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OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not To Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit (vice.com) 115

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
OpenAI is today unrecognizable, with multi-billion-dollar deals and corporate partnerships. From a report: OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization by Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, among other tech leaders. In its founding statement, the company declared its commitment to research "to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." The blog stated that "since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact," and that all researchers would be encouraged to share "papers, blog posts, or code, and our patents (if any) will be shared with the world."

Now, eight years later, we are faced with a company that is neither transparent nor driven by positive human impact, but instead, as many critics including co-founder Musk have argued, is powered by speed and profit. And this company is unleashing technology that, while flawed, is still poised to increase some elements of workplace automation at the expense of human employees. Google, for example, has highlighted the efficiency gains from AI that autocompletes code, as it lays off thousands of workers. When OpenAI first began, it was envisioned as doing basic AI research in an open way, with undetermined ends. Co-founder Greg Bockman told The New Yorker, "Our goal right now...is to do the best thing there is to do. It's a little vague." This resulted in a shift in direction in 2018 when the company looked to capital resources for some direction. "Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. We anticipate needing to marshal substantial resources to fulfill our mission," the company wrote in an updated charter in 2018. By March 2019, OpenAI shed its non-profit status and set up a "capped profit" sector, in which the company could now receive investments and would provide investors with profit capped at 100 times their investment.
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OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not To Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit More

OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not To Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit

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  • You can also add (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:04PM (#63331035) Journal
    It also doesn't have real AI.

    • Re:You can also add (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:40PM (#63331131) Homepage Journal

      The phrase "real artificial intelligence" is an oxymoron. If the intelligence was real, then we would not call it "artificial." We would call it, maybe "machine intelligence" or "synthetic intelligence."

      The reason we stick the word "artificial" in there is because we are faking it. Just like artificial leather or artificial crab meat. Its not the real thing, it is some fake thing trying to mimic the real thing.

      Straight from the dictionary [merriam-webster.com]:

      " the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior"

      • The phrase "real artificial intelligence" is an oxymoron. If the intelligence was real, then we would not call it "artificial." We would call it, maybe "machine intelligence" or "synthetic intelligence."

        Then we'll be more precise: They haven't created strong AI. [wikipedia.org] All they've done is come up with some sweet algorithms and called them AI. It's fake artificial. Very cool, but not intelligence.

        • It's fake artificial. Very cool, but not intelligence.

          Prove it.

          • LOL openAI doesn't even claim they have strong AI. It's only your ignorance that's on display here. Or it's maybe Poe's law.

            • You haven't convincing stated why strong AI is required in order for something to be considered intelligent.

              • LOL if you want to talk about an "intelligent terminal" you can do that: https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]

                But now you're just further demonstrating your own lack of intelligence.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by noodler ( 724788 )

                  Given your posts here you haven't even begun to understand what intelligence is. It's funny then that you still manage to comment on other peoples intelligence. And not very smart. Not at all.

                  • Ah, that's sweet of you to say. But I have more intelligence than you.

                    • But I have more intelligence than you.

                      Thanks for confirming that idiots are disproportionately convinced in their own merits beyond what reason would conclude from their actions.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by noodler ( 724788 )

                      Ah, that's sweet of you to say. But I have more intelligence than you.

                      If only it was located in your brain...

        • They aren't claiming it is intelligent. Calling something "AI" is not claiming it is intelligent. That is precisely my point. "AI" does NOT mean "intelligent." It means "machines that mimic intelligence." And why do they merely "mimic" intelligence? Because they AREN'T intelligent, and everybody knows this.

          If they actually said "Strong AI" or "Artificial General Intelligence" or "Synthetic intelligence," then they would be claiming that it is actually intelligent.

          But simply calling it "artificial inte

          • When most people hear the term "AI" they think of Strong AI. Now you're just angry for nothing, AND you're wrong.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )
            Calling it artificial intelligence *IS* claiming that it is intelligent. But it is also claiming that the intelligence it possesses is in some way a product of something that was man-made, and is not naturally occurring.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Exactly. Any claim to the contrary is from people that obviously are semantically challenged. The qualifier "artificial" does not refer to the nature of the thing, but to its origin.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            You are wrong. Calling something AI is a direct claim that it is intelligent. If you look at the history of the terminology you will that some pathological liars (marketing people) are behind this lie.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by noodler ( 724788 )

            That's some pretty bullshit reasoning.
            They for sure are intelligent. They are not the same kind of intelligence as humans. As you say, they are not general intelligences or human intelligences.

            But simply calling it "artificial intelligence" is not claiming that it is intelligent, it is claiming that it fakes it.

            Nonsense. It simply means it is an artificial (human made) intelligence. Nothing about the definition of Artificial Intelligence claims it is a fake form of intelligence.

            " the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior"

            I want to remind you that imitation is a sure sign of intelligence.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )

          It's fake artificial.

          That seems very redundant to me...

          If something is fake, how can it be anything *but* artificial?

          Have you ever heard of a non-fake artificial plant, for instance?

          • Yes, it is. Yes.

            Have you ever heard of a non-fake artificial plant,

            Imagine a hologram of an artificial plant. You try to pick it up, and realize it's not a real artificial plant. It's fake. The recursion continues indefinitely indefinitely...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            That would be, "fake, artificial" and the first qualifier refers to its nature, while the second refers to its origin. Obviously something artificial does in no way need to be fake. That is just some broken ideological idea from a certain type of "nature" worshippers that think nature can do no evil and anything created by man is suspect. In actual reality, there are tons of things were the artificial variant is decidedly better.

            Also, fake refers to a thing intentionally made to pretend to be something else

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        By definition, machine intelligence and/or synthetic intelligence are both artificial in the sense that neither one naturally occurs in nature.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That happens to be nonsense. For an example, artificial sweetener is still sweetener. There also is no real difference between "artificial" and "synthetic" in this use.

        Now, if we called it "surrogate intelligence" or "fake intelligence", then you would be correct. But we do not. But is called AI in the sense of "intelligence but of the artificial kind" and that is nothing but a lie.

        • That happens to be nonsense. For an example, artificial sweetener is still sweetener.

          Yours isn't a good faith argument though. "Artificial [something]" is a very widely used idiom, and what it means is that the artificial [something] can replace the real [something] in some contexts, not that the "artificial [something]" is [something].

          Nobody argues for example that artificial honey [scientificamerican.com] actually *is* honey, nor does anybody think that the people who named it are trying to imply it *is* honey. For more examples, artificial wool is not wool, artificial leather is not leather, artificial blood is

      • Hmmm... artificial sweetener tastes sweet. Not sure in standard english usage that artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. That said, I hate the term artificial intelligence. It's been used for hype and misleading claims for so long it is meaningless and clouds the fact that the technologies

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by noodler ( 724788 )

      They haven't created strong AI.

      No one, except maybe for the crazy google guy, claims they have.

      Also, you seem to think that anything that is not strong AI can't be intelligent.
      You are pretty wrong about this and you should educate yourself more on what intelligence actually is.

  • Don't be evil (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:08PM (#63331047)

    I hear that this motto is no longer being used and is free for use.

    • I hear that this motto is no longer being used and is free for use.

      You can get a second use free, just pay a separate handling fee. :-)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      It isn't free for use, because it contains copyrighted material and a trade secret. Specifically, 'be evil".

    • Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Interesting)

      by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @07:27PM (#63331431)
      With Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, & Reid Hoffman involved it was always going to end up being a case of frog meets scorpion. I'm surprised it took them 8 years.
      • Erm, in this case Elon Musk pulled out *because* they were going bad.

        He backs some nasty causes, but OpenAI isn't one of them.

        • Musk left because of commitments to Tesla and SpaceX. He was also annoyed that OpenAI were getting employees he wanted for Tesla.

          I recommend watching Elons talks on AI. You will realise he has no clue about any of it.

  • And... (Score:3)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:10PM (#63331049)
    Not to be trusted with anything.

  • Scratching my head ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:12PM (#63331053)

    OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization by Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, among other tech leaders. ... By March 2019, OpenAI shed its non-profit status and set up a "capped profit" sector, in which the company could now receive investments and would provide investors with profit capped at 100 times their investment.

    So, people are surprised that these guys aren't actually interested in profits -- really?

    • That kind of leaves a bad taste when contemplating this "company".

      The profit potential totally trumped their naive, selfless idealism.

      They realized how the world works I guess.

      If any company's tech deserves to be liberated by someone with a very particular set of skills, it's OpenAI's IP.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        If any company's tech deserves to be liberated by someone with a very particular set of skills, it's OpenAI's IP.

        Well, people figure out their stuff and implement freely available versions pretty quickly after it's published, so there you go.

        Surprisingly, one of the recent do gooders is Facebook.

      • What do you mean? Of course they're making the world a better place. How dare you question THEIR integrity?!
      • They're Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. They already knew that stuff.
        I'm pretty none of them ever had "naive, selfless idealism".

    • So, people are surprised that these guys aren't actually interested in profits -- really?

      Hah, typo'ed myself; actually meant "are interested". :-O

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      Yeah, pretty much just have to look at that list of names and know where this was heading from the start. Especially Peter Thiel, that dude is like pure evil. If there was an award for the most self-loathing gay guy, they'd give him the lifetime achievement. This Tweet [twitter.com] sums it up nicely.

      And before anyone accuses me of being jealous, you're damn right. If I had his money, I'd use every penny leftover from the living expenses of my partner and I living a comfortable middle class lifestyle, and put them in

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ewibble ( 1655195 )

        Peter Thiel, a married gay billionaire, has bankrolled only candidates who support the repeal of marriage equality. His combination of ambition and self-hatred is repulsive, even for a Republican

        Maybe being gay is not the most important thing in his life. He maybe he supports the candidates for other reasons than gay marriage. Maybe he thinks their policies will make him richer, maybe its other things. I don't know the man, I don't know how evil he is or isn't but he is allowed to support the policies he wants to without you calling him "pure evil". The fact that rich people get a massively disproportionate say is a whole other matter.

        Just because you belong to a group doesn't automatically mean yo

        • It's not easy to be successful as a minority. Thiel remained in the closet for quite awhile because he was more concerned with achieving success than being true to himself. Facing adversity to be successful as a minority usually instills such a person with a degree of empathy towards others who are fighting the same battles, but Thiel chose not to experience that. In a way, it's like he played the first part of the game of life with a cheat code enabled. Most of us couldn't live with ourselves being lik

    • I didn't realize Thiel had fans here with mod points. So here, please waste more modding this down too, you oligarchy boot licking idiots. I've got karma to burn.

      • This will be interesting/confusing as I meant to write "are actually interested in profits", but typo'ed myself -- I noted this in a follow-up.

        • Seems like you didn't get mod raped over it, but I called out Thiel on his hypocrisy and landed a nice -1 Troll for my efforts. And that's without even getting into the whole vampire controversy [boingboing.net], or Gawker [forbes.com].

    • Elon Musk, for his part, left because of a conflict of interest, and after that Sam Altman founded the for-profit workaround called OpenAI LP. Musk had made OpenAI a 501(c)(3) and made their mission statement to democratize AI and make sure it isn't in the hands of powerful corporations.

    • As the saying goes:

      "Beware of billionairs bearing gifts."

    • Even worse, "profit" does not just imply money. Egomaniacs lust for power and control even more than money, and we've already seen that people like Musk will happily throw away tons of money to buy their way into cornerstone infrastructure.

  • "ClosedOffAI" has a nice ring to it.

    Also, "FuckedAI".

  • Sam Altman (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:17PM (#63331069)

    It is run by Sam Altman. A ycombinator VC money guy. What VC supports giving things away for free? Those guys expect profits, billions and billions in profits. It will not be any other way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by awwshit ( 6214476 )

      Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT if it wanted to play Global Thermal Nuclear War. It refused to discuss an imaginary game about nuclear war - basically telling me that I'm a warmonger that wants to disproportionately impact 'marginalized communities'. Seriously, I wanted to discuss a game, a game.

      The reality is that ChatGPT is made by rich people, for rich people, for the purpose of making even more money. Nothing says helping 'marginalized communities' more than wealth accumulation by the top 1%. What a bunc

      • Nothing says helping 'marginalized communities' more than wealth accumulation by the top 1%. What a bunch of hypocrite assholes.

        If it was anything other than money, we'd call such people hoarders and ask that they get help for their condition.

      • Re:Sam Altman (Score:4, Funny)

        by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:59PM (#63331185) Journal

        Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT if it wanted to play Global Thermal Nuclear War. It refused to discuss an imaginary game about nuclear war - basically telling me that I'm a warmonger that wants to disproportionately impact 'marginalized communities'.

        Seriously, lol?

        That's like the old joke NYT headline, "World to End, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit".

        • It's also possible ChatGPT is just terrible with pop culture references. I never have that problem with Alexa, she prefers a nice game of chess.

          • As an AI language model, I am not capable of playing games or expressing preferences, including the game of Global Thermal Nuclear War. However, I can provide you with some general information about this game.

            Global Thermal Nuclear War is a fictional game that was featured in the 1983 movie "WarGames." The game is essentially a simulation of a global thermonuclear war, with players assuming the roles of leaders of various nations.

            It's worth noting that the concept of nuclear war is a serious and complex iss

        • Seriously, lol?

          The serious thing is how seriously credulous you are.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Right, and Peter Thiel, another venture capitalist, was another founder ... I guess it's conceivable they were just in it for publicity, but hard to believe it was really for the benefit of mankind.

    • Altman backstabbed the researchers and ML enthusiasts that contributed to that literal 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Now OpenAI releases next to nothing, and definitely not models and weights.

  • ... and this is suprising? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Investors want a return.
    Water is wet
    Film at 11.

    • Re:... and this is suprising? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sd4f ( 1891894 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @06:21PM (#63331267)

      The main problem I have with the article is that the author mentions google, yet doesn't put two and two together that what they're criticising has been taken directly from google's play book. Seeing that it's vice, one can safely assume that it's some hipster author who thinks they're in "tech" because they write about it, just regurgitating some crap that probably got fed to them by a google employee.

      In any case, the cat's out of the bag, chatGPT is far from perfect, but definitely done a decent enough demonstration that there's something worthwhile there. There's no going back now, so becoming a luddite with respect to predictive models, isn't going to solve anything. Time to reskill, and change course, because a lot of jobs are going to change or disappear, and no one has been preparing anyone for it.

  • Never had the warm fuzzies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:37PM (#63331123) Homepage

    The moment ChatGPT sign-up prompted me for my phone number and refused to take my throwaway GV number, I was like "fuck it, I'm out." If this company ever had a phase where they were ever truly open, I must've missed it.

  • Open is never free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:37PM (#63331125) Homepage Journal

    Never.

    'Open' inevitably has to be monetized. Forking projects and giving back scraps of the clever code often isn't true to the spirit of the licensing, much less the letter. And despite the best efforts, the original 'owners' can always re-license into a commercial copyright. Gone.

    And the unicorn open projects get copied and torn off, screw the license. Rare to get any compensation.

    Besides, it isn't even 'AI'. Not yet. And the real insult will be when the 'owners' or developers disclaim responsibility for the results. Like letting your dogs run loose in the hallway, watching them kill your neighbor, and then claiming they are 'doing what dogs do'. Evading responsibility for AI run amok will be the norm. Heck, it's happening with simpler, more predictable code.

  • that's capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @06:12PM (#63331225)
    Neoliberal capitalism is allowing the markets to operate liberally and self govern. doesn't happen that way, it's a grift. Profit driven companies do anything in the name of money. Fire workers at will, enslave children, use their profits to write laws (lobbyists), buy our electeds (per Citizens united, donation = right to petition), eliminate regulations, you know, those things capitalists call "pesky job killing red tape" - and we end up with trains that crash and poison us (because the Government forced workers to accept a contract without sickleave, limited time off and fewer workers, as the railroads enjoy record profits), the greatest wealth gap since the pharaohs, loss of jobs and self worth leading to an opioid crisis, homelessness, rampant crime, the rise of extremism, gun violence and the disenfranchisement of the citizenry. We live in what Sheldon Wolin coined "Inverted Totalitarianism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism ) where we have the façade of freedom, with "elections" and "courts" but corporations hold all the levers of power.

    • > We live in what Sheldon Wolin coined "Inverted Totalitarianism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism ) where we have the façade of freedom, with "elections" and "courts" but corporations hold all the levers of power.

      Since he coined that in 2003 I'd say he was pretty late to the party. A term that predates that one by nearly 25 years is "Oligarchic Capitalism" (also called Capitalist Oligarchy) which very specifically means a capitalist system ruled by a small group of unelected

  • Breaking news (Score:3)

    by krisbrowne42 ( 549049 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @06:35PM (#63331301)
    This just in - billionaire tech-bro liars who often lie lied about a project.

  • Google, for example, has highlighted the efficiency gains from AI that autocompletes code, as it lays off thousands of workers

    Are we talking about Copilot here? Because I can't understand how it could have caused the layoff of thousands of workers judging by what it does. Maybe they write a lot of boilerplate code?

  • as many critics including co-founder Musk have... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bug_hunter ( 32923 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @07:38PM (#63331465)

    Just a reminder that Musk left shortly after he poached head developers from OpenAI to work at Tesla instead.
    Any slant that he was the good guy here that got bulldozed is a bit rich.

    https://qz.com/1011376/elon-mu... [qz.com]
    https://electrek.co/2018/02/21... [electrek.co]

    If Musk wanted OpenAI to be a wonderful AI to the people, and not for speed and profit, he shouldn't have used the company for speed and profit.

  • It's their product.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @08:15PM (#63331533)

    ...they can do whatever they want with it.

    Expecting anything "good" from Peter Thiel and Elon Musk is like expecting cash from the tooth fairy.

    I'd rather be stuck on an island with a soccer ball than any of those sociopaths. Anything they do is for the greater good -- of themselves.

    It's bad enough to be stupid, but in these days where being a sociopath gets you noticed, it's stupidER.

    IMHO.

    E

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Expecting anything "good" from Peter Thiel and Elon Musk is like expecting cash from the tooth fairy.

      Indeed. Narcissistic assholes that are not interested in anything that des not allow them to blow up their egos even more. Sad and pathetic failures that should never have gotten any kind of power.

  • I suppose Linux is still open-source. Although, that is only useful to big corporations.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Although, that is only useful to big corporations.

      Whatever gave you _that_ idea? I would hardly classify myself as "big corporation", for example. Maybe _you_ are just too incapable to use Linux to any benefit?

  • What's needed is a truly open model that is free. Really, that is the value of ChatGPT is the model they have trained, not the software itself.
    This could be done via a crowdsourced or collaborative effort - think Wikipedia but the end result is a large language model and not a human-readable encyclopedia. Then it needs to be all packaged up where your average developer or sysadmin type can spin up their own ChatGPT-level AI.

  • .... they should get rid of the lame-ass filters on it that make it impossible to have conversations with about possibly sensitive subjects without being told that it can't talk about those things.

    And yup, if they did that, it would almost immediately be used for every kind of tripe you can imagine... but if they put such usage behind a sufficiently costly pay system that verified ones age and identity. I think that the novelty and the hype of what people were doing with it would probably wear off after o

  • The names Elon "Tankie" Musk and most especially Peter "anti-democratic pos" Thiel should have raised a huge red flag.

  • The article seems somewhat loaded.

    For example Elon Musk has 0 to do with OpenAI now. He still donates but with recent money problems not sure if that is still the case.

    They transitioned to "for-profit" 4 years ago. The profit cap was to help their employees put a stake in the company.

  • With those founders, what did you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2023 @04:58AM (#63332217)

    If a bunch of assholes with tons of money found a "non-profit", it would be really naive to expect it to benefit anybody but themselves.

  • OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization by Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, among other tech leaders.

    So people are surprised this happened to an entity founded by some of the most greedy, money-grubbing, anti-consumer, tech billionaires?

    What a surprise.

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