this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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[–] halcyoncmdr 360 points 2 months ago (3 children)

You know guys, I'm starting to think what we heard about Altman when he was removed a while ago might actually have been real.

/s

[–] [email protected] 148 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if all those people who supported him like the taste of their feet.

[–] [email protected] 108 points 2 months ago

like the taste of their feet.

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[–] [email protected] 318 points 2 months ago (13 children)

There’s an alternate timeline where the non-profit side of the company won, Altman the Conman was booted and exposed, and OpenAI kept developing machine learning in a way that actually benefits actual use cases.

Cancer screenings approved by a doctor could be accurate enough to save so many lives and so much suffering through early detection.

Instead, Altman turned a promising technology into a meme stock with a product released too early to ever fix properly.

[–] patatahooligan 65 points 2 months ago (2 children)

No, there isn't really any such alternate timeline. Good honest causes are not profitable enough to survive against the startup scams. Even if the non-profit side won internally, OpenAI would just be left behind, funding would go to its competitors, and OpenAI would shut down. Unless you mean a radically different alternate timeline where our economic system is fundamentally different.

[–] rsuri 57 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean wikipedia managed to do it. It just requires honest people to retain control long enough. I think it was allowed to happen in wikipedia's case because the wealthiest/greediest people hadn't caught on to the potential yet.

There's probably an alternate timeline where wikipedia is a social network with paid verification by corporate interests who write articles about their own companies and state-funded accounts spreading conspiracy theories.

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[–] kippinitreal 162 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Putting my tin foil hat on... Sam Altman knows the AI train might be slowing down soon.

The OpenAI brand is the most valuable part of the company right now, since the models from Google, Anthropic, etc. can beat or match what ChatGPT is, but they aren't taking off coz they aren't as cool as OpenAI.

The business models to train & run models is not sustainable. If there is any money to be made it is NOW, while the speculation is highest. The nonprofit is just getting in the way.

This could be wishful thinking coz fuck corporate AI, but no one can deny AI is in a speculative bubble.

[–] somethingsnappy 100 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Take the hat off. This was the goal. Whoops, gotta cash in and leave! I'm sure it's super great, but I'm gone.

[–] kippinitreal 35 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's an excellent point! Why oh why would a tech bro start a non-profit? Its always been PR.

[–] frunch 25 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It honestly just never occurred to me that such a transformation was allowed/possible. A nonprofit seems to imply something charitable, though obviously that's not the true meaning of it. Still, it would almost seem like the company benefits from the goodwill that comes with being a nonprofit but then gets to transform that goodwill into real gains when they drop the act and cease being a nonprofit.

I don't really understand most of this shit though, so I'm probably missing some key component that makes it make a lot more sense.

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[–] barnaclebutt 135 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I'm sure they were dead weight. I trust open AI completely and all tech gurus named Sam. Btw, what happened to that Crypto guy? He seemed so nice.

[–] utopiah 26 points 2 months ago

I hope I won't undermine your entirely justified trust but Altman is also a crypto guy, cf Worldcoin. /$

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[–] JustARaccoon 134 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I'm confused, how can a company that's gained numerous advantages from being non-profit just switch to a for-profit model? Weren't a lot of the advantages (like access to data and scraping) given with the stipulation that it's for a non-profit? This sounds like it should be illegal to my brain

[–] berno 54 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Careful you're making too much sense here and overlapping with Elmo's view on the subject

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (7 children)
[–] UnderpantsWeevil 32 points 2 months ago

Can't do crimes if you're rich. It's in the Constitution

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago

I’m confused, how can a company that’s gained numerous advantages from being non-profit just switch to a for-profit model

Money

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[–] assassin_aragorn 121 points 2 months ago (6 children)

They should be required to change their name

[–] [email protected] 109 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

It's amusing. Meta's AI team is more open than "Open"AI ever was - they publish so many research papers for free, and the latest versions of Llama are very capable models that you can run on your own hardware (if it's powerful enough) for free as long as you don't use it in an app with more than 700 million monthly users.

[–] merari42 73 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It's the famous "As long as your not Google, Amazon or Apple" licence.

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[–] Kyrgizion 105 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Canceled my sub as a means of protest. I used it for research and testing purposes and 20$ wasn't that big of a deal. But I will not knowingly support this asshole if whatever his company produces isn't going to benefit anyone other than him and his cronies. Voting with our wallets may be the very last vestige of freedom we have left, since money equals speech.

I hope he gets raped by an irate Roomba with a broomstick.

[–] Silic0n_Alph4 51 points 2 months ago

Whoa, slow down there bruv! Rape jokes aren’t ok - that Roomba can’t consent!

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 2 months ago (19 children)

AI is the ultimate Enshitification of the world.

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[–] NeoNachtwaechter 97 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

Altman downplayed the major shakeup.

"Leadership changes are a natural part of companies

Is he just trying to tell us he is next?

/s

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The restructuring could turn the already for-profit company into a more traditional startup and give CEO Sam Altman even more control — including likely equity worth billions of dollars.

I can see why he would want that, yes. We're supposed to ooo and ahh at a technical visionary, who is always ultimately a money guy executive who wants more money and more executive power.

[–] toynbee 24 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I saw an interesting video about this. It's outdated (from ten months ago, apparently) but added some context that I, at least, was missing - and that also largely aligns with what you said. Also, though it's not super evident in this video, I think the presenter is fairly funny.

https://youtu.be/L6mmzBDfRS4

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They had an opportunity to deal with this earlier this year when he was FIRED

[–] PugJesus 34 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The actual employees threatened to resign en masse, because the employees own equity in the company and want this dogshit move too.

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[–] pjwestin 75 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I really don't understand why they're simultaneously arguing that they need access to copyrighted works in order to train their AI while also dropping their non-profit status. If they were at least ostensibly a non-profit, they could pretend that their work was for the betterment of humanity or whatever, but now they're basically saying, "exempt us from this law so we can maximize our earnings." ...and, honestly, our corrupt legislators wouldn't have a problem with that were it not for the fact that bigger corporations with more lobbying power will fight against it.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 2 months ago (2 children)

And there it goes the tech company way, i.e. to shit.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They speed ran becoming an evil corporation.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah, but one asshole gets very rich in the process, so all is well in the world.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 months ago (2 children)
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[–] FlashMobOfOne 64 points 2 months ago (29 children)

Sounds like another WeWork or Theranos in the making, except we already know the product doesn't do what it promises.

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[–] Aceticon 56 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What! A! Surprise!

I'm shocked, I tell you, totally and utterly shocked by this turn of events!

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (2 children)

OpenAI is going to crash so hard.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (3 children)

We don't need them. They're already out of ammo. Just make them release the weights on the way out.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Looks like it was a long game, and Altman didn't just win, that fucker WON!

ALT-MAN? Holy shit!

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[–] werefreeatlast 31 points 2 months ago

Oh shit! Here we go. At least we didn't hand them 20 years of personal emails or direct interfamily communications.

[–] expatriado 28 points 2 months ago (4 children)

just came to me that his Alt-man name is quite fitting for AI

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[–] sudo42 28 points 2 months ago

Sam Altman is demonstrating the power of AI. He’s showing how a single CEO can fire the entire company and continue to develop the product to be even better than when humans were involved.

“OpenAI. No real humans involved!” (TM)

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