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Comment by andreyk | Hacker News Reader

Can you elaborate, you think it was flawed because the reporter didn't get unfiltered access? The piece is still based on tons of interviews and it seems to me that reporter is pretty aware of conversations going on within AI research (she attends our conferences and the like), so I thought it was pretty much a decent summary of common criticisms and positive aspects of OpenAI (as per my other comment on here).

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Just wanted to point out: She was saying that it was ironic that at a place like OpenAI, she doesn't get unfiltered access to their 2nd/3rd floors/eat lunch with them.

I understand that its a bit ironic, but I think the reporter needs to understand that strangers (esp. reporters) don't usually get this types of access regardless of whether it's "openai" and since the reporter is probably not under a NDA, any company would put tight restrictions of what strangers see and do.

I agree that OpenAI sometimes overhypes stuff (I think the gpt-2 case was unintentional) and some of the criticism she points out, but overall the piece in my mind was more of a hit-piece than showing that OpenAI does try to have a diverse group of people (fellows/scholars) and was probably the only nonacademic non-profit before needing large amounts of compute.

I can see your point, but that does beg the question: what niche does a nonacademic nonprofit fill? It seems to me that's it's not filling a particular niche at all, but rather sitting somewhere between a corporate lab and a traditional academic lab. It's for those who are okay with trading off some of the freedom of academia for some of the resources afforded by industry.

That's certainly fair. I read the article Karen Hao (the reporter) wrote when it was published. My read on her discussing the secretive nature of OpenAI and access within its facility was a proxy to show how the organization has changed since its inception. OpenAI, as the name suggests, was founded to be a place where "“Researchers will be strongly encouraged to publish their work, whether as papers, blog posts, or code, and our patents (if any) will be shared with the world.” [0]

That contrasts with how Hao got a number of interviews:

"Many who work or worked for the company insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak or feared retaliation. Their accounts suggest that OpenAI, for all its noble aspirations, is obsessed with maintaining secrecy, protecting its image, and retaining the loyalty of its employees."

Does "OpenAI" mean unfettered access for reporters? Nah, but within the context of the article, her pictures of secrecy at the org add color.

I'm curious what elements drew you to conclude it was overall a hit-piece.

I found the headline and a part of it trying to seem sensational e.g. "What Went Wrong?", which in spite of that it was a really informative article for me.

If anything seemed scandalous to me, its OpenAI's change from non-profit status and Altman's proclamation that

"In sharing his 2020 vision for the lab privately with employees, Altman’s message is clear: OpenAI needs to make money in order to do research—not the other way around."

Contrast that with:

"For one thing, the sticker price was shocking: the venture would start with $1 billion from private investors"

One billion is a lot of dollars! How in the world are they already in need of more funding?

I also wonder what Altman does there. For being CEO, he is mentioned only in passing in the article.

[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615181/ai-openai-moonshot...

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