OpenAI Admitted its Nonprofit Board is About to Have a Lot Less Power – In a previously unreported letter, the AI company defends its restructuring plan while attacking critics and making surprising admissions
https://www.obsolete.pub/p/exclusive-what-openai-told-californias
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Submission statement: “OpenAI was [founded](https://www.obsolete.pub/i/161939154/nonprofit-origins) as a counter to the perils of letting profit shape the development of an unprecedentedly powerful technology — **one its founders** [**have said**](https://www.obsolete.pub/i/152552592/openai) **could lead to human extinction. But in a newly obtained letter from OpenAI lawyers to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the company reveals what it apparently fears more: anything that slows its ability to raise gargantuan amounts of money.**
The previously unreported [13-page letter](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25944903-20250515-openai-response-to-cal-ag-re-nonprofit-petition/) — dated May 15 and obtained by Obsolete — lays out OpenAI’s legal defense of its updated proposal to restructure its for-profit entity, which can still be blocked by the California and Delaware attorneys general (AGs). This letter is OpenAI’s latest attempt to prevent that from happening — and it’s full of surprising admissions, denials, and attacks.”
If this is what they’re currently doing, how do you think they’ll act when there are high stakes decisions to make that could cause human extinction?
Once upon a time I would have considered this a serious matter. Now I view it as something between a tempest in a teapot and a steaming crock of sh1t.
What changed? Deepseek. Deepseek is free to download and use and you can get the source code which lets you check to see if it phones home will all your data.
The US AI industry has reported spent $500 BILLION on R&D to the end of 2023 or so. That ‘investment’ is still growing by tens of billions judging by the Soft Bank number. And that’s a problem.
Investors are looking for profit. That DUH!! level insight explains why OpenAI used to talk of $20,000/month PhD level AI software agent licenses. AI investors thought they were hunting unicorn like profits. Free AI systems say that is no longer in the cards.
can you just turn an NonProfit organisation into a profit company without any implications? (taxes, patents etc..) I feel like that would make the whole declaration absolutely pointless.