I'm an OpenAI employee and I'll go out on a limb with a public comment. I agree AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. I also think Anthropic has been treated terribly and has acted admirably. My understanding is that the OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, and that OpenAI is asking for the same terms for other AI companies (so that we can continue competing on the basis of differing services and not differing scruples). Given this understanding, I don't see why I should quit. If it turns out that the deal is being misdescribed or that it won't be enforced, I can see why I should quit, but so far I haven't seen any evidence that's the case.

Respectfully, it's very hard to see how anyone could look at what just happened and come to the conclusion that one company ends up classed a "supply chain risk" while another agrees the the same terms that led to that. Either the terms are looser, they're not going to be enforced, or there's another reason for the loud attempt to blacklist Anthropic. It's very difficult to see how you could take this at face value in any case. If it is loose terms or a wink agreement to not check in on enforcement you're never going to be told that. We can imagine other scenerios where the terms stated were not the real reason for the blacklisting, but it's a real struggle (at least for me) to find an explanation for this deal that doesn't paint OpenAI in a very ethically questionable light.

(Disclosure, I'm a former OpenAI employee and current shareholder.)

I have two qualms with this deal.

First, Sam's tweet [0] reads as if this deal does not disallow autonomous weapons, but rather requires "human responsibility" for them. I don't think this is much of an assurance at all - obviously at some level a human must be responsible, but this is vague enough that I worry the responsible human could be very far out of the loop.

Second, Jeremy Lewin's tweet [1] indicates that the definitions of these guardrails are now maintained by DoW, not OpenAI. I'm currently unclear on those definitions and the process for changing them. But I worry that e.g. "mass surveillance" may be defined too narrowly for that limitation to be compatible with democratic values, or that DoW could unilaterally make it that narrow in the future. Evidently Anthropic insisted on defining these limits itself, and that was a sticking point.

Of course, it's possible that OpenAI leadership thoughtfully considered both of these points and that there are reasonable explanations for each of them. That's not clear from anything I've seen so far, but things are moving quickly so that may change in the coming days.

[0] https://x.com/sama/status/2027578652477821175

[1] https://x.com/UnderSecretaryF/status/2027594072811098230

Did Sam Altman say that he wouldn't allow ChatGPT to be used for fully autonomous weapons? (Not quite the same as "human responsibility for use of force".)

I don't want to overanalyze things but I also noticed his statement didn't say "our agreement specifically says chatgpt will never be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance." It said something that kind of gestured towards that, but it didn't quite come out and say it. It says "The DoW agrees with these principles, and we put them in our agreement." Could the principles have been outlined in a nonbinding preamble, or been a statement of the DoW's current intentions rather than binding their future behavior? You should be very suspicious when a corporate person says something vague that somewhat implies what you want to hear - if they could have told you explicitly what you wanted to hear, they would have.

But anyway, it doesn't matter. You said you don't think it should be used for autonomous weapons. I'd be willing to bet you 10:1 that you'll never find altman saying anything like "our agreement specifically says chatgpt will never be used for fully autonomous weapons", now or any point in the future.

"AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons". The statement from OpenAI virtually guarantees that the intention is to use it for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. If this wasn't the intention them the qualifier "domestic" wouldn't be used, and they would be talking about "human in the loop" control of autonomous weapons, not "human responsibility" which just means there's someone willing to stand up and say, "yep I take responsibility for the autonomous weapon systems actions", which lets be honest is the thinnest of thin safety guarantees.

lol, naive as hell. why would your company's agreement be the same as the one who just refused the _same_ agreement? Even my question doesn't even make sense, this is a contradiction, therefore your statement must be false. There, it's proven

Why would you believe that? If that were the case what was the issue with Anthropic even about?

You, and your colleagues, should resign.

Assuming this is real: Why do you think anthropic was put on what is essentially an "enemy of the state" list and openai didn't?

The two things anthropic refused to do is mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, so why do _you_ think openai refused and still did not get placed on the exact same list.

It's fine to say "I'm not going to resign. I didn't even sign that letter", but thinking that openai can get away with not developing autonomous weapons or mass surveillance is naive at the very best.

My understanding is that OpenAI's deal, and the deal others are signing, implicitly prevents the use of LLMs for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons because today one care argue those aren't legal and the deal is a blanket for allowing all lawful use.

Today it can't be used for mass surveillance, but the executive branch has all the authority it needs to later deem that lawful if it wishes to, the Patriot Act and others see to that.

Anthropic was making the limits contractually explicit, meaning the executive branch could change the line of lawfulness and still couldn't use Anthropic models for mass surveillance. That is where they got into a fight and that is where OpenAI and others can claim today that they still got the same agreement Anthropic wanted.

How would OpenAI respond to China or Russia using OpenAI--or any AI--for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith_(existentialism)

Why do you suppose OpenAI's deal led to a contract, while Anthropic's deal (ostensibly containing identical terms) gets it not only booted but declared a supply chain risk?

For the record I don’t care if you quit or not. Cash rules after all… However, you are incredibly naive if you think the current admin will follow through on those terms.

Thank you for responding. Everyone wants to think they will “do the right thing” when their own personal Rubicon is challenged. In practice, so many factors are at play, not least of which are the other people you may be responsible for. The calculus of balancing those differing imperatives is only straightforward for those that have never faced this squarely. I’ve been marched out of jobs twice for standing up for what I believed to be right at the time. Am still literally blacklisted (much to the surprise of various recruiters) at a major bank here 8 years after the fact. I can’t imagine that the threat of being blacklisted from a whole raft of companies contracting with a known vindictive regime would make the decision easier.

> My understanding is that the OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons

And you believe the US government, let alone the current one will respect that? Why? Is it naïveté or do you support the current regime?

> If it turns out that the deal is being misdescribed or that it won't be enforced, I can see why I should quit.

So your logic is your company is selling harmful technology to a bunch of known liars who are threatening to invade democratic countries, but because they haven’t lied yet in this case (for lack of opportunity), you’ll wait until the harm is done and then maybe quit?

I’ll go out on a limb and say you won’t. You seem to be trying really hard to justify to yourself what’s happening so you can sleep at night.

Know that when things go wrong (not if, when), the blood will be on your hands too.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming [1] does not play a role in your thinking:

I don't mean this in any way rude and I apologize if this comes accross as such but believing it won't be used in exactly this way is just naive. History has taught us this lesson again and again and again.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650#47189970

You should quit because the only reasonable thing for your leadership to have done is to refuse to sign any agreement with DoW whatsoever while it's attempting to strongarm Anthropic in this fashion.

It doesn't even matter if OpenAI is offered the same terms that Anthropic refused. It's absurd to accept them and do business with the Pentagon in that situation.

If you take the government at its word, it's killing Anthropic because Anthropic wanted to assert the ability to draw _some_ sort of redline. If OpenAI's position is "well sucks to be them", there's nothing stopping Hegseth from doing the same to OpenAI.

It doesn't matter at all if OpenAI gets the deal at the same redline Anthropic was trying to assert. If at the end of this the government has succeeded in cutting Anthropic off from the economy, what's next for OpenAI? What happens next time when OpenAI tries to assert some sort of redline?

What's the point of any talk of "AI Safety" if you sign on to a regime where Hegseth (of all people) can just demand the keys and you hand them right over?

You can't be this naive?

Aside from that unlikely read, this deal was still used as a pressure point on Anthropic, there's absolutely no way OpenAI was not used as a stick to hit with during negotiations.

What is your red line?

I can totally see why you should quit, but we see different things apparently.

You may have missed that no single word said or written by any of the current US government’s members can be believed.

This is not meant as a personal attack but this has got to be the most naive thing I've read.

I don't know you, so maybe you're actually for real and speaking on good faith here but honestly this and your other responses in this thread read exactly like "...salary depends on not understanding"

I won't trust a word coming from Sam Altman's mouth until I see official signed documents (which I won't).

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Assuming this isn't a troll and you really think this, you should at least have the cojones to admit you're taking the blood money instead of trying to pretzel the truth so hard that you just look like a moron instead.

Anthropic is deemed a betrayer and a supply chain risk for actually enforcing their principles.

OpenAI agrees to be put in the same position as Anthropic.

It seems like you must actually somehow believe that history will repeat itself, Hegseth will deem OpenAI a supply chain risk too, then move to Grok or something?

There's surely no way that's actually what you believe...

"domestic" "mass" surveillance, two words that can be stretched so thin they basically invalidate the whole term. Mass surveillance on other countries? Guess that's fine. Surveillance on just a couple of cities that happen to be resisting the regime? Well, it's not _mass_ surveillance, just a couple of cities!

Coward.

At the next town hall ask them directly - you making assumptions here.

You can make blood money but you have to be aware it's blood money. Don't delude yourself in to thinking you work for an ethical or moral company.

> Given this understanding, I don't see why I should quit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning

I have a bridge to Brooklyn to sell you if you believe this.

Standing up for whats right often is not easy and involves hard choices and consequences, your leader has shown you and the world that he is not to be trusted.

I can't tell you what to do but I hope you make the right decision.

Right beautifying lies are always going to head in the direction of doing whats self interested.

>OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance

And the US Military is forbidden from operating on US soil, but that didn't stop this administration from deploying US Marines to California recently.

You're fooling yourself if you think this administration is following any kind of rule.

Can you at least stop lying to yourself? Given what they did with Anthropic for not supporting domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons...

> My understanding is that the OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons

Your understanding is entirely wrong. At least stop lying to yourself and admit that you are entirely fine with working on evil things if you are paid enough.

So its ok as long as its not domestic. Got it

What a joke

insane cope

Why would you trust anything out of Sam's mouth? He's a sociopath. Is that lost on you?

Scam Altman already got community noted btw