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0 pointsstale20021y ago0 comments

> somehow slip out of their control would be the sort of negligence that would land you in very hot water.

> how this isn't the case here.

Its not the case because they are doing the opposite of what you are suggesting. They are increasing the value of the asset that they own.

Sure, the asset itself is being diluted, but the individual parts that it owns are more valuable.

It is perfectly reasonable for a non profit to prefer to own 30% of a 100 billion dollar asset, lets say, compared to 100% of a 10 billion dollar asset.

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mlsu1y ago

Isn't the goal of a non-profit by its very definition... not profit?

The goal of the openAI non-profit is something something control the development of AI for the good of all humanity, then it seems that they explicitly shouldn't care about making $20 billion, and explicitly should care about maintaining control of openAI.

If you listen to their rhetoric, $20 billion is peanuts compared to the lightcone and the kardashev scale and whatever else.

stale2002OP1y ago

> Isn't the goal of a non-profit by its very definition... not profit?

Yes, and if you have a bunch more money then you can do more non profit activities that help the world.

Getting as much money as possible, so that the money can be used for your great cause, is the best way to effectively run a non profit.

> then it seems that they explicitly shouldn't care about making $20 billion

Of course they should, because that 20 billion dollars can be used for its goal more effectively than having control over a lower value asset.

> compared to the lightcone and the kardashev scale and whatever else.

You are pre-supposing that openAI's model itself is some magic, infinitely valuable asset already.

Its not. If it were, then it would already be worth 10 trillion dollars. But its not worth that.

Therefore the money is worth more than the asset. There are lots of other AI groups around here. OpenAI is just one of them, and they are not infinitely valuable.

achierius1y ago

While I'm sure this argument makes sense in some utilitarian world-model or another, it is definitively _not_ one that has been accepted by the courts, largely because both federal and state governments have explicitly legislated against nonprofits doing "general moneymaking" as part of their mission. We already have legal vehicles for that, they're called for-profit companies, they pay tax, and donations to them are not tax deductible.

> Getting as much money as possible, so that the money can be used for your great cause, is the best way to effectively run a non profit.

In anywhere but Silicon Valley is a great way to violate Unrelated Business Income limits and get your charitable status revoked. It is not sufficient that a non-profits "goals" be charitable, their day-to-day activities must be as well, and it's not acceptable to put off those activities until some future date when you'll "make up" for all the regular for-profit work.

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