OpenAI Staffers Quit, Alleging Economic Research Is Drifting Into AI Advocacy

Misleading title change; original title is "OpenAI Staffer Quits, Alleging Company’s Economic Research Is Drifting Into AI Advocacy".

why is it news that a guy quits when his boss changes, and a company doesn't do enough to criticize itself? the internet is flooded with information about the risk that AI poses to jobs. cunningham now works at one of the places that likes to write stuff like that. arguably a much better fit!

Archive link: https://archive.md/4dDAA

Why would an (investor-backed) company release research that doesn't promote its own self-interest?

Wow, maybe this economist is entering their Buddha arc.

Economists are a short hop up from astrology along the line of how much science things are.

The entire field is five nines of vibe, with an occasional legitimate universal mathematical insight.

If economology were practical and useful, economists would be rich from successfully modeling markets and economies and arbitraging asynchronous information advantages. Instead, the economists that get rich do so by prognosticating and pontificating.

This guy's pet theory probably wasn't viewed as compatible with anything OpenAI wanted to be doing.

If your theory or perspective runs against the commodification of human level AI, then you probably aren't going to be a great fit at any of the big AI labs.