Personally, I see this as a misunderstanding, i.e. that OP helped OpenAI to come into existence and it might not have happened otherwise.
I think some people have this misunderstanding, and I think it’s useful to address it.
With that in mind, much of the time, I don’t think people who are saying “do those benefits outweigh the potential harms” are assuming that the counterfactual was “no OpenAI.” I think they’re assuming the counterfactual is something like “OpenAI has less money, or has to take somewhat less favorable deals with investors, or has to do something that it thought would be less desirable than ‘selling’ a board seat to Open Phil.”
(I don’t consider myself to have strong takes on this debate, and I think there are lots of details I’m missing. I have spoken to some people who seem invested in this debate, though.)
My current ITT of a reasonable person who thinks the harms outweighed the benefits says something like this: “OP’s investment seems likely to have accelerated OpenAI’s progress and affected the overall rate of AI progress. If OP had not invested, OpenAI likely would have had to do something else that was worse for them (from a fundraising perspective) which could have slowed down OpenAI and thus slowed down overall AI progress.”
Perhaps this view is mistaken (e.g., maybe OpenAI would have just fundraised sooner and started the for-profit entity sooner). But (at first glance), giving up a board seat seems pretty costly, which makes me wonder why OpenAI would choose to give up the board seat if they had some less costly alternatives.
(I also find it plausible that the benefits outweighed the costs, though my ITT of a reasonable person on the other side says something like “what were the benefits? Are there any clear wins that are sharable?”)
Unless it’s a hostile situation (as might happen with public cos/activist investors), I don’t think it’s actually that costly. At seed stage, it’s just kind of normal to give board seats to major “investors”, and you want to have a good relationship with both your major investors and your board.
The attitude Sam had at the time was less “please make this grant so that we don’t have to take a bad deal somewhere else, and we’re willing to ‘sell’ you a board seat to close the deal” and more “hey would you like to join in on this? we’d love to have you. no worries if not.”
Thanks for this context. Is it reasonable to infer that you think that OpenAI would’ve got a roughly-equally-desirable investment if OP had not invested? (Such that the OP investment had basically no effect on acceleration?)
I think some people have this misunderstanding, and I think it’s useful to address it.
With that in mind, much of the time, I don’t think people who are saying “do those benefits outweigh the potential harms” are assuming that the counterfactual was “no OpenAI.” I think they’re assuming the counterfactual is something like “OpenAI has less money, or has to take somewhat less favorable deals with investors, or has to do something that it thought would be less desirable than ‘selling’ a board seat to Open Phil.”
(I don’t consider myself to have strong takes on this debate, and I think there are lots of details I’m missing. I have spoken to some people who seem invested in this debate, though.)
My current ITT of a reasonable person who thinks the harms outweighed the benefits says something like this: “OP’s investment seems likely to have accelerated OpenAI’s progress and affected the overall rate of AI progress. If OP had not invested, OpenAI likely would have had to do something else that was worse for them (from a fundraising perspective) which could have slowed down OpenAI and thus slowed down overall AI progress.”
Perhaps this view is mistaken (e.g., maybe OpenAI would have just fundraised sooner and started the for-profit entity sooner). But (at first glance), giving up a board seat seems pretty costly, which makes me wonder why OpenAI would choose to give up the board seat if they had some less costly alternatives.
(I also find it plausible that the benefits outweighed the costs, though my ITT of a reasonable person on the other side says something like “what were the benefits? Are there any clear wins that are sharable?”)
Unless it’s a hostile situation (as might happen with public cos/activist investors), I don’t think it’s actually that costly. At seed stage, it’s just kind of normal to give board seats to major “investors”, and you want to have a good relationship with both your major investors and your board.
The attitude Sam had at the time was less “please make this grant so that we don’t have to take a bad deal somewhere else, and we’re willing to ‘sell’ you a board seat to close the deal” and more “hey would you like to join in on this? we’d love to have you. no worries if not.”
Thanks for this context. Is it reasonable to infer that you think that OpenAI would’ve got a roughly-equally-desirable investment if OP had not invested? (Such that the OP investment had basically no effect on acceleration?)
Yes that’s my position. My hope is we actually slowed acceleration by participating but I’m quite skeptical of the view that we added to it.
Thanks! I found this context useful.