Ask HN: Is the “open” in OpenAI just “open-washing”?

19 points by null4bl3 2 years ago | 10 comments
After reading a bit into it, I can't seem to grasp what the "open" in OpenAI is referring to, as it's main codebase is in no way, shape or form, open in any way.

Am I missing something?

  • muzani 2 years ago
    It was originally meant to be a non profit, funded by a bunch of really rich people. Turns out that they didn't have enough money to get to AGI and Elon wasn't willing to fund enough of it, rather preferring to develop AI at Tesla.

    So they went for profit, then doubled down and got into bed with Microsoft. There's a cap on profit though, a limit on ROI that investors can take. Past that point it goes back into the non profit organisation.

    There is some openness though - they purposely made ChatGPT mostly free and the API extremely cheap so that it's accessible to everyone, not just the rich.

    • ftxbro 2 years ago
      Imagine a food company sells a food that they say it has a "great new taste" but really it tastes bad. How could they do such a thing? I can't wrap my head around it. I must be missing something.
      • smoldesu 2 years ago
        I've got a bone to pick with this so-called "Seattle's Best" coffee...
      • jstx1 2 years ago
        > Am I missing something?

        What you're missing is how dead this horse is.

        • planter 2 years ago
          > What you're missing is how dead this horse is.

          Nah, it should be mentioned as often as possible, like Mark Zuckerberg stating They "trust me". Dumb fucks. Only appropriate drawing attention when an organization is deceiving.

          • smoldesu 2 years ago
            How did they decieve you, exactly? If you're only sore about their name, I think that's as poor of an argument as saying Microsoft's software ought to be smaller to match their namesake. OpenAI, as ironic as their naming convention is, owes you nothing.

            This is truly and honestly the deadest of horses. You may as well just stop referring to them as OpenAI and s/OpenAI/Microsoft AI Team. It's your choice to get mad about it, but making threads about it changes nothing. Even discussing it in these threads accomplishes nothing. Sam Altman just laughs and pours himself another Perrier, you'd think a site full of business enthusiasts would know how the game works by now.

          • meghan_rain 2 years ago
            What is the incentive of corporate apologists such as this to come in and defend a company that they have no equity in and that might monopolize LLMs causing tears in societies?
            • corobo 2 years ago
              Who's defending? Parent comment is saying this discussion is boring. I agree with parent comment.

              We get it, it's not open. Yeah we know. We hashed this out thoroughly back in 2018 when they changed. Nothing changed as a result of that, they are still named OpenAI.

              At least search "how come openai isn't open" first!

              • mynameisvlad 2 years ago
                How is someone pointing this is a dead horse that gets brought up every other day a “corporate apologist”?

                Where, exactly, did they defend the stance? All they did was point out that it’s been said ad nauseam.

                • smoldesu 2 years ago
                  Because democratized models already exist.

                  Also because many people (even on this site) have already tried lobbying for software freedom and lost.