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Comment by imdsm | Hacker News Reader

Lot of people unhappy about this yet not at all unhappy (or even caring) about the 1,000s of others who started out for profit. And while we're all here hacking away (we're hackers, right?) many of us with startups, what is it we're chasing? Profit, money, time, control. Are we different except in scale? Food for thought.

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It's not what they're doing (trying to earn money), but it's how they're doing it (in a very unethical and damaging way), while trying to whitewash themselves.

It’s criminal. Many people donated money, worked for them, gave data, etc. on the promise that OpenAI was working towards the public good. It turns out those transactions occurred under false pretenses. That’s fraud.

How is this food for thought? OpenAI had an unfair advantage by starting out as a non-profit.

What stopped others doing this? Or is stopping others doing this?

Ethics?

Their conscious? The fact they aren't pieces of shit?

I'm sorry, have we gotten so far up our own asses as a profession that we no longer just excuse unethical behavior, we actually encourage it?

> Profit, money, time, control

I feel this only scratches the surface of what to chase in life. And in respect to a potentially singular, all-knowing piece of technology, not necessarily a goal people want to embue.

In any thread about companies that have some amount of hype around them, it’s difficult to tell the difference between comments coming from people with legitimate concerns about the issues at hand vs cynical people that have found their latest excuse to glom on to outrage against hype.

Your food is undercooked

That's a little unfair.

If you don't mind me asking, what generation are you from? Perchance you're newer than me to Earth, among those who find it hard that others have different opinions?

I see your point but I think it's fine to be angry and disappointed that an outfit that appeared to be trying to do it differently has abandoned the effort.

Perhaps it's the only way to survive?

And what comes first, the mission, or being able to tell people you did your best but failed to build the thing you set out to build?

Perhaps most of us are more interested in fairness than progress, and that's fine.

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