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The Big OpenAI Sellout
I had a great conversation this week with Thad Russell on his podcast. Check it out. Also, JD Vance thinks I’m smart. I’m flattered but still vehemently disagree with him on AI and many issues besides.
When OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded in 2015, it was established as a non-profit organization. Its mission was not to develop artificial intelligence, but “to ensure that artificial general intelligence” — autonomous AI systems that exceed human cognitive capabilities — ”benefits all of humanity,” regardless of which company first achieved it.
“The true mission isn’t for OpenAI to build AGI,” OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman told the podcaster Lex Fridman in 2019. “Our goal is to make sure it goes well for the world.” Developing AGI was just a strategy to advance its mission. By being the first to reach AGI, the company argued, OpenAI would be in a position to ensure it benefits humanity widely and that the technology is secured against the significant threats it poses to humanity, including existential risk. OpenAI was structured as a non-profit in order to focus on this mission and be “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
Since that time, however, the company has gone through transformations in its corporate governance structure that many believe were designed to dilute its charitable mission in order to increase shareholder profits. “They have drifted from their mission,” said Tyler Johnston from the AI safety advocacy group The Midas Project.
On Monday, the Midas Project, along with EyesOnOpenAI and Encode, two other AI safety advocacy groups, released an open letter to the company signed by over a thousand people, including academics, AI researchers, and the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton. The letter questions whether OpenAI’s current corporate structure is consistent with its founding mission.
“OpenAI is currently sitting on both sides of the table in a closed boardroom,” the letter reads, “making a deal on humanity’s behalf without allowing us to see the contract, know the terms, or sign off on the decision.”
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By Leighton WoodhouseI had a great conversation this week with Thad Russell on his podcast. Check it out. Also, JD Vance thinks I’m smart. I’m flattered but still vehemently disagree with him on AI and many issues besides.
When OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded in 2015, it was established as a non-profit organization. Its mission was not to develop artificial intelligence, but “to ensure that artificial general intelligence” — autonomous AI systems that exceed human cognitive capabilities — ”benefits all of humanity,” regardless of which company first achieved it.
“The true mission isn’t for OpenAI to build AGI,” OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman told the podcaster Lex Fridman in 2019. “Our goal is to make sure it goes well for the world.” Developing AGI was just a strategy to advance its mission. By being the first to reach AGI, the company argued, OpenAI would be in a position to ensure it benefits humanity widely and that the technology is secured against the significant threats it poses to humanity, including existential risk. OpenAI was structured as a non-profit in order to focus on this mission and be “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
Since that time, however, the company has gone through transformations in its corporate governance structure that many believe were designed to dilute its charitable mission in order to increase shareholder profits. “They have drifted from their mission,” said Tyler Johnston from the AI safety advocacy group The Midas Project.
On Monday, the Midas Project, along with EyesOnOpenAI and Encode, two other AI safety advocacy groups, released an open letter to the company signed by over a thousand people, including academics, AI researchers, and the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton. The letter questions whether OpenAI’s current corporate structure is consistent with its founding mission.
“OpenAI is currently sitting on both sides of the table in a closed boardroom,” the letter reads, “making a deal on humanity’s behalf without allowing us to see the contract, know the terms, or sign off on the decision.”
Read more