josefFeb 2
over the last few years ive been puzzled at a lot of the stuff i've seen come out of mozilla. there's just like, very little explanation for all the unforced errors and cringe messaging and like, weirdly just doing exactly the wrong thing in bizarre and novel ways and not even profiting from it. something about that "join the rebel alliance of better AI" thing has finally brought me clarity. perhaps they're just really stupid
Show threadKevin GranadeFeb 2
@jk it's worse than stupid, they're a *corporation*. This means whoever their leadership is, they're pulled from the ranks of "corporate leadership" who fundamentally don't give a shit about anything and are highly incentivized by the structure of how corporations work to seek growth at all costs.
It's not that they have particularly stupid people in charge, they didn't get unlucky, this is a corporation working the way corporations are designed to work.
Show threadwb x64Feb 2

@jk @kevingranade this.
Nonprofit corporations not exempt, especially when funded by large/corporate donors.

Basically bureaucracy has an incentive to perpetuate and increase itself until you have a whole class of i.e. insurance execs and hospital management and university adminstration taking all the money away from both students and teachers, patients and doctors. And shareholders on top of that.

Show threadjosefFeb 2
@wilbr @kevingranade i've gone back and forth throughout my life on "people and their individual values and behavior are at fault" vs "no, incentives and the structure of the system are to blame!" and so on. after a couple decades of deliberation, ive settled on "inadequate systems nurture inadequate people who nurture inadequate systems" or perhaps "it takes two to tango"
Show threadKevin Granade

@wilbr @jk yes! I'm not saying the people making these decisions at Mozilla aren't stupid! They absolutely are, these are incredibly dumb unforced errors! But they are dumb unforced errors that the decision makers are not going to feel any meaningful repercussions for.

The way corporations work reinforces this idiocy instead of discouraging it. You can get lucky and have people who care for a while, but ultimately by being incorporated you have stacked the deck against long term success.

Feb 2 at 5:45pmWeb
Show threadwb x64Feb 2
@jk @kevingranade to be clear in my area incorporation just means a legal entity that's not a human; co-ops and associations etc can be "corporations" and not suffer the same ills as a publicly traded for-profit C Corp (or even 501c3 nonprofit corporation with a CEO and employees) but yeah the point is well made
Show threadKevin GranadeFeb 2
@jk @wilbr yea I off-handedly called it "corporation", but there is no specific term I'm aware of that precisely addresses this.
My point cross-cuts such designations, co-ops and other organizations that aim to avoid these pressures must take definite action to set up their governance in a way that avoids these pitfalls, and what I offhandedly called a corporation is an organizationn that does not take these measures or instead embraces profit-seeking as a motive in itself.