Elon Musk Explains the Origin of OpenAI

OpenAI was supposed to be open source and non-profit. That's not how it turned out.

Musk explains the history (transcribed by Eva Fox on X).

“I am the reason OpenAI exists.”

“I used to be a close friend with Larry Page, and I was staying at his house, and we'd have these conversations long into the evening about AI, and I would be constantly urging him to be careful about the danger of AI. And he was really not concerned about the danger of AI and was quite cavalier about it. And at the time, Google, especially after the acquisition of DeepMind, had three-quarters of the world's AI talent; they had a lot of computers, a lot of money, so it was a unipolar world for AI. And we got a unipolar world, but the person who controls that does not, or at least did not seem to be concerned about AI safety. That sounded like a real problem.

The final straw was Larry calling me a speciest for being a pro-human consciousness instead of machine consciousness, and I like, 'Well, yes, I guess I am a speciest.'

I came up with the name [OpenAI], which refers to open source. The intent was to what is the opposite of Google, would be an open source non-profit, because Google is closed source profit, and that profit motivation could be dangerous...

It does seem weird that something can be a nonprofit, open source, and somehow transform itself into a for-profit, closed source. I mean, this would be like, let's say you founded the organization to save the Amazon rainforest, but instead, they became a lumber company and chopped down the forest and sold it for money. And you'd be, therefore, like, 'Wait a second, that's the exact opposite of what I gave the money for. Is that legal?' That doesn't seem legal. And if, in general, it is legal to start a company as a non-profit and then take the IP and transfer it to a for-profit that then makes tons of money, shouldn't everyone start? Shouldn't that be the default?

And I also think it is important to understand, like when push comes to shove, let's say they do create some digital super intelligence, almost Godlike intelligence, well, who is in control, and what is exactly the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft? And I do worry that Microsoft actually may be more in control than the leadership team at OpenAI realizes. I mean, Microsoft, as part of Microsoft Investment, has rights to all of the software, all of the model weights, and everything necessary to run the inference system. At any point, Microsoft could cut off OpenAI.”

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Barack Obama Openly Advocates for Censorship by the Elites to Help the Unwashed Masses

Obama is clearly advocating the need for censorship in this video:

Part of what we’re going to have to do is to start experimenting with new forms of journalism and how we use social media in ways that reaffirm facts and separate facts from opinion. We want diversity of opinion. We don’t want diversity of facts. That, I think, is one of the big tasks of social media. By the way, it will require some government regulatory constraints…

I'll paraphrase: "We," (the pre-ordained elites) will be in charge of what you can say and hear. We're helping you and you need our help because you're too dumb to think for yourself. You'll love it!

This is no one-off for Obama. Despite being a former professor of law, who taught constitutional law, Obama considers himself one of the elite leaders of the censorship industrial complex.  Consider this brand new article by Michael Shellenberger: "Obama-Linked Stanford Center Held Secret Meeting With Foreign Governments To Plot Global Internet Censorship: Top EU, UK, Brazil, and Australian officials met in September with US censorship advocates to combine and coordinate efforts." Excerpt:

In the spring of 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a major policy address at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, where he laid out a sweeping proposal for government censorship of social media platforms through the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Six days later, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced that it had created a “Disinformation Governance Board” to serve as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth with the clear goal of controlling the information Americans could access online.

At the heart of Obama’s vision for Internet censorship was legislation that would have authorized the US government’s National Science Foundation to authorize and fund supposedly independent NGOs to censor the Internet. The DHS and Stanford Internet Observatory, which was part of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, pioneered this censorship-by-proxy strategy as a way to get around the First Amendment in 2020 with posts raising concerns about the 2020 elections and in 2021 with “narratives” expressing concern about the Covid vaccine.

The 2024 election of President Donald Trump significantly reduced the threat of Obama, DHS, and NSF censoring the American people. Trump defunded much of the Censorship Industrial Complex. The Platform Accountability Act is going nowhere in Congress.

To be fair, Trump is no saint on free speech. As FIRE's Will Creely testified recently, Trump has been bludgeoning numerous entities to curtail free speech:

To be sure, the government may speak for itself, and the public has an interest in hearing from it. But it may not wield that power to censor. As Judge Richard Posner put it: The government is “entitled to what it wants to say — but only within limits.” Under no circumstances may our public servants “employ threats to squelch the free speech of private citizens.”

So the law is clear: Government actors cannot silence a speaker by threatening “we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,” as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission did last month. Nevertheless, recent examples of jawboning abound: against private broadcasters, private universities, private social media platforms, and more. The First Amendment does not abide mob tactics.

Democrats, however, are more on board with Obama's approach to censorship than republicans:

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Men’s Jobs and Women’s Jobs

Steve Stewart-Williams reports on a new study confirming what many of us intuit:

One of the most robust findings in psychology is that men and women have somewhat different career-related interests: On average, men are more interested in working with things, whereas women are more interested in working with people. A fascinating analysis of the apprenticeship system in Switzerland shows how these preferences help shape young people’s real-world occupational choices.

The study examined 130 apprentice occupations, dividing these into jobs involving machines, materials, and tools sat at one end; jobs involving care, communication, and social interaction sat at the other.

The results are shown in the graph below. As you can see, the more people-oriented a profession is, the more female-dominated it tends to be, and the more things-oriented it is, the more male-dominated. The effect is extremely strong, making the things-people dimension one of the most powerful known predictors of occupational sex differences.

I highly recommend Steve's "The Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche Newsletter." He is always responsibly reporting on scientifically-grounded topics that are highly relevant to issues of the day.

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What America Needs for Better Health

First, the problem. Robert Malone, MD explains:

The MAHA agenda as defined in these two key planning documents identifies four potential drivers behind the rise in childhood chronic disease that present the clearest opportunities for progress:

Poor Diet: The American diet has shifted dramatically toward highly processed foods, leading to nutrient depletion, increased caloric intake, and exposure to potentially harmful or unhealthy additives. Over 60% of children’s calories now come from highly processed foods, contributing to obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.

Chemical Exposure: Children are exposed to an increasing number of synthetic chemicals, some of which have been linked to developmental issues and chronic disease. The current regulatory framework should be continually evaluated to ensure that chemicals and other exposures do not interact together to pose a threat to the health of our children.

Lack of Physical Activity and Chronic Stress: American children are experiencing unprecedented levels of inactivity, screen use, sleep deprivation, and chronic stress. These factors significantly contribute to the rise in chronic diseases and mental health challenges.

Overmedicalization: There is a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children, often driven by conflicts of interest in medical research, regulation, and practice. This has led to unnecessary treatments and long-term health risks.

All indicators show that America’s health is failing, and the American people know we all need a dramatically new approach to healthcare in this country.

Now, Congress is required to do heavy lifting. To summarize:

They are grouped into five categories: 1) Food, nutrition, and consumer protection reforms, 2) Public health, medical, and regulatory systems reforms, 3) Agricultural, environmental, and process deregulation, 4) Agency restructuring and governance reforms, and 5) Oversight and systemic transparency reforms.

Malone has written a long comprehensive list of needed changes, with relevant links. Highly recommended.

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