I can think of exactly zero other reasons to have engineered the privatization of a charity, other than greed.

The balance of probabilities indicates to me that the attempt at regulatory capture is also based in greed, but if you have a different view, I'd love to hear your logic.

After all, if AI proliferation were as dangerous as Altman seems to claim, then why is the answer "OpenAI should continue to provide unfettered global public access to quasi-strong AI, but the government should slow other people down "?

If billions of dollars are involved, your first suspicion shouldn't be altruism.

> I can think of exactly zero other reasons to have engineered the privatization of a charity, other than greed.

Lucky for us, we get help here. The question has recently been asked by Lex Fridman and answered by Sam Altman. This is the clip: https://youtu.be/qQdqFZFZQ6o

To quote: "We learned early on that were gonna need far more capital than we were able to raise as a non-profit" (you can listen in on it being expanded over 3 Minutes)

Now, since I can almost feel the goal post shifting coming, this seems like a good time to align: You claimed you could see no reason. I hope we can agree, that this is a reason (the joint hole poking is coming up, bear with me): They thought their model would be correct. Then they thought it was not. They adjusted their model. This is not an insane process.

Now, there are a lot of possible, unfavorable interpretations to make of this reason. A couple:

a) Sama is lieing. That might be entirely possible; I did not do the work to disprove this option -- but as a general rule I feel the burden is in you to provide good proof when you want to make this claim. I also think people would mostly agree this is how it should work. Yet, somehow, when it's very rich or very poor people, it's sometimes optional.

b) Sama is incompetent/delusional. Somebody else could have made it work without going the route they did. Maybe it would have worked and he is just... bad at math? Certainly a possibility. Similar to the above, if you want to make this claim without discrediting yourself: Show your work. Reason us through it.

c) This move was illegal. IANAL but since I wouldn't rate this thought as particularly ground breaking, I am okay with assuming somebody raised the concern along the transition, lawyers were consulted and it was a legal option.

d) It's simply immoral to go on, at best the exploitation of a loophole, at worst the biggest treason to mankind. If open can not mean open source anymore, before doing this transition, failing the company was the right move. An entirely understandable position, and I can get behind all sort of feelings this triggers. It requires no evidence, it required no claims about greed. It's an opinion piece. Fair enough.

I watched the video.

I'll preface this by saying I am neither judge nor prosecutor, and we are not at trial.

Where we are is in a position of considering, before it is too late, the honesty and motives of a man who has taken a charity private because they "needed money".

Needed money for what, exactly? Well, the mission of OpenAI, according to https://openai.com/about their mission is Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

So how does this newfound capital help that mission? By hiding the details of GPT4, so that no one outside of OpenAI can benefit. I don't even know how many parameters the damn thing has or what kind of growth trajectory we are on, and neither does anyone outside of OpenAI.

Here's a man who stands to control a large part of what resembles AGI, financially benefit to an almost indescribable degree, and control, arguably, a large part of the direction of society (given the number of jobs this will cost), especially if the regulators limit access by Mere Mortals. They won't even tell us the basics of their new models (and newfound powers). So much for "Open" and "benefiting all of humanity".

If someone stands to gain this kind of money and power, and does things that on their face seem dishonest and inimical to society at large, and to the goals of the very charity he privatized, should he be immune to questioning and suspicion?

I am suspicious. I think his actions merit suspicion. I think you all should be suspicious too, based on the events so far.

You're in the clear. Like another commenter in the same thread mentioned, you've responded in good faith to a semi-paranoid question. In my uncharitable view, the GP seems to both have a bias for Sam and a weird anxiety over moral questions.

> So how does this newfound capital help that mission?

Again, as soon as we jump to the "so...", we are already past the point that I was taking offense with. I myself listed a few options from where to take this and you added a few more. Fair enough and entirely fine with me.

This is the point:

> Commercializing OpenAI was for one reason: to enrich the people commercializing it. Not to benefit society, and with nary a thought given to the consequences.

Making bad faith statements about someone without even rebutting the stated intent of the accuse, or even putting in the effort to learn about the intent, is just so incredibly lame and bad style.

Imagine saying this to someones face: "You made this business for one reason alone: To enrich yourself personally, you absolutely do not care about benefitting society, and you don't give a fuck about the damage it might do." Would you think it really be okay to advance this to the accusse, before even bothering to find or hear an explanation regarding the issue you are taking such strong offense with? Just an inkling of what their explanation is without you assuming it for them, as a matter of human decency?

If we cut out the option for people to explain themselves or reason on basis of their explanation, what are we doing other than advancing populism? I really want to believe this place can not be that.

(I want to add, that I have 0 allegiance or interesting opinions about Sama. In the past I found some of their takes interesting, but for me that's just normal, when I listen to a decently smart person for the first time, even if I end up disagreeing with most of their values.)

My skepticism is not bad faith, it's honest inquiry based on the facts available to me, which I have enumerated for you.

The hiding of scientific data from a charity has VERY few kind explanations and a lot of terrible ones. The balance of probabilities points towards Sam Altman acting maliciously and not in the public interest, which might be "okay" if he hadn't robbed a charity to do so.

I am still open to contrary viewpoints, but you're not presenting any, you are only saying I am acting in bad faith for what I (and others here) consider to be merited and valid skepticism based on recent events and statements from Altman himself.

Can you provide any charitable interpretation of the hiding of scientific data from a charity whose mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity?

"We are burning witches again."

Excuse me, but what witch is being burned for the wrong reason here?

This debate evolves around Sam Altman, how what he and OpenAI was doing was open - and now it is not anymore, despite contrary initial statements. That is a legit reason for anger, no?

Chill out a little bit. The commenter made it clear that it's their opinion. In fact, they seem to have gone out of their way to suggest it's their opinion - despite the rules here requiring the assumption of good faith (a rule you're breaking, in my opinion).

That it happens to also be a popular opinion doesn't indicate that people are burning witches - it indicates that people are increasingly finding it easier to explain the world in terms of greed and cynicism; because, frankly, that is the world we live in (aghem, in my opinion).

That you find this to be "witch-burning" indicates to me that you must really relate with the ultra-wealthy which honestly just sounds tone deaf. Sam Altman nor Jeff Bezos will "go down" because of a comment on the internet. Do you know who _doesn't_ have that guarantee? Normal people.

Seriously, we're talking about a company that Microsoft invested 10 billion dollars into, this is very powerful technology that will affect our lives. They didn't invest all that money because it will make the world a better place, they did so because they see the opportunity to make a LOT of money and have the ability to steer where this technology goes while also reducing transparency. Why shouldn't we view that with suspicion, you don't have to roll over just because there's a lot of money involved or because some millionaire/billionaire might get treated "unfairly".

Tbh the only thing I find irritating about the article is the dumb story about being 8 and realizing his future already of being the leader of an ai company.

Burning witches? Call me a radical but I can't help but notice the name of the company is OpenAI, but it's not open at all!