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Comment by noonething | Hacker News Reader

I hope they go back to being Open now that Altman is gone. It seems Ilya wants it to 'benefit all of humanity' again.

From what I've seen, Ilya seems to be even more concerned than Altman about safety risks and, like Altman, seems to see restricting access and information as a key part of managing that, so I'd expect less openness, not more.

Though he may be less inclined to see closed-but-commercial access as okay as much as Altman, so while it might involve less total access, it might involve more actual open/public information about what is also made commercially available.

Things can improve along a dimension you choose to measure but there is also the very real risk of openai imploding. Time will tell.

Means free Gpt4?

Ps: It's a serious question

I don’t think so. I think it means OpenAI releasing papers again and slower, less product-focused releases

Won't a truly open model conflict with the AI executive order?

What do you mean by AI executive order?

https://hai.stanford.edu/news/decoding-white-house-ai-execut...

Isn’t that a bit like stealing from the for-profit investors? I’m not the first one to shed a tear for the super wealthy, but is that even legal? Can a company you invested in just say they don’t like profit any more?

Unless you have something in writing or you have enough ownership to say no, I don’t see how you’d be able to stop it.

Microsoft reportedly invested 13 billion dollars and has a generous profit sharing agreement. They don’t have enough to control OpenAI, but does that mean the company can actively steer away from profit?

> They don’t have enough to control OpenAI

Especially since the operating government effectively gives the nonprofit board full control.

> They don’t have enough to control OpenAI, but does that mean the company can actively steer away from profit?

Yes. Explicitly so. https://openai.com/our-structure and particularly https://images.openai.com/blob/142770fb-3df2-45d9-9ee3-7aa06...

Yes. Microsoft had to sign an operating agreement when they invested that said the company has no responsibility or obligation to turn a profit. LLCs are able to structure themselves in such a way that their primary duty is not towards their shareholders.

https://openai.com/our-structure - check out the pinkish-purpleish box. Every investor and employee in the for-profit has to agree to this as a condition of their investment/employment.

Just the pure chutzpah to say

> with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world

They have something in writing. OpenAI created a for-profit joint venture company with microsoft, and gave it license to its technology.

Exclusive license?

No clue, but I guess not.

They knew it when they donated to a non-profit. In fact trying to extract profit from a 501c could be the core of the problem.

Microsoft didnt give money to a non-profit. They created a for profit company, and microsoft gave that company 11B, and Open AI gave it the technology.

OpenAI shares ownership of that for-profit company with Microsoft and Early investors like Sam, Greg, Musk, Theil, Bezos, the employees of that company.

While technically true, in practicality, they did give money to the non-profit. The even signed an agreement stating that any investments should be considered more as donations, because the for-profit subsidiary's operating agreement is such that the charter and mission of the non-profit are the primary duty of the for-profit, not making money. This is explicitly called out in the agreement that all investors in and employees of the for-profit must sign. LLCs can be structured so that they are beholden to a different goal than the financial enrichment of their shareholders.

https://openai.com/our-structure

I don't dispute that they say that at all. Therein lies the tension -having multiple goals. The goal is to uphold the mission, and also to make a profit, and the mission comes first.

Im not saying one party is right or wrong, just pointing out that there is bound to be conflict when you give employees a bunch of profit based stock rewards, Bring in in 11B in VC investment looking for returns, and then have external oversight with all the control setting the balance between profit and mission.

The disclaimer says "It would be wise to see the the investment in OpenAI Global in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world"

That doesnt mean investors and employees wont want money, and few will be scared off by owning a company so wildly successful that it ushers in a post scarcity world.

You have partners and employees that want to make profit, and that is fundamental to why some of them are there, especially Microsoft. The expectation of possible profits are clear, because that is why the company exists, and why microsoft has a deal where they get 75% of profit until they recoup their 11 Billion investment. I read the returns are capped at 100X investment, so if holds true, Microsoft returns are capped at 1.1 Trillion dollars.

100x first-round investment and lower multiples for subsequent rounds, so much less than $1T.

what do you mean? Are you saying that is part of the article of incorporation for for-profit Open AI?

> Returns for our first round of investors are capped at 100x their investment (commensurate with the risks in front of us), and we expect this multiple to be lower for future rounds as we make further progress.

https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp

So microsoft got in at round 1, and then round 2 for some nebulous multiple which may or may not be less than than.

These weasel words are not proof of anything

Microsoft's first-round investment totals $1bn at most. Nothing public substantiates a profit cap of $1tn.

1t would be the 100x times 10B. I guess in absence of public information, we could assume anything. Default terms of unlimited, 100x for 1T or some arbitrarily lower number

> Isn’t that a bit like stealing from the for-profit investors? I

https://images.openai.com/blob/142770fb-3df2-45d9-9ee3-7aa06...

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