> We just want to minimize drama,” the company’s founder and CEO, David Holz, said last year in a post on the chat service Discord. “Political satire in china is pretty not-okay,” he added, and “the ability for people in China to use this tech is more important than your ability to generate satire.
“Use this tech” implies the same tech as everyone else, including satire, no? What else could it mean? Oh, it could mean, “use this tech in only ways that are allowed by a totalitarian dictator, continuing to spread china’s government’s racism and hatred of certain minorities, and also normalize self-censorship globally”.
That’s really what it means-that it’s more important to the CEO that China should continue suppression of its people and also to exert the maximum influence it can socially on the world, than it is too stop specifically midjourney in China.
Plenty of mental gymnastics required there.
and see how well that works in altering the course if history.
Just think it through; is he morally bound to actively pump out lies and propaganda if that increases profits?
I don't like that we're self-censoring in the West in a way that furthers the ends and whims of authoritarian regimes, but hey, it's only business...
Or you stand by something and innovate, while using Beijing trying to clone your tech as reason for Congress giving you an unfair advantage. Holz has chosen his side. I’m now in favour of unfairly advantaging his competition.
That's why I said "within legal restrictions". Ethics is not something defined for companies, even though we are led to believe that it is. It's for people.
He could resign on his personal beliefs, or get fired if he can't sustain the growth, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that the next CEO will probably do it.
The CEO is beholden to the directions of the board. The board has wide latitude to act within the rather wide remit of acting within the best interests of the shareholders (as a group, not individual shareholders). It's generally difficult to go after a board for setting direction that does not outright maximise profit other than by simply voting them out as long as there's some reasoning to justify why it is beneficial to the mission of the company to do something. That might e.g. be to ensure the reputation of the company.
So as long as the CEO acts within what the board wants of them, and as long as the board maintains the trust of a majority of shareholders and aren't outright and blatantly violating the corporate bylaws (which can also specify other priorities than just profit), they can - and often do - decide that other things than profit matters.
As such, blaming the CEO in isolation may not be justified. Maybe the board made him. But the company certainly has principles in the form of its bylaws and the AGM and boards interpretation of them. The just might not be nice ones.
He’s only beholden to himself. And proud of it.
You made a general point. I agree with your general point.
That last statement seemed to me to be about Midjourney specifically.
In which case, because of Midjourney’s peculiar situation for this kind of company, it would have been inaccurate.
And even if said statement wasn’t about Midjourney specifically, considering the subject at hand, pointing out it’s peculiar situation seemed relevant.
But again, I totally agree that no, even though it’s often expected of them, CEOs aren’t inherently required to maximise profit.
I don't know, maybe you interpreted the last paragraph as making a specific claim about Midjourney, but it did not. It was part of the general point.
The implication here being that the ability to generate a million waifu anime selfie blended pictures is somehow a crucial technology.
Unlike social media which stores and distributes, Midjourney is helping generate content, so people can still make satire through other mechanisms pretty easily - and since Midjourney isn't a distribution platform its not hurting users ability to distribute satire.
it's reasonable but it's just a purely capital-aligned choice -- the morals and ethics of it are beside the point.
They want China because it's a big market -- but Midjourney produces content -- especially political satire -- that is illegal in dozens of countries... apparently China deserves special attention.
I'll say it plain: They kowtow to China because China represents $$ for them. The "pretty-not-okay"ness is just a happy coincidence for the users who may become legal targets.
Being nice to person B threatening person A is not being nice to person A.