Agreed that not releasing models might be a good thing, I'm just pointing out that's not how they initially pitched the organization. I wonder if they might hav

Agreed that not releasing models might be a good thing, I'm just pointing out that's not how they initially pitched the organization. I wonder if they might have gotten less favorable publicity when they launched if they just said "we're starting an AI company to compete with Google". As for the business model, there's nothing wrong with it in principle, it's just not what they said they would do. There's no reason a well-funded nonprofit research organization needs to compete with Google and Facebook. They changed their funding model because they wanted to compete, not because they needed to. And it hasn't been very long since they said "Our 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. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact." You have to assume they knew from the start that they'd probably want to pivot to a business.