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My guess is that the non-profit has never gotten this kind of scrutiny now and the new directors are going to want to get lawyers involved to cover their asses.

• danaris 3y ago
  Well, I think that's really the question, isn't it? Was it a mistake to create OpenAI as a public charity? Or was it a mistake to operate OpenAI as if it were a startup? The problem isn't really either one—it's the inherent conflict between the two. IMO, the only reason to see creating it as a 501(c)(3) being a mistake is if you think cutting-edge machine learning is inherently going to be targeted by people looking to make a quick buck off of it.
  • blackoil 3y ago
    OpenAI the charity would have survived only as an ego project for Elon doing something fun with minor impact. Only the current setup is feasible if they want to get the kind of investment required. This can work if the board is pragmatic and has no conflict of interest, so preferably someone with no stake in anything AI either biz or academic.
    • baking 3y ago
      I think the only way this can end up is to convert to a private foundation and make sizable (8 figures annually) grants to truly independent AI safety (broadly defined) organizations.
  • baking 3y ago
    To create a public charity without public fundraising is a no go. Should have been a private foundation because that is where it will end up.
  • ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    > IMO, the only reason to see creating it as a 501(c)(3) being a mistake is if you think cutting-edge machine learning is inherently going to be targeted by people looking to make a quick buck off of it. I mean that's certainly been my experience of it thus far, is companies rushing to market with half-baked products that (allegedly) incorporate AI to do some task or another.
    • danaris 3y ago
      I was specifically thinking of people seeing a non-profit doing stuff with ML, and trying to finagle their way in there to turn it into a profit for themselves. (But yes; what you describe is absolutely happening left and right...)
  • deleted 3y ago
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• qwery 3y ago
  > I think it was a real mistake to create OpenAI as a public charity Sure, with hindsight. But it didn't require much in the way of foresight to predict that some sort of problem would arise from the not-for-profit operating a hot startup that is by definition poorly aligned with the stated goals of the parent company. The writing was on the wall.
  • fooop 3y ago
    Speaks more to a fundamental misalignment between societal good and technological progress. The narrative (first born in the Enlightenment) about how reason, unfettered by tradition and nonage, is our best path towards happiness no longer holds. AI doomerism is an expression of this breakdown, but without the intellectual honesty required to dive to the root of the problem and consider whether Socrates may have been right about the corrupting influence of writing stuff down instead of memorizing it. What's happening right now is people just starting to reckon with the fact that technological progress on it's own is necessarily unaligned with human interests. This problem has always existed, AI just makes it acute and unavoidable since it's no longer possible to invoke the long-tail of "whatever problem this fix creates will just get fixed later". The AI alignment problem is at it's core a problem of reconciling this, and it will inherently fail in absence of explicitly imposing non-Enlightenment values. Seeking to build openAI as a nonprofit, as well as ousting Altman as CEO are both initial expressions of trying to reconcile the conflict, and seeing these attempts fail will only intensity it. It will be fascinating to watch as researchers slowly come to realize what the roots of the problem are, but also the lack of the social machinery required to combat the problem.
  • baking 3y ago
    I think it could have easily been predicted just from the initial announcements. You can't create a public charity simply from the donations of a few wealthy individuals. A public charity has to meet the public support test. A private foundation would be a better model but someone decided they didn't want to go that route. Maybe should have asked a non-profit lawyer?
    • faramarz 3y ago
• BanTheBastards 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • voxic11 3y ago
    They are registered as a 501(c)(3) which is what people commonly call a public charity. > Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810...
    • plorg 3y ago
      >...aren't even trying to pretend to be... Suggests GP is not making a legal distinction, it's a description of how they are actually running things.
    • baking 3y ago
      "Every section 501(c)(3) organization is classified as either a private foundation or a public charity." https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/eo-operational-requirements-private-foundations-and-public-charities https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/eo-operational-req...
    • BanTheBastards 3y ago
      > They are registered as a 501(c)(3) which is what people commonly call a public charity. Why do they do that? Seems ridiculous on the face of it. Nothing about 501(c)(3) entails providing any sort of good or service to society at large. In fact, the very same thing prevents them from competing with for-profit entities at providing any good or service to society at large. The only reason they exist at all is that for-profit companies are terrible at feeding, housing, and protecting their own labor force.
      • duskwuff 3y ago
• purple_ferret 3y ago
  Perhaps creating OpenAI as a charity is what has allowed it to become what it is, whereas other for-profit competitors are worth much less. How else do you get a guy like Elon Musk to 'donate' $100 million to your company? Lots of ventures cut corners early on that they eventually had to pay for, but cutting the corners was crucial to their initial success and growth
  • baking 3y ago
    Elon only gave $40 million, but since he was the primary donor I suspect he was the one who was pushing for the "public charity" designation. He and Sam were co-founders. Maybe it was Sam who asked Elon for the money, but there wasn't anyone else involved.
• Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > I think it was a real mistake to create OpenAI as a public charity and I would be hesitant to step into that mess. I think it could have worked either as a non-profit or as a for-profit. It's this weird jackass hybrid thing that's produced most of the conflict, or so it seems to me. Neither fish nor fowl, as the saying goes.
• ryukoposting 3y ago
  Are there any similar cases of this "non-profit board overseeing a (huge) for-profit company" model? I want to like the concept behind it. Was this inevitable due to the leadership structure of OpenAI, or was it totally preventable had the right people been on the board? I wish I had the historical context to answer that question.
  • lacker 3y ago
    Yes, for example Novo Nordisk is a pharmaceutical company controlled by a nonprofit, worth around $100B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk_Foundation There are other similar examples like Ikea. But those examples are for mature, established companies operating under a nonprofit. OpenAI is different. Not only does it have the for-profit subsidiary, but the for-profit needs to frequently fundraise. It's natural for fundraising to require renegotiations in the board structure, possibly contentious ones. So in retrospect it doesn't seem surprising that this process would become extra contentious with OpenAI's structure.
    • deleted 3y ago
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