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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.
It's good to know we all live rent-free in Dario Amodei's head
You might be thinking of Demis Altman.
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.”'
As a side-note, most orgs already cover the need to STFU in their training material for new hires, particularly how personal comments should not and cannot represent the company. I'm sure this lawsuit will be explicitly mentioned in upcoming versions of this sort training material in multiple orgs.
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.
Since OpenAI is a close partner of Microsoft, I wonder what Bill Gates' stance is on this topic.
Gates seems to be having a change of hearts now that AI is accelerating so rapidly
I think you mean he's siding with Dario Amodei and the strictest of government regulations cementing Microsoft's position and its investments is IMMEDIATELY needed:
https://www.ft.com/content/1ade33b1-b5eb-43bb-9ee4-2272ec91f...
His position is not at all that AI itself should be limited or anything more drastic than slowing down Microsoft's spending (sorry I mean slowing down AI progress). Second, he still wants companies to adopt it on a very large scale, and fire everybody, but he's having to spend too much now. To put it bluntly, he wants the money currently paid to employees, but he doesn't want to or outright can't spend enough much to guarantee it's him getting the money. I mean, this is a bet on his part, so we can't be sure, I even think he himself is not entirely sure, but it's pretty clear he's not comfortable.
(because in a winner-take-all monopoly business billionnaires get one chance to outspend everyone else. Everyone but the top dog doesn't get the monopoly, they get scraps. It has become clear China is the biggest spender and so now he thinks the billionnaire-but-still-not-the-biggest-spender urgently need protection from the bigger dog)
I'm giving the less charitable interpretation of his words, because his demands come down to denying access to Chinese models, and of course Bill Gates can hardly be considered a neutral party here, he personally has a huge financial interests in OS, Cloud and AI.
encouragement
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.
"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?
First, it's still a lobbying organization, so it's their job to make exaggerated claims, like a union in a company or any other organization with a political purpose. My first point was to highlight that it's not neutral or news related. It's fine that they have their opinion, but it's also my right to say that they're biased.
The second thing underscores my point. They use one line and think they've made a great point because one employee called LibGen sketchy. This site has been around since the 2010s, and it has helped many people do research. It's not just a sketchy website that suddenly appeared and is always doing bad things. I think a more nuanced stance is necessary.
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.
They mention it in the text, its this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis
Just go look: https://libgen.im/ (may be blocked by your isp, just find an alternate URL somehwere)
(note: https://z-library.sk/ is prettier/nicer)
They're referring to z-lib
They're talking about LibGen, per the article.
apparently, the website in question is libgen.io (appears to have been taken down now), currently it has lots of mirrors like libgen.im , libgen.com.de, etc.
"This is a lobby organisation using only the pieces and bits they like to push their own agenda."
Do you have any evidence of them being a lobby organisation (as opposed to OpenAI for example which spends millions of dollars hiring actual lobbyists)
Simply look at the Wikipedia article?
It's just sad that this is the top comment on Hacker News. Why are we giving free pass to these tech companies? Why are we trusting these CEOs when they have repeatedly broken laws? Remember Aaron Swartz and the fate he suffered? Why is big tech getting away with so much more?
Then you misunderstood my point. I think copyright law should be significantly changed and the current system hurts us all.
Sure. But the fact is they broke current existing laws, with known punishments with precedents. Same as a new law doesn't retroactively punish someone, then a new law shouldn't absolve someone before it's passed.
What are you on about? “Sketchy Russian website” is part of a quote by Sam McCandlish (who worked at OpenAI), not the Author’s Guild characterisation.
Also, come on. Defending it on the basis that some books on libgen are public domain is an hilariously poor excuse, to the same level as people claiming they used The Pirate Bay to “download Linux ISOs”. Even if some of that is true, we all know that use case is not the popular one.
For someone who’s accusing others of being a lobby pushing an agenda, your bias is showing quite a lot.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260927062011/https://authorsgu...
Not even openai want to get flamed on show hn
I could not care less
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"
Pulled datasets off libgen for a corpus once and it's overwhelmingly in-copyright textbooks, the public domain framing doesn't really hold up.