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Why are people so possessive? Why wouldn't they just release their work for the profit of humanity? I'm genuinely curious.

by forlorn 22d ago

kedikedi 22d ago
I don’t think it is people being possessive but rather people finding their value over the work they do (sentence ended up being weird but I hope the idea is clear). So I see someone dedicating a sizeable portion of their life on a discovery and not being credited is the problem here. Otherwise it would be published in a journal anyway.
- krater23 22d ago
  When you put a unpublished sizeable portion of your life in a ChatGPT window, then it's your own fault. I trust these AI companies as far as I can throw one of their data centers. When your work is unimportant enough for you to not setup a local AI, just shut up.
pluc 22d ago
Because it's not humanity that profits, it's OpenAI.
- brookst 22d ago
  Walk me through how the sofic result OpenAI publixhed profits OpenAI but had no benefit to humanity? Why were Thom and others working on it if it had no value?
  - pluc 22d ago
    We've had the end result all along without OpenAI. All this technology does is, for a subscription fee, adds a middleman who you can talk to naturally. How does that which solely uses all the technology preceding it, is by itself a benefit to humanity? Get your head out of the stock market, AI is by design not creating anything new.
  - halsafar 22d ago
    Very simply put it's an advertisement for OpenAI. Just like their "oops we hacked hugging face". Everything OpenAI does is to drive hype. They aren't honest or a good actor but they sure have good hype.
brookst 22d ago
Not defending it but in academia credit and attribution can be big deals. Some people are motivated by money, some by fame, some by satisfaction from doing the work, some by recognition, most by some mix.
fxwin 22d ago
Because in academia, your name and your body of work is a big deal that can open or close doors, and assigning credit is an important part of it. This isn't a new thing/exclusive to the AI era either.
suddenlybananas 22d ago
Mathematicians are way more open about what they do than OpenAI is.
watwut 22d ago
They are releasing their work for the profit of the humanity. They do not like OpenAI claiming credit for it. After all, profit of the humanity and profit of the OpenAI are two different things. Maybe even mutually exclusive at this point. And lying about whether the proof was done by mathematicians or OpenAI is bad humanity, so.
cyclopeanutopia 22d ago
I have the same question, why OpenAI and Anthropic just don't release everything as open source?
- forlorn 22d ago
  Yeah, especially while Kimi, Deepseek, Qwen etc release everything as open source.
xxs 22d ago
a quote from the article: "Thom said it “would be ethically indefensible” if nonpublic research supplied by users helped to improve models that the company then used to race those very same users to publication, without consent, proper disclosure, or credit."
- krater23 22d ago
  Would one of this users tell their opponents what he is doing? And if yes, would anyone wonder when the opponent would use this information. Be dumb, win dumb prices.
  - BobaFloutist 22d ago
    They didn't know that the product they were using was one of their opponents. That's the entire complaint, that it represents a conflict of interest to engage in direct competition with your customers, who aren't competing with your main business model. If Google or Microsoft suddenly got in the business of publishing books, and mined established authors' works in progress for material to publish, that would also be a bad look, even though we know that they likely have access to our files.
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
diydsp 22d ago
1. Academic/research credit 2. There was a $1,000,000 reward
bryanrasmussen 22d ago
As I lay dying here in this basement surrounded by my art, without food or basic necessities as I have given up all thought of material comfort in hopes of bettering the lives of others, I too wonder why others do not follow my example and live with no thought of their own comforts or position in society and strive to do things that may somehow benefit the species as a whole, especially the Billionaire part of that species.
gilrain 22d ago
Why are people so greedy? Why can't they wait to be given something, or remain content without, rather than take from others by force? I'm genuinely curious too.
- diydsp 22d ago
  Animalistic survival desires under conditions of engineered scarcity and reduced awareness. Compounded with powerful need for consistency - to keep everything this way. Anyone with a decent amount of social power is aware and skilled at maintaining these conditions whether consciously or not. The praxes are non-trivial: awareness, bravery, flexibility, and seflessness. This could be summarized as "unhealthy competition."
LelouBil 22d ago
There was an other thread on HN where apparently OpenAI promised one of the author half of the prize money IF they remove their co-author (that works for Anthropic) from their paper. This kind of bribing attempt doesn't seem to come from the "good side"
timthelion 22d ago
OpenAI is the possessive actor here. They were supposed to develop the AI for the benefit of humanity. Now they do it closed and do it only for their private profit.

Why are people so possessive? Why wouldn't they just release their work for the profit of humanity? I'm genuinely curious.

by forlorn 22d ago

Why are people so possessive? Why wouldn't they just release their work for the profit of humanity? I'm genuinely curious.

kedikedi 22d ago

I don’t think it is people being possessive but rather people finding their value over the work they do (sentence ended up being weird but I hope the idea is clear). So I see someone dedicating a sizeable portion of their life on a discovery and not being credited is the problem here. Otherwise it would be published in a journal anyway.

krater23 22d ago
When you put a unpublished sizeable portion of your life in a ChatGPT window, then it's your own fault. I trust these AI companies as far as I can throw one of their data centers. When your work is unimportant enough for you to not setup a local AI, just shut up.

pluc 22d ago

Because it's not humanity that profits, it's OpenAI.

brookst 22d ago
Walk me through how the sofic result OpenAI publixhed profits OpenAI but had no benefit to humanity? Why were Thom and others working on it if it had no value?
- pluc 22d ago
  We've had the end result all along without OpenAI. All this technology does is, for a subscription fee, adds a middleman who you can talk to naturally. How does that which solely uses all the technology preceding it, is by itself a benefit to humanity? Get your head out of the stock market, AI is by design not creating anything new.
- halsafar 22d ago
  Very simply put it's an advertisement for OpenAI. Just like their "oops we hacked hugging face". Everything OpenAI does is to drive hype. They aren't honest or a good actor but they sure have good hype.

brookst 22d ago

Not defending it but in academia credit and attribution can be big deals. Some people are motivated by money, some by fame, some by satisfaction from doing the work, some by recognition, most by some mix.

fxwin 22d ago

Because in academia, your name and your body of work is a big deal that can open or close doors, and assigning credit is an important part of it. This isn't a new thing/exclusive to the AI era either.

suddenlybananas 22d ago

Mathematicians are way more open about what they do than OpenAI is.

watwut 22d ago

They are releasing their work for the profit of the humanity. They do not like OpenAI claiming credit for it. After all, profit of the humanity and profit of the OpenAI are two different things. Maybe even mutually exclusive at this point. And lying about whether the proof was done by mathematicians or OpenAI is bad humanity, so.

cyclopeanutopia 22d ago

I have the same question, why OpenAI and Anthropic just don't release everything as open source?

forlorn 22d ago
Yeah, especially while Kimi, Deepseek, Qwen etc release everything as open source.

xxs 22d ago

a quote from the article: "Thom said it “would be ethically indefensible” if nonpublic research supplied by users helped to improve models that the company then used to race those very same users to publication, without consent, proper disclosure, or credit."

krater23 22d ago
Would one of this users tell their opponents what he is doing? And if yes, would anyone wonder when the opponent would use this information. Be dumb, win dumb prices.
- BobaFloutist 22d ago
  They didn't know that the product they were using was one of their opponents. That's the entire complaint, that it represents a conflict of interest to engage in direct competition with your customers, who aren't competing with your main business model. If Google or Microsoft suddenly got in the business of publishing books, and mined established authors' works in progress for material to publish, that would also be a bad look, even though we know that they likely have access to our files.

deleted 22d ago

[deleted]

diydsp 22d ago

1. Academic/research credit 2. There was a $1,000,000 reward

bryanrasmussen 22d ago

As I lay dying here in this basement surrounded by my art, without food or basic necessities as I have given up all thought of material comfort in hopes of bettering the lives of others, I too wonder why others do not follow my example and live with no thought of their own comforts or position in society and strive to do things that may somehow benefit the species as a whole, especially the Billionaire part of that species.

gilrain 22d ago

Why are people so greedy? Why can't they wait to be given something, or remain content without, rather than take from others by force? I'm genuinely curious too.

diydsp 22d ago
Animalistic survival desires under conditions of engineered scarcity and reduced awareness. Compounded with powerful need for consistency - to keep everything this way. Anyone with a decent amount of social power is aware and skilled at maintaining these conditions whether consciously or not. The praxes are non-trivial: awareness, bravery, flexibility, and seflessness. This could be summarized as "unhealthy competition."

LelouBil 22d ago

There was an other thread on HN where apparently OpenAI promised one of the author half of the prize money IF they remove their co-author (that works for Anthropic) from their paper. This kind of bribing attempt doesn't seem to come from the "good side"

timthelion 22d ago

OpenAI is the possessive actor here. They were supposed to develop the AI for the benefit of humanity. Now they do it closed and do it only for their private profit.