You collapse it into an EU technocratic outlook, you discount all its interesting claims that are grounded in prior Catholic thinking, and then you look around and shrug and assert it's not that religious? Big xkcd.com/1112 energy. Sorry to say it, but you're continuing to fail the ITT here.
If you're looking for an intuition pump on this, consider that unlike ~every claim in the secular public square, a statement in support of X by the Pope is not equivalent to saying that X must be achieved by institutions, laws, or any political means. The Pope really is urging _individuals_ and _communities_ to adopt his guidance, because he thinks it's good _for them_ regardless of any other consequence! This is one source for which moral and, yes, spiritual suasion at scale can't be discounted as a plausible endgame in itself.
Regarding OpenAI’s relationship with LTF, there seem to be 3 broad possibilities:
- OpenAI indirectly funded LTF via Brockman/Lehane and is lying about it to the public and its employees
- Brockman funded LTF himself independently
- Something in between; e.g., Brockman asked asked some subordinate coworkers for advice on PACs, they gave their boss a couple of pointers/people to talk to, but didn’t do any real work or direction setting
What gives you the confidence that #1 is the universe we live in? A priori, all seem possible to me and there hasn’t been strong evidence to rule out #2 and #3.
I’ll commit to quitting my job if #1 is shown to be true. Until then, I will keep an open mind.
I don’t work at OpenAI. There is tons of circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy theory here, much of it in this post, including that Chris Lehane works for you and is known, even brags about, being a dirty fighter. That's it, that's his brand. Oh, and your CEO has made it abundantly clear that his default mode is to say what people in front of him want to hear that is also most favourable to his goals, with essentially zero regard for whether that thing is true or not.
Oh and the absolute failure to actually issue a denial.
> There is tons of circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy theory here, much of it in this post, including that Chris Lehane works for you and is known, even brags about, being a dirty fighter.
Can you point me to the circumstantial evidence? I asked Opus 4.8 to search for where Chris Lehane bragged about being a dirty fighter, but it replied:
> I searched for a specific instance of Chris Lehane bragging about being a "dirty fighter," and I couldn't find one.
Even if Chris did brag about being a dirty fighter at some point in the past, it doesn't seem like strong evidence about what happened in this particular case. I can imagine worlds where he previously bragged about being a dirty fighter and was involved with this PAC, as well as worlds where he previously bragged about being a dirty fighter and as not involved with this PAC.
I'm happy to change my mind but I'll have to see evidence.
First, thank you for engaging, it does raise my opinion of OpenAI that you do so.
Second, apologies, I got the Chris Lehane thing wrong. He has not bragged about this and the "you and your family" line I had in mind was not him personally.
Finally, yes, that is a denial of many things. But not of what is accused, which is that OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog. It is very unusual for a C-suite exec like Brockman to have "personal" but public views that don't reflect the company he's a senior executive of!
> OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog.
Which OpenAI employees co-founded LTF?
I personally don't know what happened. It's possible there's a conspiracy and they're lying to all of us. It's also possible that Greg Brockman had his personal views, asked a coworker for some old PAC contacts, heard a pitch from LTF saying they'd fight bad regulation, gave some money, and was disappointed/embarrassed that the group of people he gave money to were incredibly dumb.
I think LTF is terrible and I hope Greg Brockman regrets his donation. But from what I've been told, he really did give in a personal capacity and not on behalf of OpenAI. I also appreciate, for what it's worth, that he chose to donate transparently, rather than hiding it, which I believe is a thing that can be done.
One datapoint that LTF is not an agent of OpenAI is that it's (a) terrible, (b), ineffective, and (c) hurting OpenAI's reputation. Maybe I'm gullible, but I'd like to think that if we had a secret PAC we'd do a better job of it.
That said, I can only speak for myself as an individual, and I really don't know what happened. If new information comes to light, I'll be happy to change my mind. And if LTF is revealed to have been an agent of OpenAI, I will commit to quitting my job.
Note: Scott Weiner didn't exactly "win his primary" - he finished first in a race where the top two go to the general election, and it seems that his opponent in that general election will be the person endorsed by Nancy Pelosi. His primary vote is quite a bit higher than hers, but it falls below 50%, and a good chunk of the candidates that don't make it to the runoff are likely to have supporters that will coalesce against him.
AI labs distilled all of human knowledge, much of it copyrighted and unlicensed, and then have the nerve to complain about "distillation attacks" from competitors. It's not obvious to me Bernie Sanders is wrong, if you're going to say "no" despite the needlessness, maybe explain why, exactly.
Also: if AI might be a moral patient, it might be an immoral product. This is especially true in domains where its use might lead to harm and cannot be refused (e.g., the military).
First, thank you for engaging, itj does raise my opinion of OpenAI that you do so.
Second, apologies, I got the Chris Lehane thing wrong. He has not bragged about this and the "you and your family" line I had in mind was not him personally.
Finally, yes, that is a denial of many things. But not of what is accused, which is that OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog.
At the end they say they support regulation bla bla... until SB315, to my knowledge OpenAI has never actually supported, rather has concretely opposed every regulation ever mentioned (except preemption by David Sacks).
You should read the rest in that light: not false, not complete.
> I do agree it is not that religious a document
You collapse it into an EU technocratic outlook, you discount all its interesting claims that are grounded in prior Catholic thinking, and then you look around and shrug and assert it's not that religious? Big xkcd.com/1112 energy. Sorry to say it, but you're continuing to fail the ITT here.
If you're looking for an intuition pump on this, consider that unlike ~every claim in the secular public square, a statement in support of X by the Pope is not equivalent to saying that X must be achieved by institutions, laws, or any political means. The Pope really is urging _individuals_ and _communities_ to adopt his guidance, because he thinks it's good _for them_ regardless of any other consequence! This is one source for which moral and, yes, spiritual suasion at scale can't be discounted as a plausible endgame in itself.
I work at OpenAI. I might be gullible.
Regarding OpenAI’s relationship with LTF, there seem to be 3 broad possibilities:
- OpenAI indirectly funded LTF via Brockman/Lehane and is lying about it to the public and its employees
- Brockman funded LTF himself independently
- Something in between; e.g., Brockman asked asked some subordinate coworkers for advice on PACs, they gave their boss a couple of pointers/people to talk to, but didn’t do any real work or direction setting
What gives you the confidence that #1 is the universe we live in? A priori, all seem possible to me and there hasn’t been strong evidence to rule out #2 and #3.
I’ll commit to quitting my job if #1 is shown to be true. Until then, I will keep an open mind.
I don’t work at OpenAI. There is tons of circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy theory here, much of it in this post, including that Chris Lehane works for you and is known, even brags about, being a dirty fighter. That's it, that's his brand. Oh, and your CEO has made it abundantly clear that his default mode is to say what people in front of him want to hear that is also most favourable to his goals, with essentially zero regard for whether that thing is true or not.
Oh and the absolute failure to actually issue a denial.
> Oh and the absolute failure to actually issue a denial.
Isn't this a denial? https://openai.com/index/our-views-on-ai-policy-and-political-advocacy/
> There is tons of circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy theory here, much of it in this post, including that Chris Lehane works for you and is known, even brags about, being a dirty fighter.
Can you point me to the circumstantial evidence? I asked Opus 4.8 to search for where Chris Lehane bragged about being a dirty fighter, but it replied:
> I searched for a specific instance of Chris Lehane bragging about being a "dirty fighter," and I couldn't find one.
Even if Chris did brag about being a dirty fighter at some point in the past, it doesn't seem like strong evidence about what happened in this particular case. I can imagine worlds where he previously bragged about being a dirty fighter and was involved with this PAC, as well as worlds where he previously bragged about being a dirty fighter and as not involved with this PAC.
I'm happy to change my mind but I'll have to see evidence.
First, thank you for engaging, it does raise my opinion of OpenAI that you do so.
Second, apologies, I got the Chris Lehane thing wrong. He has not bragged about this and the "you and your family" line I had in mind was not him personally.
Finally, yes, that is a denial of many things. But not of what is accused, which is that OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog. It is very unusual for a C-suite exec like Brockman to have "personal" but public views that don't reflect the company he's a senior executive of!
> OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog.
Which OpenAI employees co-founded LTF?
I personally don't know what happened. It's possible there's a conspiracy and they're lying to all of us. It's also possible that Greg Brockman had his personal views, asked a coworker for some old PAC contacts, heard a pitch from LTF saying they'd fight bad regulation, gave some money, and was disappointed/embarrassed that the group of people he gave money to were incredibly dumb.
I think LTF is terrible and I hope Greg Brockman regrets his donation. But from what I've been told, he really did give in a personal capacity and not on behalf of OpenAI. I also appreciate, for what it's worth, that he chose to donate transparently, rather than hiding it, which I believe is a thing that can be done.
One datapoint that LTF is not an agent of OpenAI is that it's (a) terrible, (b), ineffective, and (c) hurting OpenAI's reputation. Maybe I'm gullible, but I'd like to think that if we had a secret PAC we'd do a better job of it.
That said, I can only speak for myself as an individual, and I really don't know what happened. If new information comes to light, I'll be happy to change my mind. And if LTF is revealed to have been an agent of OpenAI, I will commit to quitting my job.
Link to Danielle doesn't work, this one does: https://dwiedemann.com
Will update if I find more as I read.
Alright I'm going to need someone to explain what "It's a good model, sir" is a reference to.
Is it this? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/she-laughs-and-says-its-a-good-x-sir
Note: Scott Weiner didn't exactly "win his primary" - he finished first in a race where the top two go to the general election, and it seems that his opponent in that general election will be the person endorsed by Nancy Pelosi. His primary vote is quite a bit higher than hers, but it falls below 50%, and a good chunk of the candidates that don't make it to the runoff are likely to have supporters that will coalesce against him.
AI labs distilled all of human knowledge, much of it copyrighted and unlicensed, and then have the nerve to complain about "distillation attacks" from competitors. It's not obvious to me Bernie Sanders is wrong, if you're going to say "no" despite the needlessness, maybe explain why, exactly.
Also: if AI might be a moral patient, it might be an immoral product. This is especially true in domains where its use might lead to harm and cannot be refused (e.g., the military).
Re 4.8 getting confused: I've had this happen in ways that clearly weren't disagreeing with me, just
Me: "I'd like to add feature x unless y is a problem"
It: "z (similar to y) might be a problem with w (unrelated to x and not a feature I wanted or asked about)".
Followed by a series of comments where I had quite a hard time bringing back the topic (eventually just started a new conversation).
4.8 is better overall, but this is a failure mode I didn't get in 4.7.
First, thank you for engaging, itj does raise my opinion of OpenAI that you do so.
Second, apologies, I got the Chris Lehane thing wrong. He has not bragged about this and the "you and your family" line I had in mind was not him personally.
Finally, yes, that is a denial of many things. But not of what is accused, which is that OpenAI _employees_ who happened to be all in senior management co-founded LTF to act as OpenAI's unofficial attack dog.
At the end they say they support regulation bla bla... until SB315, to my knowledge OpenAI has never actually supported, rather has concretely opposed every regulation ever mentioned (except preemption by David Sacks).
You should read the rest in that light: not false, not complete.
The company that spent $500 million on Claude is probably Amazon.