Zach Stein-Perlman's Shortform

Zach Stein-Perlman

Zach Stein-Perlman's Shortform — LessWrong

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Woah. OpenAI antiwhistleblowing news seems substantially more obviously-bad than the nondisparagement-concealed-by-nondisclosure stuff. If page 4 and the "threatened employees with criminal prosecutions if they reported violations of law to federal authorities" part aren't exaggerated, it crosses previously-uncrossed integrity lines. H/t Garrison Lovely.

[Edit: probably exaggerated; see comments. But I haven't seen takes that the "OpenAI made staff sign employee agreements that required them to waive their federal rights to whistleblower compensation" part is likely exaggerated, and that alone seems quite bad.]

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2Zach Stein-Perlman2y

I'm confused by the word "prosecution" here. I'd assume violating your OpenAI contract is a civil thing, not a criminal thing. Edit: like I think the word "prosecution" should be "suit" in your sentence about the SEC's theory. And this makes the whistleblowers' assertion weirder.

aphyer2y*20

Yeah, I have no idea. It would be much clearer if the contracts themselves were available. Obviously the incentive of the plaintiffs is to make this sound as serious as possible, and obviously the incentive of OpenAI is to make it sound as innocuous as possible. I don't feel highly confident without more information, my gut is leaning towards 'opportunistic plaintiffs hoping for a cut of one of the standard SEC settlements' but I could easily be wrong.

EDITED TO ADD: On re-reading the letter, I'm not clear where the word 'criminal' even ca... (read more)

4Dagon2y

Non-communication of problems enforced by significant legal penalties feels like it's part of the same underlying problem, though I agree that "nondisparagement" to the public or press is far less heinous than "non-reporting of crimes" It's unclear whether OpenAI, a non-public company, has actually done things which would be covered by whistleblower laws or compensation for talking to a federal agency. But it's highly suspicious (and per Matt Levine, likely penalizable if under SEC purview) to try to prevent such reporting.

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Zach Stein-Perlman's Shortform

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Zach Stein-Perlman's Shortform

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