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OpenAI Shoves a Data Journalist and Violates Federal Law

82 points by thinkcomp 3y ago

fragsworth 3y ago
At least this guy is being honest about the context: > They are smart people. About that I have no doubt. But I’ve seen how they treat rules. I know what they think of ethics. Also: > I have never met Sam, and I have only met Greg a couple of times. I'm just saying, breaking rules in business is not necessarily the same as being unethical. Especially financial/regulatory capture rules like it seems the author is complaining about. Different things are at stake with AI, and I think we're all aligned.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  > I'm just saying, breaking rules in business is not necessarily the same as being unethical. Can you explain this?
  - _factor 3y ago
    When a company has unreasonable deadlines set by outside entities, breaking rules is a necessary part of functioning.
    - rnk 3y ago
      Is filing reports as a nonprofit an example of unreasonable expectations from the us govt?
      - throwaway5959 3y ago
        To some, any expectations placed upon anyone (company or person) by the government is too much. Mostly people that haven’t progressed much after reading Rand in high school.
        zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
        I ran a small business and had to get a couple licenses from the state. It wasn't difficult but it sure was annoying.
- rnk 3y ago
  I guess that implies you are at openai, maybe not? What does it mean that different things are at stake with ai and that "we are aligned"?
shrubble 3y ago
For a non-profit the size of OpenAI to not file their Form 990 is pretty serious. They have over 700 employees, it's not like they are lacking in people or in money to do their paperwork properly...
- thinkcomp 3y ago
  I'm sure it's filed. They just refused to disclose it as required by law.
  - tjbiddle 3y ago
    Didn't sound like they refused. The police officers said it themselves: It's the day before Thanksgiving. Yeah - I get it, law says "immediately", but the journalist needs to chill and just try again Monday. It's a holiday week. Barking up the wrong tree.
    - voidfunc 3y ago
      This is standard operating practice for shitty journalists to create smoke and generate attention. Journalists suck. They're basically one step away from paparazzi.
      - ESGHound 3y ago
        Glad to see YC living up to its reputation. keep grinding, brother.
    - thinkcomp 3y ago
      Accounting firm acknowledged it could send the documents by e-mail but refused on the phone, said to go to the company's office. Company wouldn't let me in the office, blamed Thanksgiving, and lied about the office being closed when it obviously was not. We're talking about sending an e-mail with a PDF in the middle of a business day when employees were clearly at work in the office. That's it. E-mail can be sent from anywhere in the world. And the accounting firm was willing and able to send it, just not willing to comply with the law because its client said not to.
tjbiddle 3y ago
Watching the videos on the article, and this journalist is coming off pretty arrogant. Okay, I understand that you have a right to request those documents - but it's the day before Thanksgiving, and the right people aren't available. Yes, I get it - the law says "Immediately" if at the headquarters, but give some slack - it's a holiday. Come back on Monday. The guy got shoved because he was repeatedly told not to be on the private property, and instead he decided to walk in - and then start claiming he's on the sidewalk (Which she, now they were). He was told he was trespassing, he refused, and they have a right to use reasonable force to remove him. Considering they did that directly in front of a police officer, I think highlights the OpenAI guy is fine. This reeks of like "I'm right in one thing - so I'm right in everything". People are human man, again - come back Monday. Go enjoy time with your family and stop trying to pick a fight right now.
- jhgg 3y ago
  It's also worth mentioning that failure to immediately disclose said documents are... a $20/day fine [1]. A company being out of compliance does not give a civilian the right to trespass. The correct solution here is to raise a complaint with the appropriate authorities (the IRS), not to continue to remain on private property and have to be forcibly removed by the building's security. [1]: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-and-availability-of-exempt-organizations-returns-and-applications-penalties-for-noncompliance https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-...
  - thinkcomp 3y ago
    This isn't quite right. Federal law requires that citizens be allowed to make requests in person. Trespassing is a state statute in each state. In general, federal law supersedes state law. Asking to see a non-profit's public records in person is not trespassing because it's expressly authorized by law.
    - jhgg 3y ago
      That is unfortunately not how the law works. I am not a lawyer, but I have studied this a bit in passing. It's important to understand the interplay between the scope of the law, private property rights and also reasonableness. Although 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) mandates that the documents be available for inspection and copying upon request, it does not say anything about allowing civilians to remain on the property beyond the reasonable scope of inspecting these documents. Generally, laws are interpreted in the context of what's reasonable. It's unreasonable to interpret 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) as allowing someone to stay on private property indefinitely. If they don't have the documents available, and ask you to leave, private property rights apply here and you must leave. The penalty you can seek for non-compliance clearly defined as a $20/day fine, not that you can continue to stay on the property and repeatedly ask for something they do not have a day before a holiday. The Supremacy Clause does not apply here, because there's no inherent conflict. The federal law does not explicitly (or implicitly) state that you can stay on the property after asked to leave, and thus it cannot trump state law. The fact that the initial presence on the property was for a legal, civil purpose does not provide ongoing protection from criminal trespass charges if an individual overstays their welcome or refuses to leave when asked.
samspenc 3y ago
I'm guessing they did file their Form-990 for 2022, but it's not available in public data sources yet. Probably will be available in a few more months. OpenAI's Form-990s from previous years are all available at https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810... Including their entire 2021 filing https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541/202243199349314989/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810... Along with the nice visualizations the site provides.
ratg13 3y ago
If the author is reading this, you’re posting videos and text together in a single article, making no attempt to describe the contents of the video. There are reasons nobody does this.
- thinkcomp 3y ago
  Brief descriptions added. Thanks for the feedback.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Big crackpot vibes in here.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Same guy claimed to have invented Facebook. (Or some of its features? Wiki's a bit unclear.) https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.htm... https://web.archive.org/web/20210121084819/https://gawker.com/203135/someones-jealous-a-college-pal-writes-an-open-letter-to-facebooks-founder https://web.archive.org/web/20210121084819/https://gawker.co... There was some kind of settlement eventually: https://about.fb.com/news/2009/05/facebook-and-think-computer-corporation-resolve-trademark-dispute/ https://about.fb.com/news/2009/05/facebook-and-think-compute...
notatoad 3y ago
i'm really sick of people trying to pull the "journalism" card as if journalist is some protected class with special privileges. every random annoying dude with a substack is a journalist. you're not special. and yeah, maybe once upon a time there was a legitimate reason for concern when people tried to suppress journalism. but now everybody is a journalist, and so there's no special privileges for journalism. if you turn up at a business and start harassing employees, expect to get shoved out the door, regardless of whether or not you have applied the "journalist" label to yourself.
murakamiiq84 3y ago
[flagged]
WalterBright 3y ago
It must be tough for a person who's roommate in college went on to become a billionaire.
pjot 3y ago
This is like arguing that you’re a sovereign citizen. What’s the end game here? Cops aren’t interpreters of the law, they don’t care about your statutes. And frankly, they could be out actually doing something instead of talking down knucklehead “journalists”
- thinkcomp 3y ago
  Kind of the opposite, unless you're referring to OpenAI? Sovereign citizens claim to be independent of the laws of the United States. This is a dispute about a company failing to comply with a specific law of the United States.
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Major 1st/2nd amendment auditor vibes. This is a non-story by someone seeking attention. Update: ok, I skimmed the article and there's a lot more to it than what's in the videos. This is a non-story by someone with a vendetta. That money transmitter law is bullshit. Enforcement of it is bullshit. Sucks that you tried to do the "right" thing and follow the law, but it's probably best to just move on from that. What do you hope to accomplish by continuing to pursue this?
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  >That money transmitter law is bullshit. That's what he was saying. And being under threat of prison doesn't sound fun, so he did the right thing to fight it. Do you have any expert knowledge on the law?
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    Yeah I understand that that's what he did. That law killed local bitcoins. But to be so invested in going after people who maybe paid some officials off or just straight up ignored that law and built their businesses anyway seems like a waste of time. I don't go around outing the people I know who have engaged in illegal activity; it's weird and doesn't help anyone unless there's a victim. No expert knowledge of the law.
    - mtlynch 3y ago
      >But to be so invested in going after people who maybe paid some officials off or just straight up ignored that law and built their businesses anyway seems like a waste of time. I don't go around outing the people I know who have engaged in illegal activity; it's weird and doesn't help anyone unless there's a victim. I don't think it's hard to see victims in either case. If Stripe violated laws to become a payment processor, then the victims are every other founder who would like to start a competing company but can't because they don't have the same political connections as Stripe. And the victims are most downstream founders who are stuck with the pitifully small set of available payment companies like Stripe. If a company violates its responsibilities as a nonprofit, then it's unfair to US citizens who have a right to audit the financials. And it's unfair to other nonprofits who devote effort to follow the law if other nonprofits are allowed to outperform them by skipping legal responsibilities and making up for it in political connections.
doubloon 3y ago
"it's a big club, and you ain't in it" - George Carlin
silenced_trope 3y ago
Let's assume everything the guy in the video (the self-anointed journalist) says is true and that OpenAI is required to "hand over" those forms to anyone who asks... With that said it still doesn't mean that if don't do that that you get to shove your way in (or try to) and start yelling at people lol. I'm sure the actual process is that if they are required to do so and do not then you a member of the public ("data journalist" or otherwise) can pursue legal action. The "I'm entering the property NOW!" thing is likely not codified into whatever law this guy is quoting. "If they don't turn it over you're allowed to invade the corporate HQ!" Doubtful.
- thinkcomp 3y ago
  You have it backwards. You have to be able to make the request at the offices in the first place. This is about OpenAI attempting to prevent an in-person request from being made, in violation of the law. No one was "invading" anything. Other prominent non-profits do not seem to have this problem.
  - silenced_trope 3y ago
    Okay but if the non-profit doesn't comply, again does that mean the person (who I guess I said was "invading") gets to start yelling and doesn't have to leave if asked to do so?
    - thinkcomp 3y ago
      Anyone has a right to make a request of this type in person. Under the First Amendment and 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B), that means you have a right to stay as long as necessary to make the request for public records. The only ones yelling were OpenAI employees and the company's security contractor(s).
baking 3y ago
Assuming you've seen the prior years' 990s, do you have any explanation for the $70 million in "other income" that is lacking the required explanation of "nature and source" which represents more than half of the non-profit's reported support?

82 points by thinkcomp 3y ago

At least this guy is being honest about the context: > They are smart people. About that I have no doubt. But I’ve seen how they treat rules. I know what they think of ethics. Also: > I have never met Sam, and I have only met Greg a couple of times. I'm just saying, breaking rules in business is not necessarily the same as being unethical. Especially financial/regulatory capture rules like it seems the author is complaining about. Different things are at stake with AI, and I think we're all aligned.

throwaway5959 3y ago
> I'm just saying, breaking rules in business is not necessarily the same as being unethical. Can you explain this?
- _factor 3y ago
  When a company has unreasonable deadlines set by outside entities, breaking rules is a necessary part of functioning.
  - rnk 3y ago
    Is filing reports as a nonprofit an example of unreasonable expectations from the us govt?
    - throwaway5959 3y ago
      To some, any expectations placed upon anyone (company or person) by the government is too much. Mostly people that haven’t progressed much after reading Rand in high school.
      - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
        I ran a small business and had to get a couple licenses from the state. It wasn't difficult but it sure was annoying.
rnk 3y ago
I guess that implies you are at openai, maybe not? What does it mean that different things are at stake with ai and that "we are aligned"?

shrubble 3y ago

For a non-profit the size of OpenAI to not file their Form 990 is pretty serious. They have over 700 employees, it's not like they are lacking in people or in money to do their paperwork properly...

thinkcomp 3y ago
I'm sure it's filed. They just refused to disclose it as required by law.
- tjbiddle 3y ago
  Didn't sound like they refused. The police officers said it themselves: It's the day before Thanksgiving. Yeah - I get it, law says "immediately", but the journalist needs to chill and just try again Monday. It's a holiday week. Barking up the wrong tree.
  - voidfunc 3y ago
    This is standard operating practice for shitty journalists to create smoke and generate attention. Journalists suck. They're basically one step away from paparazzi.
    - ESGHound 3y ago
      Glad to see YC living up to its reputation. keep grinding, brother.
  - thinkcomp 3y ago
    Accounting firm acknowledged it could send the documents by e-mail but refused on the phone, said to go to the company's office. Company wouldn't let me in the office, blamed Thanksgiving, and lied about the office being closed when it obviously was not. We're talking about sending an e-mail with a PDF in the middle of a business day when employees were clearly at work in the office. That's it. E-mail can be sent from anywhere in the world. And the accounting firm was willing and able to send it, just not willing to comply with the law because its client said not to.

tjbiddle 3y ago

Watching the videos on the article, and this journalist is coming off pretty arrogant. Okay, I understand that you have a right to request those documents - but it's the day before Thanksgiving, and the right people aren't available. Yes, I get it - the law says "Immediately" if at the headquarters, but give some slack - it's a holiday. Come back on Monday. The guy got shoved because he was repeatedly told not to be on the private property, and instead he decided to walk in - and then start claiming he's on the sidewalk (Which she, now they were). He was told he was trespassing, he refused, and they have a right to use reasonable force to remove him. Considering they did that directly in front of a police officer, I think highlights the OpenAI guy is fine. This reeks of like "I'm right in one thing - so I'm right in everything". People are human man, again - come back Monday. Go enjoy time with your family and stop trying to pick a fight right now.

jhgg 3y ago
It's also worth mentioning that failure to immediately disclose said documents are... a $20/day fine [1]. A company being out of compliance does not give a civilian the right to trespass. The correct solution here is to raise a complaint with the appropriate authorities (the IRS), not to continue to remain on private property and have to be forcibly removed by the building's security. [1]: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-and-availability-of-exempt-organizations-returns-and-applications-penalties-for-noncompliance https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-...
- thinkcomp 3y ago
  This isn't quite right. Federal law requires that citizens be allowed to make requests in person. Trespassing is a state statute in each state. In general, federal law supersedes state law. Asking to see a non-profit's public records in person is not trespassing because it's expressly authorized by law.
  - jhgg 3y ago
    That is unfortunately not how the law works. I am not a lawyer, but I have studied this a bit in passing. It's important to understand the interplay between the scope of the law, private property rights and also reasonableness. Although 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) mandates that the documents be available for inspection and copying upon request, it does not say anything about allowing civilians to remain on the property beyond the reasonable scope of inspecting these documents. Generally, laws are interpreted in the context of what's reasonable. It's unreasonable to interpret 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) as allowing someone to stay on private property indefinitely. If they don't have the documents available, and ask you to leave, private property rights apply here and you must leave. The penalty you can seek for non-compliance clearly defined as a $20/day fine, not that you can continue to stay on the property and repeatedly ask for something they do not have a day before a holiday. The Supremacy Clause does not apply here, because there's no inherent conflict. The federal law does not explicitly (or implicitly) state that you can stay on the property after asked to leave, and thus it cannot trump state law. The fact that the initial presence on the property was for a legal, civil purpose does not provide ongoing protection from criminal trespass charges if an individual overstays their welcome or refuses to leave when asked.

samspenc 3y ago

I'm guessing they did file their Form-990 for 2022, but it's not available in public data sources yet. Probably will be available in a few more months. OpenAI's Form-990s from previous years are all available at https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810... Including their entire 2021 filing https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541/202243199349314989/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810... Along with the nice visualizations the site provides.

ratg13 3y ago

If the author is reading this, you’re posting videos and text together in a single article, making no attempt to describe the contents of the video. There are reasons nobody does this.

thinkcomp 3y ago
Brief descriptions added. Thanks for the feedback.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Big crackpot vibes in here.

ceejayoz 3y ago
Same guy claimed to have invented Facebook. (Or some of its features? Wiki's a bit unclear.) https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.htm... https://web.archive.org/web/20210121084819/https://gawker.com/203135/someones-jealous-a-college-pal-writes-an-open-letter-to-facebooks-founder https://web.archive.org/web/20210121084819/https://gawker.co... There was some kind of settlement eventually: https://about.fb.com/news/2009/05/facebook-and-think-computer-corporation-resolve-trademark-dispute/ https://about.fb.com/news/2009/05/facebook-and-think-compute...

notatoad 3y ago

i'm really sick of people trying to pull the "journalism" card as if journalist is some protected class with special privileges. every random annoying dude with a substack is a journalist. you're not special. and yeah, maybe once upon a time there was a legitimate reason for concern when people tried to suppress journalism. but now everybody is a journalist, and so there's no special privileges for journalism. if you turn up at a business and start harassing employees, expect to get shoved out the door, regardless of whether or not you have applied the "journalist" label to yourself.

murakamiiq84 3y ago

[flagged]

WalterBright 3y ago

It must be tough for a person who's roommate in college went on to become a billionaire.

pjot 3y ago

This is like arguing that you’re a sovereign citizen. What’s the end game here? Cops aren’t interpreters of the law, they don’t care about your statutes. And frankly, they could be out actually doing something instead of talking down knucklehead “journalists”

thinkcomp 3y ago
Kind of the opposite, unless you're referring to OpenAI? Sovereign citizens claim to be independent of the laws of the United States. This is a dispute about a company failing to comply with a specific law of the United States.

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago

Major 1st/2nd amendment auditor vibes. This is a non-story by someone seeking attention. Update: ok, I skimmed the article and there's a lot more to it than what's in the videos. This is a non-story by someone with a vendetta. That money transmitter law is bullshit. Enforcement of it is bullshit. Sucks that you tried to do the "right" thing and follow the law, but it's probably best to just move on from that. What do you hope to accomplish by continuing to pursue this?

unethical_ban 3y ago
>That money transmitter law is bullshit. That's what he was saying. And being under threat of prison doesn't sound fun, so he did the right thing to fight it. Do you have any expert knowledge on the law?
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Yeah I understand that that's what he did. That law killed local bitcoins. But to be so invested in going after people who maybe paid some officials off or just straight up ignored that law and built their businesses anyway seems like a waste of time. I don't go around outing the people I know who have engaged in illegal activity; it's weird and doesn't help anyone unless there's a victim. No expert knowledge of the law.
  - mtlynch 3y ago
    >But to be so invested in going after people who maybe paid some officials off or just straight up ignored that law and built their businesses anyway seems like a waste of time. I don't go around outing the people I know who have engaged in illegal activity; it's weird and doesn't help anyone unless there's a victim. I don't think it's hard to see victims in either case. If Stripe violated laws to become a payment processor, then the victims are every other founder who would like to start a competing company but can't because they don't have the same political connections as Stripe. And the victims are most downstream founders who are stuck with the pitifully small set of available payment companies like Stripe. If a company violates its responsibilities as a nonprofit, then it's unfair to US citizens who have a right to audit the financials. And it's unfair to other nonprofits who devote effort to follow the law if other nonprofits are allowed to outperform them by skipping legal responsibilities and making up for it in political connections.

doubloon 3y ago

"it's a big club, and you ain't in it" - George Carlin

silenced_trope 3y ago

Let's assume everything the guy in the video (the self-anointed journalist) says is true and that OpenAI is required to "hand over" those forms to anyone who asks... With that said it still doesn't mean that if don't do that that you get to shove your way in (or try to) and start yelling at people lol. I'm sure the actual process is that if they are required to do so and do not then you a member of the public ("data journalist" or otherwise) can pursue legal action. The "I'm entering the property NOW!" thing is likely not codified into whatever law this guy is quoting. "If they don't turn it over you're allowed to invade the corporate HQ!" Doubtful.

thinkcomp 3y ago
You have it backwards. You have to be able to make the request at the offices in the first place. This is about OpenAI attempting to prevent an in-person request from being made, in violation of the law. No one was "invading" anything. Other prominent non-profits do not seem to have this problem.
- silenced_trope 3y ago
  Okay but if the non-profit doesn't comply, again does that mean the person (who I guess I said was "invading") gets to start yelling and doesn't have to leave if asked to do so?
  - thinkcomp 3y ago
    Anyone has a right to make a request of this type in person. Under the First Amendment and 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B), that means you have a right to stay as long as necessary to make the request for public records. The only ones yelling were OpenAI employees and the company's security contractor(s).

baking 3y ago

Assuming you've seen the prior years' 990s, do you have any explanation for the $70 million in "other income" that is lacking the required explanation of "nature and source" which represents more than half of the non-profit's reported support?