Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
It's still bad, don't get be wrong, it's just something I can distinguish.
I don't think the cookies thing is a good example. That's passive incompetence, to avoid the work of changing their business models. Altman actively does more work to erode people's rights.
> It's still bad, don't get be wrong, it's just something I can distinguish.
Can you? Plausible deniability is one of the first things in any malicious actor's playbook. "I meant well…" If there's no way to know, then you can only assess the pattern of behavior.
But realistically, nobody sapient accidentally spends multiple years building elaborate systems for laundering other people's IP, privacy, and likeness, and accidentally continues when they are made aware of the harms and explicitly asked multiple times to stop…