Sanders: Government should break up OpenAI

Unpopular opinion here but I don't see any benefit in breaking up goliaths like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, OpenAI.

OpenAI (optically) came out of nowhere and took over everything in a few years. A future company also could. We should punish violation of regulations and the law when it occurs. We don't need to be interfering just because we feel a company is too good at being a company.

If OpenAI violated anything with the recent non-profit stuff, sue or charge them.

I agree. Consumer-friendly regulation is much more valuable.

Also it remains to be seen how long OpenAI will even survive. They are losing a ton of money and don't really have much of a moat.

The other companies you mentioned are making more money from AI than OpenAI is. And Microsoft owns a huge chunk of OpenAI too.

You don’t see a single benefit? You think monopoly power is worthwhile?

There don't seem to be any substantial federal legal issues in OpenAI converting one of its units from a non-profit to a for-profit corporation. This is almost entirely a state issue, and OpenAI was able to get the California state government to go along with the plan by threatening to move to another state. For better or worse that's the way our dual sovereignty federal system works.

> A future company also could.

Then they should be broken up too.

> We don't need to be interfering just because we feel a company is too good at being a company.

We absolutely do, because "being good at being a company" has become a sort of paperclip-maximizing game that is pretty well divorced from anything beneficial to society.

Don't know why you are getting downvoted, it is a legitimate question.

Yes, monopoly power is worthwhile. It's abusing monopoly power which is illegal.

I don't see OpenAI abusing a monopoly. If Sanders is looking to the future and saying "they may do that one day", well, that's like saying someone might commit murder one day, so we should put them in jail now.

It doesn't work that way.

Just to be clear, I'm actually a fan of Bernie Sanders. Though, I'm not American, so it doesn't really matter.

> We should punish violation of regulations and the law when it occurs

The law includes regulations around competition and monopoly which companies frequently violate, and the consequences can sometimes be as severe as getting "broken up".

I don't think Bernie's on to anything here, but competition law is good actually.

As long as it's not a monopoly that is effectively impossible to beat: yes, I do.

I broadly consider myself left-wing but I think the libertarians are kind of right on that point.

If a company is consistently abusing its status as a monopoly, punishment should ensue. But simply being a monopoly can mean you simply outcompeted everyone else and others fail to outcompete you. You might continue winning fair and square.

>We absolutely do, because "being good at being a company" has become a sort of paperclip-maximizing game that is pretty well divorced from anything beneficial to society.

I doubt that that's true. In some cases at some companies, but I wouldn't be surprised if harm to society is per capita more likely at non-monopolies than at monopolies.

What are, for you, some examples of companies winning a monopoly share of a market fair and square?