If you want to understand the whole OpenAI thing, this article is super helpful because it explains that OpenAI is not a real research organization or tech company like the ones we know: It's a cult. It's basically Scientology 2.0.

Quote:
"The consequences are what you might expect when a crowd of bright but rather naive (and occasionally creepy) computer science and adjacent people try to re-invent theology from first principles, to model what human-created gods might do, and how they ought be constrained. They include the following, non-comprehensive list: all sorts of strange mental exercises, postulated superhuman entities benign and malign and how to think about them; the jumbling of parts from fan-fiction, computer science, home-brewed philosophy and ARGs to create grotesque and interesting intellectual chimeras; Nick Bostrom, and a crew of very well funded philosophers; Effective Altruism, whose fancier adherents often prefer not to acknowledge the approach’s somewhat disreputable origins."

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/look-at-scientology-to-understand

What OpenAI shares with Scientology

Strange beliefs, fights over money and bad science fiction

Programmable Mutter
@tante what is meant there with "the [Effective Altruism] approach’s somewhat disreputable origins"? The funding by Sam Bankman-Fried? The "business man in a suit in front of a drowning child" debate? Or something else? #effectiveAltruism

@maybit EA's history is full of shady people, eugenics, racism etc.

If you want to read a good criticism of the thoughts underpinning the ideology check out https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/why-i-am-not-an-effective-altruist

Why I am not an effective altruist

Morality is not a market

The Intrinsic Perspective
@tante @maybit First thought: The Environment Agency? What's so bad about the Environment Agency?
Second thought: Oh you mean EA games. Yeah those gamer types sometimes have dodgy politics.