Does anyone believe these actions are consistent with OpenAI’s nonprofit mission to ensure that AGI benefits humanity?

OpenAI still has time to do better. I hope they do.
15/15

I want to see that side of OAI, but instead I see them trying to intimidate critics into silence.

This episode was the most stressful period of my professional life. Encode has 3 FTEs - going against the highest-valued private company in the world is terrifying.
14/15

I have complicated feelings about OpenAI - I use and get value from their products, and they conduct and publish AI safety research that is worthy of genuine praise.

I also know many OpenAI employees care a lot about OpenAI being a force for good in the world.

13/15

Prior to OpenAI, Chris Lehane’s PR clients included Boeing, the Weinstein Company, and Goldman Sachs. One person who worked on a campaign with Lehane said to the New Yorker “The goal was intimidation, to let everyone know that if they fuck with us they’ll regret it”
12/15

There is more I could go into about the nature of OAI's engagement on SB 53, but suffice to say that when I saw OpenAI’s so-called “master of the political dark arts” Chris Lehane claim that they "worked to improve the bill," I literally laughed out loud.
11/15

This wasn’t the only way OpenAI behaved poorly on SB 53 before it was signed. They also sent Governor Newsom a letter trying to gut the bill by waiving all the requirements for any company that does any evaluation work with the federal government.

10/15

A magistrate judge even chastised OpenAI more broadly for their behavior in the discovery process in their case against Musk.
9/15

OpenAI had no legal right to ask for this information. So we submitted an objection explaining why we would not be providing our private communications. (They never replied.)
8/15

This is not normal. OpenAI used an unrelated lawsuit to intimidate advocates of a bill trying to regulate them. While the bill was still being debated.
7/15

But they didn’t stop there.

They also sent a sheriff’s deputy to my home and asked for me to turn over private texts and emails with CA legislators, college students, and former OAI employees.
6/15

OpenAI went beyond just subpoenaing Encode about Elon. OpenAI could (and did!) send a subpoena to Encode’s corporate address asking about our funders or communications with Elon (which don’t exist).

If OpenAI had stopped there, maybe you could argue it was in good faith. 5/15

There’s a big problem with that idea: Elon isn’t involved with Encode. Elon wasn’t behind SB 53. He doesn’t fund us, and we’ve never spoken to him.
4/15

Why did OpenAI subpoena me? Encode has criticized OpenAI’s restructuring and worked on AI regulations, including SB 53.

I believe OpenAI used the pretext of their lawsuit against Elon Musk to intimidate their critics and imply that Elon is behind all of them.
3/15

You might recall a story in the SF Standard that talked about OpenAI retaliating against critics. Among other things, OpenAI asked for all my private communications on SB 53 - a bill that creates new transparency rules and whistleblower protections at large AI companies.
2/15