alt Hacker News> While unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from [Buckmaster and Alpöge’s] usage of our products helped improve our models.
Well yeah, if you use the free product they train on your data, ... I thought this was widely understood?
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They did pay [0] and substantially by the sound of things:
> I pay for the tools my group uses out of my own research funds, including footing a large bill to OpenAI.
Then OpenAI should acknowledge that they can't prove they solved the problem independently, and credit the external researchers. It cuts both ways: if OpenAI really needs to access user data, even anonymised, to improve its models, they have to waive any pretention to solve "independently" any problem other people worked on with its tools. Otherwise they (OpenAI) have to firewall/cleanroom themselves.
If you read Buckmasters statement, he specifically notes that they used the paid subscriptions, iirc.