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Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

"Tools for me, but not for thee."

I think the fundamental conflict here is that OpenAI was started as a counter-balance to google AI and all other future resource-rich cos that decide to pursue AI BUT at the same time they needed a socially responsible / ethical vector to piggyback off of to be able to raise money and recruit talent as a non profit.

So, they cant release science that the googles of the world can use to their advantage BUT they kind of have to because that's their whole mission.

The whole thing was sort of dead on arrival and Ilya's email dating to 2016 (!!!!) only amplifies that.

When the tools are (believed to be) more dangerous than nuclear weapons, and the "thee" is potentially irresponsible and/or antagonists, then... yes? This is a valid (and moral) position.

If so, then they shouldn’t have started down that path by refusing to open source 1.5B for a long time while citing safety concerns. It’s obvious that it never posed any kind of threat, and to date no language model has. None have even been close to threatening.

The comparison to nuclear weapons has always been mistaken.

Oh I'm talking about the ideal, not what they're actually doing.

Sadly one can’t be separated from the other. I’d agree if it was true. But there’s no evidence it ever has been.

One thought experiment is to imagine someone developing software with a promise to open source the benign parts, then withholding most of it for business reasons while citing aliens as a concern.

> One thought experiment is to imagine someone developing software with a promise to open source the benign parts, then withholding most of it for business reasons while citing aliens as a concern.

I mean, I'm totally with them on the fear of AI safety. I'm definitely in the "we need to be very scared of AI" camp. Actually the alien thought experiment is nice - because if we credibly believed aliens would come to earth in the next 50 years, I think there's a lot of things we would/should do differently, and I think it's hard to argue that there's no credible fear of reaching AGI within 50 years.

That said, I think OpenAI is still problematic, since they're effectively hastening the arrival of the thing they supposedly fear. :shrug:

It makes people feel mistrusted (which they are, and in general should be.) it’s a bit challenging to overcome that.

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