OpenAI Feared "Optics" of what might appear on Hacker News

(authorsguild.org)

62 points | by papergirl 2 hours ago

7 comments

  • Skyy93 13 minutes ago
    This is a lobby organisation using only the pieces and bits they like to push their own agenda.

    "sketchy russian website", how about using some more clear description like: A library for sharing books and articles that should be partly public domain because they were paid for by the public. Only some of the material is copyrighted by authors. However, some of their work is so old that it is not reprinted anyway.

    But of course such an explanation would not click.

    I also don't see a problem with statements about making people jobless. Imagine if every robotic or automation company advertised like this: Yeah, you'll buy tons of expensive robots and still rely on expensive labor from real people without any efficiency gains.

    • abroszka33 4 minutes ago
      Any source that this was a library? Even then that would still raise a question if OpenAI is a Russian organisation or not to access that library with good faith.

      I think they just used a Russian torrent site.

    • lensecat 4 minutes ago
      "A lobby organisation?" Of course a single author would not be able to afford facing a multi billion dollar company on their own? And the "sketchy russian website" quote is from OpenAI employees themselves? What are you on about?
  • shaunpud 8 minutes ago
  • papergirl 2 hours ago
    Newly released court filings quote an OpenAI researcher saying: “I was just worried about optics - i.e. 'openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on HN would be unfortunate."

    That's just one of several interesting quotes that have surfaced in documents from the Authors Guild's lawsuit against OpenAI.

    • swiftcoder 20 minutes ago
      It's good to know we all live rent-free in Dario Amodei's head
      • optimalsolver 17 minutes ago
        You might be thinking of Demis Altman.
        • lensecat 2 minutes ago
          Think they're referring to the following, when Amodei was still working for OpenAI:

          'OpenAI Feared “Optics,” Not the Law – “Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s then-Research Director, responded that ‘as a training set [LibGen is] a bit sketchier.’ [OpenAI researcher Sam] McCandlish explained: ‘I was just worried about optics – i.e. ‘openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on [Hacker News] would be unfortunate.”'

    • aaron695 9 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • alansaber 6 minutes ago
    Not even openai want to get flamed on show hn
  • hnfong 4 minutes ago
    Can we fix the title? This is clickbait for HN, the actual article's title is "Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI: Top Execs Knew Their Mass Book Piracy Was Illegal And Would Put Authors Out of Work"
  • monster_truck 4 minutes ago
    I could not care less
  • camillomiller 17 minutes ago
    What other proof do we need to know that these people are doing what they’re doing because fundamentally they have an absolute disdain for humans, humanity, and humanities? They believe in their own inevitabilism, and they’re the largest internal threat to democratic societies we’ve probably ever seen, besides actual military coups. In a sane society, they’d already be in jail. Gosh, even in a not so sane society such as China they would have already been stopped and locked up.
    • amelius 7 minutes ago
      Since OpenAI is a close partner of Microsoft, I wonder what Bill Gates' stance is on this topic.
      • skew-aberration 2 minutes ago
        Gates seems to be having a change of hearts now that AI is accelerating so rapidly