Does anyone have guesses about how much it would cost to pay a California-licensed employment lawyer to form an opinion on this?
(edit: I don’t plan to do this, because I’m on the wrong continent and don’t really know any of the relevant people. I want this to be a prompt for someone closer to OpenAI to think about if they could make this happen.)
low thousands? Obviously haven’t seen the documents, but a few hours times few hundred dollars per billable hours should be in the ballpark. Obviously someone might want a more in-depth study before taking actions that could expose them to massive liability, though...
It would not be hard to do, but I don’t quite get the point. What’s the case for giving pro bono legal counseling to ex-OAI employees? They have the resources to coordinate and hire their own lawyers. Plaintiff-side firms have probably already reached out to them because it’s in the news. Is the idea that writing a public legal memo analyzing the contract in depth would generate EA-related goodwill among the ex-OAIs, who are likely to go on to work at other AI shops? I’m not sure if that really makes sense.
For me, the idea was “creating a stronger public / free case that these contracts are unenforceable will make former OpenAI employees more willing to speak out / seek legal assurance that they can speak out, which in general is good for us learning more about what OpenAI is doing and more appropriately reacting to it”.
I guess lots of people out there have a non-disparagement agreement that they’re not going to question because they want a quiet life. I’d like to liberate those people (so that we can use their information) if I can.
Does anyone have guesses about how much it would cost to pay a California-licensed employment lawyer to form an opinion on this?
(edit: I don’t plan to do this, because I’m on the wrong continent and don’t really know any of the relevant people. I want this to be a prompt for someone closer to OpenAI to think about if they could make this happen.)
low thousands? Obviously haven’t seen the documents, but a few hours times few hundred dollars per billable hours should be in the ballpark. Obviously someone might want a more in-depth study before taking actions that could expose them to massive liability, though...
If someone has a good plan for how to make good/useful things happen here, but requires funding for it, please contact me.
It would not be hard to do, but I don’t quite get the point. What’s the case for giving pro bono legal counseling to ex-OAI employees? They have the resources to coordinate and hire their own lawyers. Plaintiff-side firms have probably already reached out to them because it’s in the news. Is the idea that writing a public legal memo analyzing the contract in depth would generate EA-related goodwill among the ex-OAIs, who are likely to go on to work at other AI shops? I’m not sure if that really makes sense.
For me, the idea was “creating a stronger public / free case that these contracts are unenforceable will make former OpenAI employees more willing to speak out / seek legal assurance that they can speak out, which in general is good for us learning more about what OpenAI is doing and more appropriately reacting to it”.
I guess lots of people out there have a non-disparagement agreement that they’re not going to question because they want a quiet life. I’d like to liberate those people (so that we can use their information) if I can.
Thanks, that’s a helpful clarification.
I agree it’s not clear there’s anything useful to be done, which is why I asked for a good plan.