I just learned that Lawrence Lessig, the lawyer who is/was representing Daniel Kokateljo and other OpenAI employees, supported and encouraged electors to be faithless and vote against Trump in 2016.
He wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post (archived) and offered free legal support. The faithless elector story was covered by Politico, and was also supported by Mark Ruffalo (the actor who recently supported SB-1047).
I think this was clearly an attempt to steal an election and would discourage anyone from working with him.
I expect someone to eventually sue AGI companies for endangering humanity, and I hope that Lessig won’t be involved.
I don’t understand why so many are disagreeing with this quick take, and would be curious to know whether it’s on normative or empirical grounds, and if so where exactly the disagreement lies. (I personally neither agree nor disagree as I don’t know enough about it.)
From some quick searching, Lessig’s best defence against accusations that he tried to steal an election seems to be that he wanted to resolve a constitutional uncertainty. E.g.,: “In a statement released after the opinion was announced, Lessig said that ‘regardless of the outcome, it was critical to resolve this question before it created a constitutional crisis’. He continued: ‘Obviously, we don’t believe the court has interpreted the Constitution correctly. But we are happy that we have achieved our primary objective—this uncertainty has been removed. That is progress.’”
But it sure seems like the timing and nature of that effort (post-election, specifically targeting Trump electors) suggest some political motivation rather than purely constitutional concerns. As best as I can tell, it’s in the same general category of efforts as Giuliani’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, though importantly different in that Giuliani (a) had the support and close collaboration of the incumbent, (b) seemed to actually commit crimes doing so, and (c) did not respect court decisions the way Lessig did.
I just learned that Lawrence Lessig, the lawyer who is/was representing Daniel Kokateljo and other OpenAI employees, supported and encouraged electors to be faithless and vote against Trump in 2016.
He wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post (archived) and offered free legal support. The faithless elector story was covered by Politico, and was also supported by Mark Ruffalo (the actor who recently supported SB-1047).
I think this was clearly an attempt to steal an election and would discourage anyone from working with him.
I expect someone to eventually sue AGI companies for endangering humanity, and I hope that Lessig won’t be involved.
I don’t understand why so many are disagreeing with this quick take, and would be curious to know whether it’s on normative or empirical grounds, and if so where exactly the disagreement lies. (I personally neither agree nor disagree as I don’t know enough about it.)
From some quick searching, Lessig’s best defence against accusations that he tried to steal an election seems to be that he wanted to resolve a constitutional uncertainty. E.g.,: “In a statement released after the opinion was announced, Lessig said that ‘regardless of the outcome, it was critical to resolve this question before it created a constitutional crisis’. He continued: ‘Obviously, we don’t believe the court has interpreted the Constitution correctly. But we are happy that we have achieved our primary objective—this uncertainty has been removed. That is progress.’”
But it sure seems like the timing and nature of that effort (post-election, specifically targeting Trump electors) suggest some political motivation rather than purely constitutional concerns. As best as I can tell, it’s in the same general category of efforts as Giuliani’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, though importantly different in that Giuliani (a) had the support and close collaboration of the incumbent, (b) seemed to actually commit crimes doing so, and (c) did not respect court decisions the way Lessig did.