this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Can anyone savvy to the nuance here please let me know how this is any different from Altman and ChatGPT?
As o followed along lightly, my read was that they used non-profit foundation structure to win public trust and calm initial opposition to them creating an unethical product that will ultimately destroy us all and then they fired all the people focused on ethics and codified the non-profit status.
Is this meaningfully different, or likely a similar tactic?
I am no professional but:
https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/21/openai-governance-structure-explainer/
This is what I have found about the governmance structure of OpenAI. It's complicated but basically the working company is a for-profit controlled by a non-profit, controlled by employees and other investors, the non-profit is also controlled by a board of driectors. Also it's all based in the US.
The Mastodon model is probably going to be a lot simpler and will probably not allow big investors to take ownership of the company. Also they are looking for a suitable country in the EU that will enforce the non-profit's obligations to the people. Being based in the EU is in itself a huge difference, and by choice. They have not set anything in stone yet so it's all specualtion essentialy.
Also there is the trust thing: OpenAI does not need trust from people, other AI companies are for profit too and work just fine. Mastodon is build around the fact that it is different from things like twitter. If they start doing maliciuos stuff, they will loose trust and in turn their main selling point. Also openness.
Also it is open source is it not? So any progress they have made can be used to create a competitor. Basically the whole business model is different.
I haven't seen their governance structure yet, but I don't think it will ever be like Altman and OpenAI. Eugen just doesn't have that cult of personality around him, and there's not that much money in a free and open-source platform that doesn't lock people in.