Pivoting from "for all mankind" to "all for myself" would make me deeply uncomfortable, too. The change from one position to the other, not either position in any absolute sense, is the concerning part.
This is also a great point. I ranted at length about this when the OpenAI news broke last week, but to cut it short: it's a little troubling to see the company founded on the ethos "for-profit AI work is incredibly dangerous" transition to a for-profit AI firm openly engaged in an arms race. Not just engaged, inciting...
No it’s good to try to build tech that helps people. Doesn’t mean such declarations need to be taken at face value, but being baseline-cynical is generally unwarranted, undesirable, and uninteresting.
The baseline stance for tech startups is wanting to solve a problem in the world and profiting from the value that provides. And thankfully, most of the time, those motives don't conflict. Even a mundane business like my local grocery store solves the problem of a curating a selection of food producers, buying in bulk to ensure a sustained sustained supply at a reasonable price and make it available to me close to my home. That is a tremendous value! And for that they make their markup. They aren't necessarily solving other social problems like food scarcity or maximizing nutrition or whatever, and instead focus on what their customers want to buy, those that can pay for it. But there still is a meeting in the middle of value being created.
Cynicism doesn't necessarily protect you from getting scammed, but it does absolutely prevent you from accessing any upside there is to be had in the world :)
The upside being people flocking from MLM to DeFi to LLMs like headless chickens while I watch in amusement?
The only downside for me is having been involved in all these projects and knowing enough to innovate. At least I do try to warn people before we proceed.
It sounds like they are least trying to build on the notion of being a public benefit corporation, and create a business that won't devolve into chart must go up and to the right each quarter.
Time will tell of course, OpenAI was putatively started with good, non-profit intentions.
