It is so easy to make impossible promises for a tasty soundbite. But the absolute and undeniable fact is that Altman and the other owners of OpenAI didn’t hesitate for a second before signing the deal with Microsoft that promised Microsoft all of the profits until and unless all of Microsoft’s investment is repaid. Not one peep or quibble about maybe Microsoft having 90% or 95% and just 5% going into research into the socio-economic impact of their breaking ranks with all the other AI developers who’d carefully been releasing and using LLMs and AI in smaller, more measurable ways.
It is a very different arrangement to that the CEO of DeepMind made when Google bought them outright (not the mere 49% share Microsoft bought of OpenAI for 100% of the profits)… If you’re unfamilar with the differences, do a little digging. I’m less impressed by Altman, though I think better of him than I did after his interview with ABC that’s linked to elsewhere in the forum. It is possible that he did genuinely believe that the only way AI would get the attention, rules, and discussions that are needed, urgently, was by making it happen (easier to seek forgiveness than permission) and he just ‘happens’ to benefit massively financially and in fame/power/prestige by that ‘altruistic’ gesture… 