alt Hacker NewsI'm not one to comment often but this really pisses me off.
OpenAI looked at user data, stole world class researchers' work, and then tried to threaten those researchers to do what would make their corporation profit (which they would anyways!).
Imagine you have been working on a terribly difficult math problem for a decade. This is a result you have spent years on, and what you will likely be remembered for. And to have some punk from OpenAI lie to you, threaten you, and tell you that they are willing to go on the record that you "deserved" it? What is this, the Godfather?
If OpenAI solved Navier-Stokes, that is an astounding result! - yet they'll still be remembered as those who thought credit was more important than results. That winning was more important than collaboration. If this is true, they're burning any trust left with academia.
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This conclusion is flawed. It's unclear at this point if OpenAI's model or employees actually looked at or stole the author's data. Having worked at large companies before, I'm leaning towards no, since very few employees have access to that data.
Simply knowing a problem can be solved is half the battle.
Things are more entangled than that. The contribute made from both OpenAI and Anthropic models to solve these problems are clear, now it really hard to quantify which one contributed more, if the role played by the human is major or minor.
OpenAI tried to collaborate and share the results together with a fixed timeline, to avoid this mess but it was inevitable. There is a conflict of interest, where the other researcher works at Anthropic, who will also try to take credit.
Where they may be in the wrong is if they took user data regarding the problem, how will we know if they did or not?
Yes, but only if you take this one sided statement at face value.
I'm stunned that people are taking this accusation as a fact.
OpenAI is no stranger to rivalry with Anthropic but 1. it's not like user data is sitting around on some kitchen table somewhere and 2. I consider OpenAI to be as economically motivated as any other actor in this space and playing around with user data like that would destroy their business.
There are things that Buckmaster alleged and things that he speculated. The entire training data thing is speculation. If this is pissing you off, then you ought to evaluate how you ingest information.