When the whole ai thing exploded Sam Altman was peddling this hopeful narrative that Openai is a non profit is concerned about safety and improving humanity, and they were working with regulators to ensure the safety of the industry. The cynics have been vindicated.
> or when Altman said that if OpenAI succeeded at building AGI, it might “capture the light cone of all future value in the universe.” That, he said, “is for sure not okay for one group of investors to have.”
He really is the king of exaggeration.
If i understood correctly the author does admit that continuing openai as a nonprofit is unrealistic, and the current balance of power could be much worse, but what disgusts me is the dishonest messaging they started off with.
According to empire of ai, they started OpenAI as a nonprofit so they could get people devoted to the mission and wouldn’t have to pay the high SV wages
And (im pretty sure) to get funding from prominent figures who were afraid of AI being monopolized privately and being used for evil...
Just looking at Altman's history none of this is even remotely surprising.
Lookup Worldcoin for instance.