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208

OpenAI, the company that brought you ChatGPT, just sold you out (www.vox.com)

submitted 1 month ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Since its founding in 2015, its leaders have said their top priority is making sure artificial intelligence is developed safely and beneficially. They’ve touted the company’s unusual corporate structure as a way of proving the purity of its motives. OpenAI was a nonprofit controlled not by its CEO or by its shareholders, but by a board with a single mission: keep humanity safe.

But this week, the news broke that OpenAI will no longer be controlled by the nonprofit board. OpenAI is turning into a full-fledged for-profit benefit corporation. Oh, and CEO Sam Altman, who had previously emphasized that he didn’t have any equity in the company, will now get equity worth billions, in addition to ultimate control over OpenAI.

In an announcement that hardly seems coincidental, chief technology officer Mira Murati said shortly before that news broke that she was leaving the company. Employees were so blindsided that many of them reportedly reacted to her abrupt departure with a “WTF” emoji in Slack.

WTF indeed.

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[–] zante@lemmy.wtf 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)

comedy goldmine :

They could get up to 100 times what they put in, but beyond that, the money would go to the nonprofit, which would use it to benefit the public. For example, it could fund a universal basic income program to help people adjust to automation-induced joblessness.

[–] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 27 points 1 month ago

“If OpenAI were to retroactively remove profit caps from investments, this would in effect transfer billions in value from a non-profit to for-profit investors,” Jacob Hilton, a former employee of OpenAI who joined before it transitioned from a nonprofit to a capped-profit structure.

I'm sure the investors weren't selling him on the idea that if they got a bigger return he would as well, surely.