Edward Snowden wrote on social media to his nearly 6 million followers, “Do not ever trust @OpenAI … You have been warned,” following the appointment of retired U.S. Army General Paul Nakasone to the board of the artificial intelligence technology company.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor, was charged with espionage by the Justice Department in 2013 after leaking thousands of top-secret records, exposing the agency’s surveillance of private citizens’ information.

In a Friday morning post on X, formerly Twitter, Snowden reshared a post providing information on OpenAI’s newest board member. Nakasone is a former NSA director, and the longest-serving leader of the U.S. Cyber Command and chief of the Central Security Service. He retired from the NSA, a position he held since 2018, in February.

Snowden wrote in an X post, “They’ve gone full mask-off: do not ever trust @OpenAI or its products (ChatGPT etc.) There is only one reason for appointing an @NSAGov Director to your board. This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on Earth.” He concluded the post, writing, “You have been warned.”

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      85 months ago

      These appointments of credibility come with the appointees “Rolodex” and associations.

      I can get in rooms you can’t because of who I know and who I’ve worked with, even if I’m not relevant to that work. I am relatively a nobody in comparison.

      These appointees know who to know and who to talk to and more importantly are friendly and on a first name basis with them.

      It’s more than just “clout”

    • @glimse
      link
      55 months ago

      This assumes that OpenAI doesn’t have bigger plans than chatgpt which is…quite an assumption.

        • @glimse
          link
          85 months ago

          You basically said it’s not an issue because OpenAI is only a chatbot. OpenAI is already doing more than text and I’m sure they have loftier goals beyond what they’ve shown publicly.

          And even if it was just text, you don’t see an issue with the government shaping the responses it gives?