I don’t understand the animus towards OAI going public. ChatGPT undoubtedly changed the world. The non->for profit status of the company is not impacting anyone. It’s not like their success was made possible by being a non-profit.
Suddenly everyone here is very very concerned with the classification of this corporate entity, and I detect people feel personally slighted. Why is that?
They founded OpenAI on the explicit premise that advanced AI poses existential risks to humanity, and that a non profit structure was essential to prioritize safety over profits. They reaped major benefits from this status, including tax exemptions, easier talent recruitment (by appealing to mission-driven researchers), and massive donations.
Then, once GPT models exploded in value, making the for-profit arm worth tens of billions, they attempted to restructure toward a public company model to let investors and insiders cash out at scale, while claiming the non-profit board would still "control" the direction. This directly contradicts their original charter, which warned that profit motives could lead to unsafe AI racing.
Now it is clear that we are nowhere near AGI, and hence they have to make money from making fake tiktok videos and smut. And they just want to cash out because the original premise won't deliver. Specifically it was very disingenuous and that is why people hate it.
i.e: it was a complete grift.
Because the development of this technology was originally done under a certain set of promises ostensibly intended to prevent pure capitalist profitmaxxing.
The workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision, believe it was a bait-and-switch, and that the original promises were never intended to be kept.
> The workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision
I haven’t heard from any of the workers. Why are people white-knighting for them? My hot take is that they don’t mind being able to afford a house (or more) for their efforts. Where’s the outraged employees in this conversation?
As for “supporters,” what does that mean? People who watch from the sidelines and never actually contributed don’t usually get a say.
Donors get a say, did donors get any stock? Its very ugly when you built your for profit by stealing donations from a non-profit, people can condemn that even if they themselves didn't personally lose money similarly to how we can condemn companies abusing people even if we didn't work there.
Did OpenAI take donations? I’m assuming that the “donors” Thiel, Musk, etc, did receive stock. Massive lawsuit otherwise.
But did regular folks donate? Otherwise it seems people are outraged that their hypothetical donations were misused.
> workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision
The only people who can claim harm are donors and workers who actually left, e.g. Murati. "Supporters" aren't stakeholders in any material sense.
What about me, a random person?
As stated in their foundational legal filings, the primary activity of OpenAI is supposed to be described as: OpenAI, Inc. ("OpenAI") is a nonprofit artificial intelligence ("AI") scientific research organization. Its goal is to engage in research activities that advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. AI technology will help shape the 21st century, and OpenAI wants to help the world build safe AI technology and ensure that AI's benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible. To that end, OpenAI hopes to build AI as part of a larger community, and wants to openly share its plans and capabilities along the way.
As a member of humanity as a whole, they are supposed to be operating for my benefit, not primarily for the benefit of their investors. If they wanted to operate primarily for the benefit of their investors, they should have been paying taxes on every dollar they brought in.
> As a member of humanity as a whole, they are supposed to be operating for my benefit
No. The common good refers to “what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community” [1]. There is no individual claim to benefit.
You can feel misled. Sort of like when a visionary promises something you want and then fails to deliver. But that doesn’t mean you were materially misled, which means you aren’t owed anything.
> they should have been paying taxes on every dollar they brought in
We don’t tax investment in America.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good
It's not that I think they owe me (or any one specific individual) some specific material value, it's that I don't believe they should be allowed to "take the money and run" after amassing it under the guise of being a charity. Their options should be to continue their mission or to donate their assets to other charities that might be able to further their original mission. Anything less is an affront to those that donated, those that the charity was supposed to support (which is everyone), and any customer that believed their dollars were being spent on a product under the management of a charity.
While it's true that we don't tax investments, we do tax gifts past a dollar value threshold, which is what donations become when nonprofit status drops away.
I agree that the whole thing seems shady. But I'm struggling to identify anyone who was hurt. Vague notions of "everyone" doesn't really pass muster--if we can turn that into trillion dollar companies, we should do that!
It's not that I want to see someone made whole for some hurt.
What I want to see is for government to do its job and stamp a big "DENIED" on OpenAI's request to reorganize.
The response should be "Sorry if you feel like you screwed up your corporate structure, but your money really is locked in this non-profit and you can't just take it out".
Edit: Put a different way: Your point seems to be that there is no civil law damage so nothing can be done. My point is that this isn't a civil law matter, it's a corporate law matter: it's not about damages, it's about the social contract we hold corporations to in exchange for allowing them to exist.
> What I want to see is for government to do its job and stamp a big "DENIED" on OpenAI's request to reorganize
To what end? How thrilled would we be if an adversary nation did this to its golden goose?
> it's about the social contract we hold corporations to in exchange for allowing them to exist
Their job is to create wealth. For the time being, OpenAI is creating wealth to the tune of the GDP of the Phillipines or Norway [1]. If it's puffery, pursue it afterwards. If if not...we gained the annual production of a Nordic petrostate. When it goes public, we'll earn tax revenues equal to the entire economy of a small EU member.
Wealth doesn't make right. But I'm failing to see an incurable harm here that outweighs the upside.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Converting from a non-profit open source organisation to a for profit private company, and to be shareholder public company, is, in my humble opinion, extremely harmful for potentially the most impactful technology humans have created before.
When companies are profit driven, the line must go up, shareholders need the line to go up, at all and any costs.
> When companies are profit driven, the line must go up, shareholders need the line to go up, at all and any costs
How is that complaint separate from OpenAI having been started as a for-profit entity?
It's not bit when your IPO starts at 1 Trillion the number is starting at an extraordinary high bar. And I actually already do have a problem with OpenAI transitioning to a for profit company. But let's see how it plays out, out of our hands now.
choosing whether to use, or advocate for, a company's services is a form of support
> choosing whether to use, or advocate for, a company's services is a form of support
Sure. But if the services are rendered, the ideology is orthogonal. For the slim minority of uncompromising zealots for whom it is not, damages can be quantified and paid.
are you asserting this is the way things should work, or how they do work, or both?
> are you asserting this is the way things should work, or how they do work, or both?
How it does and, to a limited degree, how it should.
If you donate to or volunteer for a non-profit, you have non-pecuniary interest in how they are run.
If you're sold a product that's promised to be made in a certain way, you do too. If you paid for--much less used without paying--a service because you thought it was ethical per some definition, but aren't similarly bound in other purchases in your life, or otherwise can't show this is a value you consistently follow (and so, in being denied it here, have been damaged), I'm not sure any functional economy can work where anyone has a free option to take back a purchase--or much less, non-monetary use--at any time in the future because they feel--but can't materially demonstrate--betrayal.
Like, maybe if Stallman used ChatGPT he could credibly claim he wouldn't have used it if it hadn't marketed its claims around goodness. But I'm deeply sceptical a rando has the same standing.
They are chronically online and reading uninformed headlines by fellow youth.
Combined with a feeling that they don't like this wave of GenAI, you get a lot of uninformed hate that's deeply felt, and probably reasonably felt. But also totally uninformed.
If only everyone was as enlightened as you are.
I at least like to be informed - I sense you disagree with my hot take.. Any concrete thoughts other than performative eye rolling?
> The non->for profit status of the company is not impacting anyone.
They're quite literally running away with millions in tax money they stole. That means from YOU.
It's a sense of entitlement that pisses people off. Imagine you're a hardworking American who pays his taxes for the betterment of his country.
And then here comes this Sam Altman douchebag, who thinks he's so important he doesn't have to pay taxes. He thinks you should foot the bill, because you're nobody, and he's Sam Altman.
If you're not at least a little bit pissed at the precedent this is setting, I personally view that as pathetic.
What taxes did they not pay? Quick research suggests that they do pay taxes on revenue, and I can't find any articles that definitively show what taxes they avoided by having a non-profit arm.