4 ms·

I do wonder if OpenAI is built on a house of cards. They aren’t a nonprofit, aren’t open, and stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material to get started. But

I do wonder if OpenAI is built on a house of cards. They aren’t a nonprofit, aren’t open, and stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material to get started. But, by moving fast and scaling quickly, are they at the Too Big to Fail stage already? The attempted board coup makes me think so.

Hamuko 3y ago
Why would OpenAI be "too big to fail"? They seemed pretty close to failing just some months ago.
- tiahura 3y ago
  Right, and then a bunch of unclearly identified forces came in and swept it all under the rug.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Ye. The failed "coup" was really shady, in that it failed, even though they fired Sam Altman.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  I think that is actually quite illustrative of the opposite point.
  - Andrex 3y ago
    What about the CEO drama indicates OAI is "too big to fail"? They're completely orthogonal. No one came to bail OAI out of a budget crisis like the banks or auto industry. I fail to see how it's related at all.
bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
When people say too big to fail, normally they're referring to companies which if they fail they would bring down other important parts of society's infrastructure (think biggest banks), and so someone (the gov) will last minute change the rules around to ensure they don't fail. The openai fails, absolutely nothing happens other than its shareholder losing their paper money. So no, they're not too big to fail.
- svnt 3y ago
  If they fail, other entities with little to no American oversight/control potentially become the leading edge in artificial intelligence.
  - bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
    I find your lack of faith in America disturbing.
- rvba 3y ago
  OpenAI doesnt even have shareholders, so the company would just bankrupt and few hundred people would be out of jobs. Probably Microsoft would hire them to some AI shop, because Microsoft is the one deploying the stuff. But Microsoft has rights to use it and the code, so for them OpenAI is only a research partner. Maybe research would get slower.
a_humean 3y ago
Openai isn't even close to too big to fail. Bank of America fails the entire banking system collapses and the entire real economy grinds to a halt. If GM fails hundreds of thousands lose their jobs and entire supply chains collapse. If power utilities fail then people start actually dying within hours or days. If OpenAI fails nothing actually important happens.
- yunwal 3y ago
  I mean, there's about a hundred thousand startups built on top of their API. I'm sure most could switch to another model if they really needed, but if copyright is an issue, I'm not sure that would help.
  - Andrex 3y ago
    If you've plugged your whole business into OAI's snake oil, you're an early adopter of technology and you'll likely be able to update the codebase appropriately. The sooner SCOTUS rules that training on copyrighted material is infringement, the better.
    - yunwal 3y ago
      > you'll likely be able to update the codebase appropriately Update the codebase to what exactly? Are there generative AI companies not training on copyrighted material that achieve anything even close to the results of gpt4? I'm not aware of any
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  you cannot erase that much value and say "nothing important happens", market cap is largely a rough proxy for the amount of disruption if something went under
  - dralley 3y ago
    "whose" money matters here. It's VC money, mostly. Well-capitalized sophisticated investors, not voters and pension funds. If Microsoft loses 30 billion dollars, it ain't great, but they have more than that sitting in the bank. If Sequoia or Ycombinator goes bankrupt, it's not great for lots of startups, but they can probably find other investors if they have a worthwhile business. If Elon loses a billion dollars, nobody cares.
magoghm 3y ago
"stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material" <- nobody stole anything, even if it's eventually determined that there was some form of copyright infringement it wouldn't have been stealing
Terretta 3y ago
> built on a house of cards The "house of cards" is outperforming everyone else. It would have to come out that the slow generation times for GPT-4 are a sweatshop in Egypt tired of typing. Either that, or something inconceivable like that board coup firing the CEO as a material event triggering code and IP escrow to be released to Microsoft... PS. “Too big to fail” generally is used to mean a government+economy+sector ecosystem will step in and fund the failed enterprise rather than risk harm to the ecosystem. That's not this. Arguably not Tesla or even Google either. That said, Satya's quote in this filing suggets Microsoft already legally contracted for that eventuality: if this legal entity fails, Microsoft keeps the model online.

Hamuko 3y ago

Why would OpenAI be "too big to fail"? They seemed pretty close to failing just some months ago.

tiahura 3y ago
Right, and then a bunch of unclearly identified forces came in and swept it all under the rug.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Ye. The failed "coup" was really shady, in that it failed, even though they fired Sam Altman.
whimsicalism 3y ago
I think that is actually quite illustrative of the opposite point.
- Andrex 3y ago
  What about the CEO drama indicates OAI is "too big to fail"? They're completely orthogonal. No one came to bail OAI out of a budget crisis like the banks or auto industry. I fail to see how it's related at all.

bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago

When people say too big to fail, normally they're referring to companies which if they fail they would bring down other important parts of society's infrastructure (think biggest banks), and so someone (the gov) will last minute change the rules around to ensure they don't fail. The openai fails, absolutely nothing happens other than its shareholder losing their paper money. So no, they're not too big to fail.

svnt 3y ago
If they fail, other entities with little to no American oversight/control potentially become the leading edge in artificial intelligence.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
  I find your lack of faith in America disturbing.
rvba 3y ago
OpenAI doesnt even have shareholders, so the company would just bankrupt and few hundred people would be out of jobs. Probably Microsoft would hire them to some AI shop, because Microsoft is the one deploying the stuff. But Microsoft has rights to use it and the code, so for them OpenAI is only a research partner. Maybe research would get slower.

a_humean 3y ago

Openai isn't even close to too big to fail. Bank of America fails the entire banking system collapses and the entire real economy grinds to a halt. If GM fails hundreds of thousands lose their jobs and entire supply chains collapse. If power utilities fail then people start actually dying within hours or days. If OpenAI fails nothing actually important happens.

yunwal 3y ago
I mean, there's about a hundred thousand startups built on top of their API. I'm sure most could switch to another model if they really needed, but if copyright is an issue, I'm not sure that would help.
- Andrex 3y ago
  If you've plugged your whole business into OAI's snake oil, you're an early adopter of technology and you'll likely be able to update the codebase appropriately. The sooner SCOTUS rules that training on copyrighted material is infringement, the better.
  - yunwal 3y ago
    > you'll likely be able to update the codebase appropriately Update the codebase to what exactly? Are there generative AI companies not training on copyrighted material that achieve anything even close to the results of gpt4? I'm not aware of any
whimsicalism 3y ago
you cannot erase that much value and say "nothing important happens", market cap is largely a rough proxy for the amount of disruption if something went under
- dralley 3y ago
  "whose" money matters here. It's VC money, mostly. Well-capitalized sophisticated investors, not voters and pension funds. If Microsoft loses 30 billion dollars, it ain't great, but they have more than that sitting in the bank. If Sequoia or Ycombinator goes bankrupt, it's not great for lots of startups, but they can probably find other investors if they have a worthwhile business. If Elon loses a billion dollars, nobody cares.

magoghm 3y ago

"stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material" <- nobody stole anything, even if it's eventually determined that there was some form of copyright infringement it wouldn't have been stealing

Terretta 3y ago

> built on a house of cards The "house of cards" is outperforming everyone else. It would have to come out that the slow generation times for GPT-4 are a sweatshop in Egypt tired of typing. Either that, or something inconceivable like that board coup firing the CEO as a material event triggering code and IP escrow to be released to Microsoft... PS. “Too big to fail” generally is used to mean a government+economy+sector ecosystem will step in and fund the failed enterprise rather than risk harm to the ecosystem. That's not this. Arguably not Tesla or even Google either. That said, Satya's quote in this filing suggets Microsoft already legally contracted for that eventuality: if this legal entity fails, Microsoft keeps the model online.