From their filing as a non-profit

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810...

[aurareturn]

FYI, the NFL teams are for profits and pay taxes like normal busineses. The overwhelming majority of the revenue goes to the teams.

[arrosenberg]

I know that, does that change what I said?

[aurareturn]

I don't know if it does but my point is to prevent others from thinking that a giant money making entity like the NFL does not pay any taxes.

[mschuster91]

> The NFL, Heritage Foundation and Scientology are all non-profits and none of them improve society; they all profit from it.

At least for Scientology, the government actually tried to pull the rug, but it didn't work out because they managed to achieve the unthinkable - they successfully extorted the US government to keep their tax-exempt status.

[some1else]

Starting OpenAI as a fork of Scientology from the get go would have saved everyone a great deal of hair splitting.

[polygamous_bat]

  :s/Xenu/AGI/g

[ameister14]

No - that's the reasoning behind the law.

You appear to be struggling with the idea that the law as enacted does not accomplish the goal it was created to accomplish and are working backwards to say that because it is not accomplishing this goal that couldn't have been why it was enacted.

Non-profits are supposed to benefit their community. Could the law be better? Sure, but that doesn't change the purpose behind it.

[whelp_24]

The NFL also is a non-profit in charge of for-profits. Except they never pretended to be a charity, just an event organizer.

[turquoisevar]

Bad actors exploiting good things isn’t in and of itself an indictment of said good things.

[gardenhedge]

An argument could be made that sports - and a sports organization - helps society

[arrosenberg]

Sure you can, but I wouldn't make that argument about the NFL. They exist to enrich 30 owners and Roger Goodell. They don't even live up to their own mission statement - most fans deride it as the No Fun League.

[passion__desire]

Fast fashion and fashion industry in general is useless to society. But rich jobless people need a place to hangout so they create an activity to justify.

[achenet]

useless to society...

fashion allows people to optimize their appearance so as to get more positive attention from others. Or, put more crudely, it helps people look good so they can get laid.

Not sure that it's net positive for society as a whole, but individual humans certainly benefit from the fashion industry. Ask anyone who has ever received a compliment on their outfit.

This is true for rich people as well as not so rich people - having spent some time working as a salesman at H&M, I can tell you that lower income members of society (like, for example, H&M employees making minimum wage) are very happy to spend a fair percentage of their income on clothing.

[dheavy]

It goes even deeper than getting laid if you study Costume History and its psychological importance.

It is a powerful medium of self-expression and social identity yes, deeply rooted in human history where costumes and attire have always signified cultural, social, and economic status.

Drawing from tribal psychology, it fulfills an innate human desire for belonging and individuality, enabling people to communicate their affiliation, status, and personal values through their choice of clothing.

It has always been and will always be part of humanity, even if its industrialization in Capitalistic societies like ours have hidden this fact.

OP's POV is just a bit narrow, that's all.

[atq2119]

Clothing is important in that sense, but fashion as a changing thing and especially fast fashion isn't. I suppose it can be a nice hobby for some, but for society as a whole it's at best a wasteful zero-sum pursuit.

[mensetmanusman]

we can correlate now that the more fast fashion there is the less people are coupling though...

[passion__desire]

There was a tweet by Elon which said that we are optimizing for short term pleasure. OnlyFans exists just for this. Pleasure industry creates jobs as well but do we need so much of it?

[dheavy]

> fashion industry in general is useless to society > rich jobless people need a place to hangout

You're talking about an industry that generates approximately $1.5 trillion globally, employing more than 60 million people globally, from multi-disciplinary skills in fashion design, illustration, web development, e-commerce, AI, digital marketing.

[passion__desire]

well, web3 created lot of economic activity and jobs, it doesn't mean it is useful.

[quickthrower2]

As does a peer to peer taxi company.

[renewiltord]

Indeed, and one for ChatGPT.

[mensetmanusman]

it's also your belief that sports like the nfl do not improve society ...

beliefs can't be proven or disproven, they are axioms.

[depr]

So what is your belief about why they exist?

[todd3834]

I don’t think OpenAI ever reported to be profitable. They are allowed and should make money so they can stay alive. ChatGPT has already had a tremendous positive impact on society. The cause of safe AGI is going to take a lot of money in more research.

[shafyy]

> ChatGPT has already had a tremendous positive impact on society.

Citation needed

[todd3834]

Fair enough, I should have said, it’s my opinion that it has had a positive impact. I still think it’s easy to see them as a non profit. Even with everything they announced at AI day.

Can anyone make an argument against it? Or just downvote because you don’t agree.

[sgt101]

I think ChatGPT has created some harms:

- It's been used unethically for psychological and medical purposes (with insufficient testing and insufficient consent, and possible psychological and physical harms).

- It has been used to distort educational attainment and undermine the current basis of some credentials as a result.

- It has been used to create synthetic content that has been released unmarked into the internet distorting and biasing future models trained on that content.

- It has been used to support criminal activity (scams).

- It has been used to create propaganda & fake news.

- It has devalued and replaced the work of people who relied on that work for their incomes.

[VBprogrammer]

> - It has been used to distort educational attainment and undermine the current basis of some credentials as a result.

I'm going to go ahead and call this a positive. If the means for measuring ability in some fields is beaten by a stochastic parrot then these fields need to adapt their methods so that testing measures understanding in a variety of ways.

I'm only slightly bitter because I was always rubbish at long form essays. Thankfully in CS these were mostly an afterthought.

[zztop44]

What if the credentials in question are a high school certificate? ChatGPT has certainly made life more difficult for high school and middle school teachers.

[munksbeer]

> It has devalued and replaced the work of people who relied on that work for their incomes.

Many people (myself included) would argue that is true for almost all technological progress and adds more value to society as a whole than it takes away.

Obviously the comparisons are not exact, and have been made many times already, but you can just pick one of countless examples that devalued certain workers wages but made so many more people better off.

[sgt101]

Sure - agree... but

- because it's happened before doesn't make it ok (especially for the folks who it happens to)

- many more people may be better off, and it may be a social good eventually, but this is not for sure

- there is no mechanism for any redistribution or support for the people suddenly and unexpectedly displaced.

[vbo]

and so has the internet. some use it for good, others for evil.

these are behaviours and traits of the user, not the tool.

[sgt101]

I can use a 5ltr V8 to drive to school and back or a Nissan Leaf.

Neither thing is evil, or good, but the choice of what is used and what is available to use for a particular task has moral significance.

[jll29]

I think it's fair to say that after a lot of empty promises, AI research finally delivered something that can "wow" the general population, and has been demonstrated to be useful for more than an single use case.

I know a law firm that tried ChatGPT to write a legal letter, and they were shocked that it use the same structure that they were told to use in law school (little surprise here, actually).

[latexr]

I also know of a lawyer who tried ChatGPT and was shocked by the results.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-f...

[u32480932048]

I used it to respond to a summons which, due to postal delays, I had to get in the mail that afternoon. I typed my "wtf is this" story into ChatGPT, it came up with a response and asked for dismissal. I did some light editing to remove/edit claims that weren't quite true or I felt were dramatically exaggerated, and a week later, the case was dismissed (without prejudice).

It was total nonsense anyway, and the path to dismissal was obvious and straightforward, starting with jurisdiction, so I'm not sure how effective it would be in a "real" situation. I definitely see it being great for boilerplate or templating though.

[shafyy]

For what it's worth, I didn't downvote you.

Depends on what you define as positive impact. Helping programmers write boiler plate code faster? Summarize a document for lazy fuckers who can't get themselves to read two page? Ok, not sure if this is what I would consider "positive impact".

For a list of negative impacts, see the sister comments. I'd also like to add that the energy usage of LLMs like ChatGPT is immensely high, and this in a time where we need to cut carbon emissions. And mostly used for shits and gigles by some boomers.

[sebzim4500]

Your examples seem so obviously to me to be a "positive impact" that I can't really understand your comment.

Of course saving time for 100 million people is positive.

[mejutoco]

Not arguing either way, but it is conceivable that reading comprehension (which is not stellar in general) can get even worse. Saving time for the same quality would be a positive. Saving time for a different quality might depend on the use-case. For a rough summary of a novel it might be ok, for a legal/medical use, might literally kill you.

[shafyy]

"Positive impact" for me would be things like improve social injustice, reduce poverty, reduce CO2 emissions, etc. Not saying that it's a negative impact to make programmers more productive, but it's not like ChatGPT is saving the world.