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Comment by drclau | Hacker News Reader

As I understand, OpenAI started as a non-profit entity and has taken on large donations. Then, the for-profit entity has been created and is using the technology developed by the non-profit entity, which was developed presumably by using the donated funds. So, maybe it's not about altruism at all, but instead Sam Altman is just protecting himself against potential lawsuits from the donors? There was probably some agreement on how the technology will be used.

Elon Musk has donated $100M USD, and does not look happy about the developments, based on his tweets.

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Elon tried to buy the company and become CEO and OpenAI said no. I also heard that they knew they were going to burn through the 100M, and were counting on the 1B he promised, and couldn't raise enough money as a non profit so that's why they went for profit.

Happy accidents.

As a rule of thumb, its never about altruism.

Obviously. It's Sam Altman, not Sam Altruism.

Sam 'I altruistically give up equity control in my companies' Altruism

Bit of a mouthful

Rules of thumb often apply.

The non-profit-oh-wait-just-kidding nonsense feels like an existential risk to OpenAI. I agree that Altman may be (unintentionally?) protecting himself from lawsuits, but I don't see it being enough to avoid the spotlight.

I expect someone will eventually sue OpenAI for the shenanigans, and that a competitor (Meta?) or Elon Musk will fund the lawsuit. The goal won't be to actually win the case, but instead to motivate US regulatory action to undercuts OpenAI's perceived advantage.

Bill Gates and Microsoft will have something to say about that.

> Elon Musk has donated $100M USD, and does not look happy about the developments, based on his tweets.

Sour grapes?

A few years ago, he wasn’t happy with his investment in the company because they were behind Google.

So he proposed becoming the CEO, and got snubbed by Altman and the rest (presumably from fear of how it played out for the original Tesla founders, at the time).

One possibility is - that he is genuinely concerned, and his vision of AI included some hardcoded rules - such as Asimov’s rules for robots. Can’t dismiss it completely, as this was his original purpose for starting OpenAI.

Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

>>Elon Musk has donated $100M USD, and does not look happy about the developments, based on his tweets.

He is not happy because he could have invested in OpenAI instead of Twitter.

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