The same issue came up regarding Reddit recently. If you build something cool that becomes popular then big businesses will try to buy you. I think if you want to be taken seriously as a non-profit and have people contribute to your cause on that basis, then you should be able to guarantee that you will remain a non-profit, and free from external control.
> That is the most distant definition from "necessity" i can think of.
It is a sign of the rapid transformation of our world that the above statement is simultaneously true and completely missing the context here.
Why? Think about the context of OpenAI's founding. As I remember it, OpenAI wanted to offer an alternative locus of power compared to Google and Facebook around AI. They wanted to have the spotlight to talk about broader topics and share advancements more broadly.
To accomplish that mission, there are many hard compromises that have to be met.
To be clear, I'm not assessing how well OpenAI did. I don't know the right answers.
Rather, I'm pointing out the constraints in their space are substantial. I don't think anyone can dispute the upsides of having a large budget -- to hire in-demand experts and train expensive models. What are the best ways to acquire this funding? I think there are many thought experiments to conduct and cross-comparisons to make.
According to the article they have decided that the way forward is by going with “bigger and better” models, which necessitated the need for more resources.
I’m going to trust them on their reasoning, but with that premise what are the options here if they lack required resources?
If they to avoid what is dubbed a “sell” option to private money, the other option is to get some public funding or to be honest about the issue and close the shop.
