5 ms·

"A very modest salary cap" works if your mission is planting trees. Not so much if what you're building is frontier AI systems.

the_bear 8mo ago
I think that's the point though. The AI companies can't compete without hiring very talented employees and raising lots of money from investors. Neither the employees nor investors would participate if there weren't the potential for making mountains of money. So these AI companies fundamentally can't be non-profits or true B-corps (I realize that's a vague term, but the it certainly means not doing whatever it takes to make as much money as possible), and they shouldn't pretend they are.
- ACCount37 8mo ago
  To me, it feels like saying "you can't be a public benefit corporation unless all the labor involved in delivering that public benefit is cheap". Which just doesn't seem like it should be true? Sure, some "public benefit" missions could scale sideways and employ a lot of cheap labor, not suffering from a salary cap at all. But other missions would require rare high end high performance high salary specialists who are in demand - and thus expensive. You can't rely on being able to source enough altruists that will put up with being paid half their market worth for the sake of the mission.
  - coldtea 8mo ago
    >But other missions would require rare high end high performance high salary specialists who are in demand - and thus expensive. You can't rely on being able to source enough altruists that will put up with being paid half their market worth for the sake of the mission.' That's exactly what a non-profit should be able to rely on. And not just "half their market worth", but even many times less. Else we can just say "we can't really have non-profits, because everybody is a greedy pig who doesn't care about public benefit enough to make a sacrifice of profits - but still a perfectly livable salary" - and be done with it.
    - sarchertech 8mo ago
      This would shutdown about half the hospitals in the US.
      - coldtea 8mo ago
        A, US healthcare, that paragon of value-for-money and not-for-profitness...
        sarchertech 8mo ago
        Yeah I’m sure the fix for that is to shutdown or transition all of the remaining non-profit hospitals to a for profit model.
- TheOtherHobbes 8mo ago
  That's a post hoc argument. The real danger is "We make mountains of money, but everyone dies, including us." The top of the top researchers think this is a real possibility - people like Geoffrey Hinton - so it's not an extremist negative-for-the-sake-of-it POV. It's going to be poetic if the Free Markets Are Optimal and Greed-is-Rational Cult actually suicides the species, as a final definitive proof that their ideology is wrong-headed, harmful, and a tragic failure of human intelligence. But here we are. The universe doesn't care. It's up to us. If we're not smart enough to make smart choices, then we get to live - or die - with the consequences.
coldtea 8mo ago
If a non-profit can't attract people not motivated except by profit, perhaps it shouldn't exist.
simsla 8mo ago
While I agree, if you need high profits to survive, you're not off to a great start as a nonprofit.

the_bear 8mo ago

I think that's the point though. The AI companies can't compete without hiring very talented employees and raising lots of money from investors. Neither the employees nor investors would participate if there weren't the potential for making mountains of money. So these AI companies fundamentally can't be non-profits or true B-corps (I realize that's a vague term, but the it certainly means not doing whatever it takes to make as much money as possible), and they shouldn't pretend they are.

ACCount37 8mo ago
To me, it feels like saying "you can't be a public benefit corporation unless all the labor involved in delivering that public benefit is cheap". Which just doesn't seem like it should be true? Sure, some "public benefit" missions could scale sideways and employ a lot of cheap labor, not suffering from a salary cap at all. But other missions would require rare high end high performance high salary specialists who are in demand - and thus expensive. You can't rely on being able to source enough altruists that will put up with being paid half their market worth for the sake of the mission.
- coldtea 8mo ago
  >But other missions would require rare high end high performance high salary specialists who are in demand - and thus expensive. You can't rely on being able to source enough altruists that will put up with being paid half their market worth for the sake of the mission.' That's exactly what a non-profit should be able to rely on. And not just "half their market worth", but even many times less. Else we can just say "we can't really have non-profits, because everybody is a greedy pig who doesn't care about public benefit enough to make a sacrifice of profits - but still a perfectly livable salary" - and be done with it.
  - sarchertech 8mo ago
    This would shutdown about half the hospitals in the US.
    - coldtea 8mo ago
      A, US healthcare, that paragon of value-for-money and not-for-profitness...
      - sarchertech 8mo ago
        Yeah I’m sure the fix for that is to shutdown or transition all of the remaining non-profit hospitals to a for profit model.
TheOtherHobbes 8mo ago
That's a post hoc argument. The real danger is "We make mountains of money, but everyone dies, including us." The top of the top researchers think this is a real possibility - people like Geoffrey Hinton - so it's not an extremist negative-for-the-sake-of-it POV. It's going to be poetic if the Free Markets Are Optimal and Greed-is-Rational Cult actually suicides the species, as a final definitive proof that their ideology is wrong-headed, harmful, and a tragic failure of human intelligence. But here we are. The universe doesn't care. It's up to us. If we're not smart enough to make smart choices, then we get to live - or die - with the consequences.

coldtea 8mo ago

If a non-profit can't attract people not motivated except by profit, perhaps it shouldn't exist.

simsla 8mo ago

While I agree, if you need high profits to survive, you're not off to a great start as a nonprofit.