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Our structure
- kasperni 3y agoWorth noting is this clause Fifth, the board determines when we've attained AGI. Again, by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoSo Microsoft only has access to the "chaff" and not the "beans" of OpenAI?
- ben_w 3y agoFor most of human history, real wealth and power was in the form of real estate (as I understand it, the "real" in "real estate" is no accident, the etymology goes all the way back to proto-indo-european). That only really changed to capital with the industrial age, but even then land was needed to produce food to feed the workforce, and real estate hasn't vanished from the world. Whenever AGI happens — and assuming this isn't a singularity-type change, and assuming that the AI is friendly rather than a paperclip optimiser etc. — the meaning of real power and wealth will change again, even though money (as currently understood) and land will still exist. Russia is the biggest country in the world, but at ~1.7% of global GDP (and ~1/16th of the USA's) it's not even close to being a world-leading economic powerhouse. Post-AGI, I expect that even the company with the highest earnings or market capitalization will be to the dominant {entity related to AGI but not necessarily the AGI itself because it doesn't have to be a person or an agent in its own right for this argument} as Russia is to the US.
- mistrial9 3y agoworse than that -- AI systems can generate content and sell it to other AI run systems. The content could be non-trivial and meet established legal requirements for value, by mass or by integrity. Once the pump is primed, potentially make a whole economy for small groups of people. Second scenario is AI-assist for current technical knowledge work, which non-AI assisted business cannot compete with.. MSFT is already building that platform, it is very well-funded and popular right now. Third, China does all of this, too.. and are overall better and faster at the technical parts. YMMV
- ben_w 3y agoWhy is any of that "worse"? Surely that's the point?
- ethanbond 3y agoAI will do the same thing that every other productivity improvement has in history: increase the price of land. Real estate is still (and will always be) real because not only do you need land to grow food, you need land to do any type of work on, you need land to eat on and to sleep on.
- mistrial9 3y agofalse - abandoned land, towns, whole cities.. are common and easy to find. That means the value of the land and improvements went sharply and drastically down
- pc86 3y agoI can point out dozens of "sharp and drastic" crashes in stock prices, but that doesn't mean investing in the stock market is a bad idea.
- ethanbond 3y agoWhere to start… 1) Abandoned cities are extremely rare throughout all of history. Most medium to large cities outlive the countries in which they were founded. 2) Even if this were the case, it doesn’t actually disprove the claim. All that’s evidence of is that occasionally, some forces can overcome positive pressure on prices. Yes systemic failure can sometimes (very rarely) knock a city out of existence, but this is very obviously extremely rare. Even Detroit is dramatically more expensive than it has ever been. The price of an acre in Wyoming is higher than it’s ever been. 3) That’s still assuming that abandonment is a definite sign of falling land prices, which isn’t true at all. Vacancy results from the inability to produce more value on the land than the land costs. Sometimes this is because the prices rise and sometimes because the cost of production rises, but never because the price of land went down: that would just mean more profit which means more reason to stay.
- somenameforme 3y agoI'd expect it's more that Microsoft probably shares my perspective - that the current direct and path of technology will never produce AGI, so the distinction is largely irrelevant, and makes the investment sound more societally friendly.
- rational_indian 3y agoIt is only a matter of time before we have true AGI. It's a hardware problem. We don't need to wait for someone to invent a clever algorithm for this. OpenAI knows this. See... - http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang%27s_law
- pc86 3y agoIf you're going the argument from authority route you should probably cite sources that don't say "The hypothesis is subject to questions about its validity." in the very first paragraph.
- rational_indian 3y agoEvery hypothesis is subject to questions about its validity. Including Moore's law but people still use it.
- pc86 3y agoSure, so is gravity. The Wikipedia page on gravity doesn't include such a disclaimer.
- notahacker 3y agoAnd frankly even if they did produce something the board deemed to be AGI, I don't imagine the integration of LLMs and generative art into Microsoft products beforehand wouldn't have been worth the investment
- 3y ago
- amelius 3y agoDoes that definition hold if the power use of the system is a multiple of what a human would use for the same task?
- rational_indian 3y agoPower used is important but so is speed. For example right now I am sure the GPT cluster consumes power in the order of megawatts but you have to remember it serves thousands of users simultaneously.
- amelius 3y agoYes, so energy use per task. I thought that was clear.
- rational_indian 3y agoOptimizing energy use per task at will be a waste of time at this point of time, this will come later. The metric used by OpenAI seems to be more useful right now.
- jorvi 3y ago> by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work What a sad testament to the current zeitgeist that economically viable is our bar for AGI. Van Gogh was not “economically valuable” for the span of his life.
- jprete 3y agoThat phrasing is the right one, because the economic value is the part that will involuntarily put people out of work and cause mass societal disruption.
- gardenhedge 3y agoThe funny thing is that OpenAI is not the only player. If they achieve AGI, they won't be the only ones.
- layer8 3y agoThey are not aiming at outperforming Van Gogh.
- busyant 3y ago> outperforms humans at most economically valuable work "most" but not all economically valuable work. ChatGPT (or what follows) can't swing a hammer and it can't apply spackle. Maybe I should start looking into the trades.
- lucasyvas 3y agoIt's not off the cards. A lot of what we produce is frankly useless from a core value perspective compared to the outputs of physical labor. If it doesn't produce or dramatically aid in the production of Food, Water, Shelter, Energy, or Transport... it will never be as intrinsically valuable. The vast majority of work in those categories requires irreplaceable physical labor.
- jstummbillig 3y agoWe need to interface with the world, but the minimum building blocks required to do that for all industries with just software are going to get smaller and smaller. When you have a device that can manipulate atoms as computers can manipulate bits, you will be able to do everything with software. We are probably not going to write it, but I assume as long as we are in control, we are going to drive the design. Software is most certainly the end game.
- RandomLensman 3y agoAre we back to some of the magic requiring ideas of the nanotechnology hype?
- Kapura 3y agoExtremely weird, or maybe not weird at all, that you don't include art of any form in your list of intrinsically valuable things.
- lucasyvas 3y agoArt is something you can survive without, but can't practically live without - I did omit it on purpose because expression seems hard to categorize - it's what we live for, but not how we live.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago[flagged]
- nat0704 3y ago[flagged]
- vouaobrasil 3y ago[flagged]
- nat0704 3y agoIt takes far greater effort to refute nonsense than to spout nonsense. So I won't bother refuting the unhinged rubbish you posted earlier. Fact is: you're a fool. End of discussion.
- Dalewyn 3y agoBold claims require bold evidence, if you're going to call someone a fool you're going to have to explain yourself.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoI think there is ample evidence that technology separates people, and that taking efficiency to its logical conclusion is not beneficial for humanity because it promotes resource usage that is unsustainable. I have thought a lot about this topic and prefer not to write endless essays in every comment, though I have written more detailed analyses about the dangers of AI elsewhere. The problem with AI is that for a lot of people, work gives meaning, and having AI to do almost anything that can outcompete them will take away that meaning. That is certainly not rubbish, because this sentiment has already been expressed by many in the creative field. That psychological phenomenon exists. It's sad that you have to resort to such responses such as name-calling.
- awalGarg 3y ago
- gumballindie 3y agoOpenai should now open source all of their models and work. That’s the only way “humanity” can benefit from their work.
- abirch 3y agoThe gotcha is that "humanity" is so inhumane and there are so many negative ways that AI can be abused. Once something is open source, all of the bad actors can start building on it.
- echelon 3y agoNo information should be hidden. This isn't a "fragile world" technology. If bad actors abuse the tech, then you make laws (or, in many cases, already have them on the books) against those behaviors. The negative externalities of AI are called "crimes" and we have a framework for handling them.
- Rastonbury 3y agoIsn't this from June? And wasn't this known when OpenAI created their for-profit entity and partnered with MS
- 22c 3y agoGiven the recent news it feels misleading to have news from June posted to HN after. Perhaps title should be updated?
- DebtDeflation 3y agoI said it in the other thread, their current corporate structure will not survive much longer. A non-profit parent entity with a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary (actually, the non-profit wholly owns and controls a third "manager" entity which in turn is the controlling but not majority shareholder of the for-profit subsidiary) where the profit of the for-profit entity is "capped" and oh by the way, that for-profit subsidiary has a 49% shareholder who happens to be Microsoft is a Rube Goldberg contraption. The above is just scratching the surface of the absurdity that is the OpenAI corporate structure. Microsoft despite having 49% ownership of the for-profit subsidiary gets 75% of their profit..........until their initial investment is recouped. Employees get Profit Participation Units (PPUs) which are NOT equity but which entitle employees to a percentage of profits, again up to the "cap". I have a hunch that when they say Sam and the Board have no "equity" they mean that they have no traditional equity in the form of RSUs or options, but instead have a similar PPU arrangement. Then of course, when OpenAI achieves AGI, whatever the hell that is is, then everything from that point forward reverts back to the non-profit entity and Microsoft, other investors, and employees get hosed. They planted the seeds of their own destruction by ousting the CEO and causing the Chairman to quit shortly thereafter. Lawyers for Microsoft and other investors will be knocking on the boards' door Monday morning and some of these board members who have never had a real job in their lives will get steamrolled.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago> Lawyers for Microsoft and other investors will be knocking on the boards' door Monday morning and some of these board members who have never had a real job in their lives will get steamrolled. Legally, Microsoft clearly knew they were stepping into some whacky corporate structure. If their profits are capped and they have no rights, that's what it is. You think they're just going to complain their way out of it in court? I'm not convinced.
- wokwokwok 3y agoDoes it matter? When does controversial corporate stuff not result in some kind of legal action? It doesn’t actually matter what the situation is, or if it makes sense… you just take your pack of lawyers and you point them at the enemy and tell them to do their jobs. I mean, have you met Microsoft? Yeah. They have a lot of lawyers. I think you can take it as a given this will have some kind of response… it’ll just be a matter of them trying to judge the benefits vs. the cost of it. Ie. it is not that they can’t lodge legal action, because, trust me, they can… but they, I guess, will wait and see what Sam does, and try to decide if/who they want to back before they do anything.
- fredgrott 3y agoHint, board found they have achieved AGI...obviously they felt Sam's recent statements were not truthful around that issue.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoAren't they sort of secondarily incentived to prematurely delcare having reached AGI as the contractual means of escaping Microsoft's binding (while retaining MS' protection and possibly collaboratory value)? Edit: I wonder if OpenAI meta-advises itself with ChatGPT or how their attitudes towards that notion are or evolve over time. I feel like there always needs to be a head to fly should disaster or inconvenience strike the C-Suite...
- Obscurity4340 3y agoI feel like the only way they could ever palpably "prove" AGI/superiority is if they made ChatGPT CEO and/or maybe a board member but fortified against suggestive redirection Edit: where would the line between conflict of interest and proving itself/concept fall out of curiosity. Is there any way for that to comport with their fiduciary responsibillities even if it is provably superior at the PKIs (if CEOS even have that outside of profit/loss etc)
- layer8 3y agoIf that were true, high-profile employees probably wouldn’t be leaving OpenAI. Unless they are confident to be able to easily replicate it elsewhere.
- Salgat 3y agoIt sounds more like a marketing gimmick to me.
- refurb 3y agoHas anyone seen a good analysis of the corporate ownership structure of OpenAI? The diagram half way down the page is confusing as hell to me, and very vague. Third box down says "Holding company for OpenAI non-profit + employees + investors". What do they mean "for OpenAI non-profit". Is there another non-profit? Or when they say "for", they mean the holding company is "for the benefit of" the non-profit? I first read it as "this is a holding company for the OpenAI non-profit", but that makes no sense because the OpenAI non-profit (above it) already owns the holding company.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoYou are probably overthinking things. The diagram is intended to be self-explanatory and follows the convention of normal organizational depictions. >What do they mean "for OpenAI non-profit". Is there another non-profit? Or when they say "for", they mean the holding company is "for the benefit of" the non-profit? Yes, the holding company is for the benefit of the non-profit AND employees AND investors. The holding company "investors" would cover all the pre-Microsoft early funders, eg Sam, Musk, Thiel, Hoffman, Bezos, ect. >but that makes no sense because the OpenAI non-profit (above it) already owns the holding company. The distinction is that the non-profit is not the only owner of the holding company. Employees and early investors have no ownership of the "OpenAI 501(c)3 non-profit", but they do have ownership of the holding company. The holding company then shares ownership of the for-profit "OpenAI global" with Microsoft.
- medler 3y ago> AGI—meaning a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work On a literal reading, this definition of AGI seems impossible to meet without extensive breakthroughs in robotics. Even today, most work involves a physical component. Those of us who wrote text for a living are a small minority.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- BobbyJo 3y agoThe big hurdle in robotics is the scale and complexity of the software required. Hardware to outperform humans at most physical tasks has existed for a long time, we just dont have the software that makes it function the way we want. AGI would solve that problem.
- medler 3y agoSome would say we’ve reached AGI when a bot can write code as well as the average software engineer. (OpenAI is nowhere close to this but let’s leave that aside for now). What you’re saying is, the bot needs to be 1 million times better at writing software than John Carmack to reach OpenAI’s definition of AGI, because it needs to be able to produce software that no one else has even come close to producing. That’s a much higher bar.
- BobbyJo 3y agoAI operates in a different time domain than humans. ChatGPT can't write code well, but it can write it far faster than any human alive. The moment its able to write code as well as a senior engineer, it will likely be able to do so at a speed that renders teams of 100's of engineers useless. Additionally, it will have the benefit of a single vision, as opposed to the competing visions and priorities of traditional teams.
- medler 3y ago
- zeven7 3y agoGoogle themselves said there was no moat. Sam and whoever he recruits can do this again with funding. And that part should be easy. The closest thing OpenAI has to a moat was an inspirational public face. Now that they got rid of that, what do they have?
- lazharichir 3y agoStill the best product/experience out there across the publicly available products. Bard is no GPT4, still, to this date.
- gmerc 3y agoThat's right, what does OpenAI have now? A comparatively massive user base, an app deployed onto many phones, accounts, the cutting edge AI models, the data, contracts for exclusive data access, compute contracts worth billions at a time when GPU compute is getting seriously scarce, corporate GTM partnerships from Bain to morgan stanley to Duolingo, a powerful brand (ChatGPT), tens of thousands of apps already built on their APIs, benefits from Government Lobbying Ya, so really, what do they have, it sounds like they are basically dead.
- KeplerBoy 3y agoThey gained most of what matters within the last year. Someone else can too.
- laluser 3y agoAnthropic is this alternative case with even more funding. How’s that working out for them?
- gmerc 3y agoThey gained what they had in a blue ocean. Their competitor is going to swim in a red ocean. Playing catch up with technology that may go self improving. Microsoft signed a contract that reads like a Kickstarter project ("would be wise to view any investment as a donation") because of what OpenAI had.
- jessenaser 3y agoSatya is not afraid of access, since he has OpenAI's stack and weights in the hands of Microsoft so it can run on Azure (for as long as they want). Azure has a SLA, and they are not going to let any sub service fail at the hands of an external organization. Only thing that could be bad if future GPT releases are withheld from Microsoft. This is a worst case, but possible scenario, according to the structure of OpenAI. Microsoft might have an agreement for a length of time or profit to still get GPT 5 but maybe not GPT 6. At that point, Microsoft is probably working on their own systems, and have enough time to make a competitor. Also, they can fund competition and get more access to models and stay ahead. Overall situation for Microsoft is just doubling down on their innovation and investments, which is what Satya has already done and will keep doing, and is what has gotten Microsoft to the 3T market cap.
- beebmam 3y agoMicrosoft's market cap was ~3T in late 2021, long before ChatGPT/GPT-4 was even announced.
- jessenaser 3y agoI am talking about Satya being CEO since 2014, and its effects on the company.
- Aerbil313 3y agoWhat makes people think OpenAI would announce it if they have achieved an AI system which outperforms humans in coding tasks? That’s the definition of AGI for me, and I certainly wouldn’t announce it. Think about the leverage it can give me.
- theptip 3y ago> the board determines when we've attained AGI. Again, by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology. I wonder if this could be at the crux of the fissure; does Ilya see AGI coming soon, and want to pull the rug on Microsoft? Maybe not immediately but perhaps he was flagging it. (Or maybe he thinks GPT-5 clears the bar, which would be quite the claim.)
- 015a 3y agoOn Nov 16th at APEC, Sam said "4 times in the history of OpenAI––the most recent time was in the last couple of weeks––I’ve gotten to be in the room when we push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward." That feels like a hint at something larger than what we've seen publicly announced so far. It doesn't seem to me like anyone should be discounting this theory.
- FpUser 3y ago>"We committed to publishing our research and data in cases where we felt it was safe to do so and would benefit the public." Somebody might be thinking they're gods. At any point however government can nail them
- dang 3y agoSubmitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... (Submitted title was "Microsoft is a minority owner of OpenAI Global LLC")