OpenAI’s history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders.

OpenAI’s history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders.

The company’s board is considering a decision that would change the company into a public benefit corporation, according to a source familiar with the discussions who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about them.

While OpenAI already has a for-profit division, where most of its staff works, it is controlled by a nonprofit board of directors whose mission is to help humanity. That would change if the company converts the core of its structure to a public benefit corporation, which is a type of corporate entity that is supposed to help society as well as turn a profit.

    • @CondensedPossum
      1•3 months ago

      Corporations are driven by people — they aren’t completely autonomous agents. Yet if you shot the CEO of Exxon or any of the others, what effect would it have? Another person of much the same ilk would swiftly move into place, much as stepping on a few ants hardly effects an anthill at all.

      I’ve never understood why people feel compelled to share this take.

      Edit, clarity: The quoted common rhetorical statement, not the overall essay’s conclusions about AI.

      • @[email protected]English
        1•3 months ago

        Sociopaths and toxic narcissists comprise only a small percentage of the population, and most of them lack even rudimentary business acumen. I don’t advocate your hypothetical strategy, but if it were sustained, they would eventually run out of those categories of sleazeballs.