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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

I want to understand this more, so can someone please ELI5 what the theft in the article actually is? Theft implies someone lost something. I think it's theft from the non-profit? But what does that mean? Is it theft of taxes because of the wealth accumulated in the non-profit was not taxed according to how it would have been for a for-profit entity?

EDIT: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. I read the article and it's not clear to me. The entire article is written with the assumption that the reader knows what the author is thinking.

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It seems like you're mixing "I don't understand X" with what's effectively an argument that X is false. Perhaps people feel that there's some bad faith in that approach.

Also, the article is very clear - the wealth transfer is moving the money/capital controlled by a non-profit to stockholders of a for-profit company. The non-profit lost that property, the share holders gained that property. It seems like taking an implicit assumption something like "the same people are running the for-profit on the same basis they ran the non-profit so where's the theft" - feel free to make that argument but mix the claim with "I don't understand" doesn't seem like a fair approach.

I'm absolutely not arguing that X is false, because I don't know what X is, and I am arguing in good faith. I will follow up with the question: if the non-profit and the for-profit are owned by the same shareholders, what is the theft? Is this not a legal transfer between business entities?

I am also a somewhat harsh critic of Sam Altman (mostly around theft of IP used to train models, and around his odd obsession with gathering biometrics of people). So I'm honestly looking for answers here to understand, again, what wrongdoing is being done?

I'm not 100% clear myself but I think that the criticism is that what was supposed to be a non-profit delivering world-changing technology for the public good was bullied/manipulated into a for-profit entity that would enrich investors and consolidate power among the wealthy.

So the "theft" is the wealthy stealing the benefits of AGI from the people. I think.

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