OpenAI Privately Tells Developers Using Company's Tech That It Won't Compete With Them Beyond ChatGPT (businessinsider.com) 25
Sam Altman, the erudite cofounder and chief executive of OpenAI, has a message for software developers that should set them at ease: The company has no plans to roll out any more consumer-facing products like ChatGPT, according to a now taken-down blog post by a startup founder who attended a private meeting with Altman. From a report: On a stop in London in May, he met behind closed doors with a small group of developers and startup founders, giving them a sneak peek at OpenAI's roadmap and biggest challenges. Yet the conversation became public when Raza Habib, an attendee who is also the cofounder and CEO of Humanloop, a Y Combinator-backed startup that helps businesses build apps on top of large language models, blogged an account of the private meeting. The original blog post has since been taken down.
"Quite a few developers said they were nervous about building with the OpenAI APIs when OpenAI might end up releasing products that are competitive to them," Habib wrote in his blog post. "Sam said that OpenAI would not release more products beyond ChatGPT. He said there was a history of great platform companies having a killer app and that ChatGPT would allow them to make the APIs better by being customers of their own product."
"Quite a few developers said they were nervous about building with the OpenAI APIs when OpenAI might end up releasing products that are competitive to them," Habib wrote in his blog post. "Sam said that OpenAI would not release more products beyond ChatGPT. He said there was a history of great platform companies having a killer app and that ChatGPT would allow them to make the APIs better by being customers of their own product."
I speak corporate backstabber (Score:3)
Translation: "We're so confident in the power of our 'ChatGPT' brand that all future products will be branded as such. Thus you don't have to worry, if something competes with your product--and it will--it'll have our most powerful and influential branding attached to it. After all, this is a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit, a charitable organization, so of course we'll make multi-billion dollar for-profit deals with Microsoft et al. via our shell corporation, OpenAI LP."
Re: I speak corporate backstabber (Score:2)
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Also, being a nonprofit doesn't make something a charitable organization:
https://www.score.org/resource... [score.org]
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OpenAI continues to be a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit, and "charity" is a colloquial term. They formed OpenAI LP, a subsidiary, to funnel all their for-profit dealings through.
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https://projects.propublica.or... [propublica.org]
Doesn't look like they are funneling billions of dollars through it to avoid taxes, since its revenue peaked at $50M in 2018 and is now in decline. But I am curious why this little sliver of it is still a nonprofit.
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>They formed OpenAI LP, a subsidiary, to funnel all their for-profit dealings through.
OpenAI LP != OpenAI Inc
They're worth $29B. Not $0.05B https://the-decoder.com/openai... [the-decoder.com]
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open source.
chat g p t was built on open source.
places like github are an educational experience to learn generative a i.
it would become a better product if more seekers went to places like this
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Actually ChatGPT/GPT-3 were after they went closed source/for-profit/proprietary.
I'm less worried about Sam... (Score:1)
.. than the clown that didn't quite get the idea of what a 'private meeting' was. Not a company that I'd want to do any kind of business with if it concerns PII, PHI, PCI, etc. type data. If the CEO doesn't know when to keep his trap shut, what sort of example does that send to the rest of the peons.
Can Microsoft give the same non-compete guarantee? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft owns 49 percent of OpenAI. If OpenAI can figure out a way to get rich off the picks and shovels of generative AI, then Microsoft might be willing to sit back and refrain from competing with OpenAI customers. However, the path to that picks and shovels profitability is not obvious. It's much more likely that Microsoft will directly and fiercely compete in the generative AI application market. After all, Microsoft didn't intend for its $10 billion dollars to be a philanthropic donation for the benefit of humanity.
In a way, Altman can still make good on his non-compete pledge, even while his "minority" stakeholder does the exact opposite.
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That really is the ideal outcome, so long as OpenAI offers the same services to other companies on a fair basis. This would not be the case if OpenAI were just subsumed by Microsoft Research.
Re: Can Microsoft give the same non-compete guaran (Score:3)
The thing is, while OpenAI might be selling shovels and picks, MS is the one that supplied them the storefront, utilities, and leases. That gives them immense sway over the former, so I would hardly not take Altman at his word considering his history.
In any case though, most of the competitors using the ChatGPT API will effectively go bankrupt anyway. Just as there is no real money to be made mining gold, just slapping together a GPT-powered product/service is hardly a path to profitability. They simply can
hahahahahaha (Score:2)
You gonna believe that?
Biggest question (Score:2)
Were they able to say that while keeping a straight face?
"We won't compete with products we don't make." (Score:2)
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After all the bluster about GPT4, people actually expect GPT5 to deliver on those promises. They showed their hand too early and now they're scrambling. Scale is off the table, so all they can do is hope for a miracle or pivot.
OpenAI is Microsoft's bitch (Score:2)
If Microsoft tells them to have plans, they will.
Nobody should feel safe when a company owned by Microsoft says they "have no plan". The missing word is always "currently".
product vs capability (Score:2)
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What if you want a good essay or software that works?
Well, that's settled forever... (Score:2)
...there's no way a CEO would ever change their mind, or tell a lie.
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"We totally won't compete with you." says newly hired VP Chip Wintermute.
We'll be working together, Dave. (Score:2)
That's what I read. But I take OpenAI not for what it is, some org I guess, but instead, the name of the imaginary hivemind we're all terrified of.
They don't but Microsoft's MO is different (Score:2)
Whoever ends up owning OpenAI next... (Score:2)