zlacker

>>staran+(OP)
At the end of the day, we still don't know what exactly happened and probably, never will. However, it seems clear there was a rift between Rapid Commercialization (Team Sam) and Upholding the Original Principles (Team Helen/Ilya). I think the tensions were brewing for quite a while, as it's evident from an article written even before GPT-3 [1].

> Over time, it has allowed a fierce competitiveness and mounting pressure for ever more funding to erode its founding ideals of transparency, openness, and collaboration

Team Helen acted in panic, but they believed they would win since they were upholding the principles the org was founded on. But they never had a chance. I think only a minority of the general public truly cares about AI Safety, the rest are happy seeing ChatGPT helping with their homework. I know it's easy to ridicule the sheer stupidity the board acted with (and justifiably so), but take a moment to think of the other side. If you truly believed that Superhuman AI was near, and it could act with malice, won't you try to slow things down a bit?

Honestly, I myself can't take the threat seriously. But, I do want to understand it more deeply than before. Maybe, it isn't without substance as I thought it to be. Hopefully, there won't be a day when Team Helen gets to say, "This is exactly what we wanted to prevent."

[1]: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai...

>>shubha+B7
I am still a bit puzzled that it is so easy to turn a non-profit into a for profit company. I am sure everything they did is legal, but it feels like it shouldn't be. Could Médecins Sans Frontières take in donations and then take that money to start a for profit hospital for plastics surgery? And the profits wouldn't even go back to MSF, but instead somehow private investors will get the profits. The whole construct just seems wrong.

>>_fizz_+4h
I think it actually isn't that easy. Compared to your example, the difference is that OpenAI's for-profit is getting outside money from Microsoft, not money from non-profit OpenAI. Non-profit OpenAI is basically dealing with for-profit OpenAI as a external partner that happens to be aligned with their interests, paying the expensive bills and compute, while the non-profit can hold on to the IP.

You might be able to imagine a world where there was an external company that did the same thing as for-profit OpenAI, and OpenAI nonprofit partnered with them in order to get their AI ideas implemented (for free). OpenAI nonprofit is basically getting a good deal.

MSF could similarly create an external for-profit hospital, funded by external investors. The important thing is that the nonprofit (donated, tax-free) money doesn't flow into the forprofit section.

Of course, there's a lot of sketchiness in practice, which we can see in this situation with Microsoft influencing the direction of nonprofit OpenAI even though it shouldn't be. I think there would have been real legal issues if the Microsoft deal had continued.

>>ah765+Jk
> The important thing is that the nonprofit (donated, tax-free) money doesn't flow into the forprofit section.

I am sure that is true. But the for-profit uses IP that was developed inside of the non-profit with (presumably) tax deductible donations. That IP should be valued somehow. But, as I said, I am sure they were somehow able to structure it in a way that is legal, but it has an illegal feel to it.