Comment by JohnnyMarcone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnnyMarcone | Hacker News Reader

I understand the criticisms in this thread and, based on tech leaders actions in the past, am inclined to agree with them. If only to not feel naive.

However, given the extremely competitive environment for AI, if Sam Altman and OpenAI were altruistic and wanted to create a company that benefited everyone, what options do they have moving forward? Do people here think that they can remain competitive with their current structure. Would they actually be able to get investor support to continue scaling the models?

The question remains in the back of my mind, can you create an organization like OpenAI claims they want to create in our current system? If someone came along and truly wanted to create that organization, would you be able to tell the difference between someone just grifting?

There‘s a whole movement called Purpose Companies that tries to answer it. Some companies like Patagonia, Bosch, Ableton, and most Danish companies like Maersk follow it. It’s unclear what other formats OpenAI has explored, and if so, what reasons they found not to pursue them.

At the end of the day, I do agree though that it’s insanely hard to innovate both on the product and a company structure. It’s quite sad that we don’t see OpenAI innovate in the org area anymore, but understandable from my POV.

What they claim to want to create is a for-profit organization that replaces "most economically valuable work".

Putting aside the enormous capital, technical and energetic hurdles - where would the profits come from?

Sam's idea seems to be that governments will have to give people basic income, but he is not really an ally to the UBI movement, because in his vision mainly what needs to be bought is access to OpenAI's computer systems.

To be honest it is the onus of the venture capital class to prove they are not grifters. Talk is extremely cheap compared to the resources at their disposal. And to be fair most of them do not even claim to be altruists.

They just raised $6B. That’s like at the tippy top of a VC round in human history.

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