Paranoia is pervasive in Silicon Valley, with founders frequently fearing idea theft or staff poaching, sometimes justified. OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman originally presented sanguine predictions about artificial general intelligence (AGI) while operating as a nonprofit dedicated to building AGI safely, with profit secondary. OpenAI has pursued a conversion to a for-profit model to fund expanding AI efforts, provoking opposition from figures like Elon Musk, California legislators, and AI safety advocates. OpenAI executives have come to suspect that disparate opponents are colluding and being funded by opaque billionaire interests to undermine the company. The AI governance nonprofit Encode reports aggressive legal pressure, including a subpoena delivered to its general counsel.
Paranoia is as natural to Silicon Valley as lip fillers are to Los Angeles. In the Bay Area, you can't throw a rock without hitting a startup founder convinced everyone is out to steal his ideas or poach his staff - a state of mind reaffirmed by the fact that sometimes, people very much are trying to rip off their competitors.
Until the last few years, OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, seemed above that fracas. Altman's sanguine predictions about artificial general intelligence (AGI), a benchmark at which AI reaches would human smarts, didn't feel like a money grab - his company was a nonprofit dedicated to building AGI safely, and making money was beside the point. But that relaxed buoyancy is long gone.
With their goals as disparate as their backgrounds, these organizations, individuals, and institutions wouldn't be natural bedfellows - but apparently, as the San Francisco Standard reports, Altman and other ranking OpenAI executives have began to think at some point that they all are working together, funded by some murky billionaire antagonists, to bring about the ChatGPT maker's demise. One of the groups targeted by OpenAI, the AI governance nonprofit Encode, has had a particularly egregious experience dealing with the company's legal might.
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