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Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty heavily implied by OpenAI's charter: https://openai.com/charter

It's weird to me that Helen is getting so much crap for upholding the charter. No one objected to the charter at the time it was published. The charter was always available for employees, investors, and customers to read. Did everyone expect it to be ignored when push came to shove?

There's a lot of pressure on Helen right now from people who have a financial stake in this situation, but it's right there in the charter that OpenAI's primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. If employees/investors/customers weren't OK with that, they should not have worked with OpenAI.

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Investors wanted to have a commercial enterprise while pretending it was a nonprofit acting for the good of humanity. This helps market something as scary and potentially destructive as AI. "It can't be that bad, they're a nonprofit with altruistic goals!" Then the investors get mad when the board they intended to be figureheads actually try to uphold some principles.

Best to rip the band-aid off and stop pretending.

Let’s assume this happened. Then everyone would make everything in their power to get their old CEO back which made this possible. Oh wait.

Ya which is why Sam should just start a new company, maybe spend a few months to catch back up but then it won't be tied down to any of this shenanigans. It's the best solution imo.

I have a feeling that's exactly what he's doing at Microsoft; at some point their "AI lab" will be spun off into a new company.

I think you have it backwards. OpenAI specifically sought out investors because they couldn't fulfill their mission without the infrastructure to do it. Investors don't just give money away -- it's in the name itself -- they're investing. The point is for the commercial enterprise to provide a return on their investment.

OpenAI is a non-profit running this commercial enterprise but they are seemingly at odds with that enterprise. Investors should rightly be very concerned about the future of their investment.

The OpenAI prominently states that any investment should be thought of as a donation. Literally in a bold pinkish-red box that describes its corporate structure.

An investor might read that and think they don't actually mean it, but you can't claim they weren't clear about the nature of any required investment.

OpenAI explicitly created a for profit company to take these investments. It's disingenuous to reframe it as a charity.

The bold purple box is explicitly talking about “OpenAI Global, LLC”, which _is_ the “for profit” company.

See also: “OpenAI LP’s primary fiduciary obligation is to advance the aims of the OpenAI Charter, and the company is controlled by OpenAI Nonprofit’s board. All investors and employees sign agreements that OpenAI LP’s obligation to the Charter always comes first, even at the expense of some or all of their financial stake.” --https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp

To emphasize, they will not take your investment money until you've signed an agreement saying that you're aware of all of this.

Those investors were appropriately warned of this possibility:

> IMPORTANT

> *Investing in OpenAl Global, LLC is a high-risk investment*

> *Investors could lose their capital contribution and not see any return*

> *It would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI Global, LLC 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*

> The Company exists to advance OpenAl, Inc.'s mission of ensuring that safe artificial general intelligence is developed and benefits all of humanity. The Company's duty to this mission and the principles advanced in the OpenAl, Inc. Charter take precedence over any obligation to generate a profit. The Company may never make a profit, and the Company is under no obligation to do so. The Company is free to re-invest any or all of the Company's cash flow into research and development activities and/or related expenses without any obligation to the Members.

I guess maybe they thought it was the same boilerplate every prospectus has?

High-risk investments are not rare. To argue that OpenAI can do whatever they want for whatever reason because they state that it's high-risk is not how anything works.

Investors should rightly be concerned about things like gross negligence, active sabotage, or simple infighting. These are all current human concerns and not at all that AGI will destroy the concept of money rendering all investments pointless.

Most high-risk investments still come with an understanding that the recipient will have a duty to the investor, making decisions that they believe in good-faith will lead to a return on that investment on some time-frame.

This one is very much an explicit, "You're giving us a donation. Don't expect a return." It's in an impossible-to-miss pink box. They can't be more clear about this.

If investors are concerned about those things, then they should not give money to people who pointedly leave those things on the table. Like this one:

> The Nonprofit’s principal beneficiary is humanity, not OpenAI investors.

Also, Microsoft got something for their money already. They have an independent license to the tech they can run themselves and iterate on.

The OpenAI board has no duty to Microsoft to get their input. MS might have believed their investment amounted to de facto control, but they're wrong.

I think they make it quite clear what they mean by statement. If they wish to accept donations they can freely do so but they did not. It's an investment with all the current expectations. Any investor based on that statement should expect either a return or the end of capitalism itself.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Altman himself set this structure up. The real story here is a live by the sword, die by the sword parable.

Similarly, Microsoft is coming across as blameless here, but there’s a reason Satya went on a full court press. They committed tremendous resources and money to an unpredictable business structure that is fundamentally not aligned with the profit motive - in its very charter.

The thing is doing exactly what the thing was supposed to do. The only reason it’s surprising to anyone is because people assume OpenAI is a for profit entity.

Also, Sam himself repeatedly used the charter as marketing, and as a recruiting tool for AI researchers that could have gone anywhere they wanted (e.g. Ilya)

He was basically making the argument that AGI is better under OpenAI than Google.

Now they're implicitly making the argument that it's better under Microsoft, which is difficult for me to believe.

Turns out for a lot of people it's easy to be on board with a high minded charter until it might cost something.

Not surprising to me at all, in approximate order of real, practical importance (and power, if they all band together):

employees founder/CEO customers investors board stuff written on pieces of paper

Yes, there are certainly exceptions (a very powerful founder, highly replaceable and disorganised employees, investor or board member who wields unusual power/leverage, etc.) but it does not surprise me at all that the charter should get ignored/twisted/modified when basically everyone but the board wills it.

The only surprise is that anyone thought this approach and structure would be helpful in somehow securing AI safety.

stuff written on pieces of paper, such as history, laws, contracts, and banknote denominations, turn out to be surprisingly important when groups of people too large to all know one another try to work together

This charter doesn't have a sole interpretation, and shame on Helen for strong arming her view and ruining the lives of so many people.

If there is something completely clear, its that OpenAI cannot uphold its charter without labour. She has ruined that, and thus failed in upholding the charter. There were many different paths to take, she took the worst one.

It all smacks of someone given the power to do something who then has to do that something, even if it is on a pretext. Power is best exercised by restraint, not by action, until there is no other way.

I really don't know the full story here, but I will note that when women in power do their job, their actions are frequently interpreted in an ugly and uncharitable way that men are less likely to get.

They get characterized as "bossy", like it's an ugly personality trait, and not like they are the boss and it's their job to do something about a thing.

Who's life has been ruined? Did I miss something?

Ask the labour class at OpenAI. They are not in the privileged position the capital class on the board find themselves in.

As an academic, we can be fairly certain that Helen makes way less money than top AI talent

>her view and ruining the lives of so many people.

..and had Altman just accepted he was fired and walked away, OpenAI would have just looked bruised and not like the broken state it does now...

I don't think the current state for the employees is just on her. It's the result of both sides fighting for governance and willing to see the organization disabled if their side loses.

Oh please... Can't you see how meaningless the phraes 'goodness of humanity' is? If only something like that can be so readily known!

yes, and what about my needs, huh?

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