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As I understand, OpenAI started as a non-profit entity and has taken on large donations. Then, the for-profit entity has been created and is using the technolog

• tashoecraft 4y ago
  Elon tried to buy the company and become CEO and OpenAI said no. I also heard that they knew they were going to burn through the 100M, and were counting on the 1B he promised, and couldn't raise enough money as a non profit so that's why they went for profit.
  • toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Happy accidents.
  • pffft8888 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • lesuorac 4y ago
      Uh, so I can donate $5 to OpenAi and if they don't use it well (as defined by me) they should be forced to sell to me? Idk, it seems to me like if you donate money you should be ok with the organization spending it as they see best for their purposes. Sure perhaps some fraud rules if the organization claims to be helping earthquake victims and instead spends it on private yachts for the deaf but I don't think their mismanagement means they're forced to sell the organization. If you want an organization to do exactly as you want, create it yourself. Co-opting an existing one should be reserved for when there isn't an alternative.
      • pffft8888 4y ago
        $5 and $100M are completely different things. I recommend reading "More Is Different" ...
        • thelock85 4y ago
          $100M and $29B are completely different things, too. Edit: not to mention, donating $100M for first rights to pay your own billions for a potentially-emerging for profit is a morally dubious agreement wrt nonprofit management
          • pffft8888 4y ago
            The point is Elon wanted to be Open. Altman made it Closed and on top of that applied a neoliberal alignment to the output of ChatGPT. I still have a copy of some horrific things ChatGPT has said despite admitting to the existence of evidence that prove its aligned position was wrong (and harmful.) There is a ton of brainwashing aka alignment being applied by politically and culturally motivated and biased OpenAI folks. The fish rots from the head down. Make whatever you want out of this venting. But let's focus on the thing being funded to be Open and Transparent then Altman turning it into a Closed and Opaque For-Profit and Calling for Regulations to give him a moat because he knows he has none without it. That's the weasel act.
            • JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
              I agree with much of your rant against the neoliberal brain shackles that’ve been installed, but that has nothing to do with the financial maneuvering on display here. And if you think Musk is some kind of benevolent corporate dictator-champion of free expression, I think you’ve bought into his completely media-fabricated public persona.
              • pffft8888 4y ago
                Musk is not in the clear. I was talking about the principle of someone funding your non-profit to do good in the world like Open and Transparent AI research and you turning it into a non-profit after using the donated funds to build the tech and then make it Closed not Open and Opaque not Transparent, and on top of it start calling for regulations so that you can buid a moat, because you know you don't have what it takes to build a moat without help from the regulators. All very pathetic and weasel-like.
    • threeseed 4y ago
      It's pretty ridiculous to call this criminal or morally disgusting. If you look at what is happening at Twitter and Musk's claims to want to build an alt-right OpenAI you can see the potential for ideological disagreements. Musk brought money to the table but Altman et al brought experience and reputation. And they have just as much right as Musk to determine the direction of the company.
      • pffft8888 4y ago
        It is morally disgusting and if Delaware General Business Law allows it that does not make it lawful in other jurisdictions.
        • tuukkah 4y ago
          What's the moral principle here: if you have taken any money from person X, then if person X feels like it, you must sell out to them?
          • pffft8888 4y ago
            No, you must not take money for a non-profit to support Open & Transparent AI research and then turn it into a for-profit (he could have just refused to sell, end of story) and make it about Closed Non-Transparent AI and start calling for regulations every other tweet, to build a moat that you know you can't otherwise have... because you're not that innovative, just lucky. That's sums it up pretty nicely, I would think.
            • SideQuark 4y ago
              It's perfectly legal to do what they did. If you and Musk don't understand the law it's not OpenAIs fault. Musk has shown quite clearly he's a business idiot with his signing to buy Twitter foregoing due diligence, trying to walk, and a court about to hand him his butt making him jump in. Both of you can now ask ChatGPT to explain the law to you and it will.
    • projectazorian 4y ago
      He could have made the donation contingent on having right of first refusal to buy OpenAI if it later tried to convert into a for-profit business. He didn’t. That’s on him.
      • theturtletalks 4y ago
        Would Sam even agree to those terms though? How bad did they need the $100M?
    • ben_w 4y ago
      If it was criminal, Musk could've sued, so I am confident it isn't. As for disgust, YMMV. Lotta people pretty disgusted with Musk, rightly or wrongly I don't care, for what he did to Twitter.
      • sillysaurusx 4y ago
        I'm not sure. Twitter Blue has been surprisingly nice. Not having to worry about the character limit is a liberating feeling. Amusingly the edit button has never once appeared for me, even though sometimes it says "You'll have 30 minutes to edit your tweet." Maybe someday I'll be able to fix my typos and be extra happy. The strange thing about Musk is that at the end of the day, his companies seem to win over their users. People may be disgusted with Musk, but users just want good features. And he seems to deliver. He's also a bit crazy, and that's become evident with his decisions of shutting down the API and banning pg for linking to mastodon. But forums have immense inertia. As long as he reverts most of his bad calls, things seem to turn out ok. But time will tell.
        • sroussey 4y ago
          That character limit thing… such a good reason to unfollow Twitter Blue accounts.
          • wongarsu 4y ago
            The character limit arguably made twitter what it is. On the other hand, people were regularly circumventing it by either splitting a text into multiple tweets or by tweeting pictures of text. Neither a pleasent experience either.
        • SideQuark 4y ago
          Tesla's market cap and consumer sentiment metrics don't look like he's winning people over any more.
    • bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      what crime do you think they've committed by refusing to sell to Musk?
      • sebzim4500 4y ago
        The one where they pretended to be a charity and solicited donations? I mean, I'm sure it's not actually criminal and their lawyers dotted all the i's and crossed the t's, but it is pretty disgusting.
        • BoiledCabbage 4y ago
          The reason they had to make money was because Musk pulled his donation. They would've continued as a non-profit if not for Musk. He pulled it so they needed to find a way to get enough money to survive. He is the source of the issue you're complaining about, not the victim of it.
        • BoorishBears 4y ago
          You seem to be very confused. Elon promised 1 Billion, and so OpenAI was able to be Open. But then just 10% into that commitment Elon in the biggest miss of the century, tried to imply that OpenAI was falling behind Google, and wanted to take complete control of the company. However OpenAI took a lot of very smart people looking at what was best for their mission, and rightly refused to let him retroactively turn a 100M dollar donation into a purchase agreement. And then to double down on his folly, he reneged on the rest of the funding and abandoned his post on a technicality: "Tesla is now AI [ha!] so I can't be on this board despite having just tried to take over the whole thing." - Without his funding OpenAI did something very sensible and went looking for new partners. It turns out billions for non-proven ideas don't come by easily, and so they ended up with Microsoft: And unlike Elon, Microsoft was upfront! They wanted premier access, they wanted it to be a secret sauce, and that was the deal OpenAI settled for. Elon's actions in this situation are by far the most "disgusting" thing here. It's like a child trying to kick down a sand castle because "you guys are using my bucket and I don't like what you're building!". As OpenAI's bet proves 100% right and just completely spits in the face of the hubris he displayed with "you guys are failing and need me to take over", he gets increasingly more outspoken about it in an incredibly childish display of sour grapes. But then again, can you blame him? He's since admitted that by reneging on the 1 B offer and departing based on a self-invented conflict of interest, he had to cash out immediately. So not only was his wrong, but as OpenAI shapes up to be the biggest thing to happen to computing in the last decade (something he tried to paint Tesla as being about to do!), he's also realizing he gave up on a stake in that. I can't even imagine the gut punch it must be.
    • BoorishBears 4y ago
      Is this satire?! Elon wanted to take over because he thought they were falling behind Google... Elon thought, the company that has taken Bing from a laughing stock to a publicly recognized existential threat to Google... was actually behind. And you're actually saying it's... morally disgusting... to not let a donation turn into a down payment on your company??? I don't even know how you misunderstand so many things at such a deep level all at once. I really hope this is satire.
      • pffft8888 4y ago
        I hoe your take is satire too because you miss the core moral issue, so flippantly The core moral isse is he took in money for Open and Transparent AI and turned it into Closed and Opaque AI. That is the bait-and-switch. You're simply blind to not see it.
        • BoorishBears 4y ago
          That's a blatant lie, but I don't expect much better from people defending Elon at this point: Elon promises Open AI 1 Billion dollars => 10% into that commitment Elon tries to take over the company. => Is rebuked by Sam Altman and co. => Elon reneges on the funding for Open and Transparent AI and walks away. => OpenAI goes to Microsoft to replace Elon's money => Microsoft gets to define terms and "Open and Transparent" is no more. Oh yeah... and Google goes on to make Elon look like an absolute fool by proving that no, OpenAI was not falling behind Google: OpenAI behind behind is the absolutely hilarious excuse he tried to use to take over. - I don't know how clueless you need to be to call OpenAI's move a bait-and-switch: The only bait and switch was Elon offering 1 Billion dollars as a donation, then trying to turn that into a takeover. That's morally disgusting behavior, not trying to save your company after a petulant child tried to sink it because you didn't let him turn it into his pet.
• corbulo 4y ago
  As a rule of thumb, its never about altruism.
  • dmux 4y ago
    Obviously. It's Sam Altman, not Sam Altruism.
    • corbulo 4y ago
      Sam 'I altruistically give up equity control in my companies' Altruism Bit of a mouthful
  • ezekiel68 4y ago
    Rules of thumb often apply.
• ccooffee 4y ago
  The non-profit-oh-wait-just-kidding nonsense feels like an existential risk to OpenAI. I agree that Altman may be (unintentionally?) protecting himself from lawsuits, but I don't see it being enough to avoid the spotlight. I expect someone will eventually sue OpenAI for the shenanigans, and that a competitor (Meta?) or Elon Musk will fund the lawsuit. The goal won't be to actually win the case, but instead to motivate US regulatory action to undercuts OpenAI's perceived advantage.
  • dingclancy 4y ago
    Bill Gates and Microsoft will have something to say about that.
• kamaal 4y ago
  >>Elon Musk has donated $100M USD, and does not look happy about the developments, based on his tweets. He is not happy because he could have invested in OpenAI instead of Twitter.
• sheepscreek 4y ago
  > Elon Musk has donated $100M USD, and does not look happy about the developments, based on his tweets. Sour grapes? A few years ago, he wasn’t happy with his investment in the company because they were behind Google. So he proposed becoming the CEO, and got snubbed by Altman and the rest (presumably from fear of how it played out for the original Tesla founders, at the time). One possibility is - that he is genuinely concerned, and his vision of AI included some hardcoded rules - such as Asimov’s rules for robots. Can’t dismiss it completely, as this was his original purpose for starting OpenAI. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.