The Midas Project

We look forward to hearing OpenAI’s response.

✉️ To read the letter, and to add your name, visit
www.openai-transparency.org

CEO Sam Altman once asked for this sort of accountability — saying that OpenAI never wants to make decisions to benefit shareholders, but only wants to be accountable to humanity as a whole.

This letter is offering such accountability.

What is it that the letter’s signatories, spanning creatives, professors, nonprofits, and whistleblowers, have in common?

We are all part of humanity, and thus beneficiaries of OpenAI’s mission.

Everyone has a stake in this restructuring and deserves to know the details.

7. Finally, will the public ever get to see the details of our current entitlements and safeguards as they are legally instantiated in OpenAI documents, or will they continue to be quietly changed without our knowledge (as happened to the profit caps in 2023)?

6. OpenAI’s charter also includes a promise that, since a race to AGI could pose severe risks, if another company is close to developing the technology, they will stop racing and start assisting to reduce the market pressures and encourage safety. Is this still true?

5. OpenAI once boasted about its commitment to ensure AGI technology, when developed, is controlled by the nonprofit instead of investors. However, recent reporting suggests they are considering scrapping this promise, or replacing it with “ASI,” a much higher benchmark.

4. OpenAI’s leadership has said its profit caps are critical because the wealth they will generate is “for sure not okay” for one group of investors to have, and that if they succeed, “all but a fraction” will be returned to the world.

Is that still true?

3. So far, the nonprofit board making this decision has been composed of AI investors, entrepreneurs, and in one case, OpenAI’s newly-appointed CEO of Applications. Some reporting suggests this board will lead the for-profit they are creating. So will they receive equity?

2. Next, the letter asks whether the nonprofit will continue to have the same control after the restructuring that it has today. So far, OpenAI has vaguely indicated the nonprofit will retain control while privately suggesting that it will lose many of its powers.

What are those questions? Let's get into it.

1. The first question, and possibly the most important, is whether the mission will still take priority over profits. By default, public benefit corporations are merely required to balance these concerns.

This new letter asks them seven simple questions about the restructuring that, if they answer them honestly, will help the public truly understand what is at stake in this restructuring.

Worst of all, they are acting like they’ve reversed course on their plans and that their new structure will let them prioritize purpose over profit, even though the exact opposite is true.

OpenAI hasn’t been straightforward with you about this restructuring.

They’ve described removing profit caps as a mere "simplification" of the company's capital structure. They've written off the potential disempowerment of the nonprofit as a continuation of the status quo.

For context: OpenAI was famously founded as a nonprofit organization, believing that AGI technology was too valuable, and too dangerous, for the private market. However, investor pressure has changed things.

The first two sentences cut straight to the chase:

“OpenAI is currently sitting on both sides of the table in a closed boardroom, making a deal on humanity’s behalf without allowing us to see the contract, know the terms, or sign off on the decision.” 👀

🚨 Breaking: A group of 100+ Nobel laureates, professors, whistleblowers, public figures, artists, and nonprofit organizations just released a letter asking OpenAI to tell the truth about its restructuring.

Here’s what they had to say: 🧵

Beginning of open letter to OpenAI: We write to you as the legal beneficiaries of your charitable mission. OpenAI is currently sitting on both sides of the table in a closed boardroom, making a deal on humanity's behalf without allowing us to see the contract, know the terms, or sign off on the decision...

I'm a signatory to this open letter calling for OpenAI to offer the world greater transparency concerning its upcoming restructuring.

www.openai-transparency.org

The ‘OpenAI Files’ will help you understand how Sam Altman’s company works It has charts and data visualizations, including the authors’ best guess at OpenAI’s corporate structure.

The ‘OpenAI Files’ will help you understand how Sam Altman’s company works www.theverge.com/openai/68878...

One issue that I believe Google neglects here is how walking back prior values commitments devalues future ones.

You can't simultaneously change your beliefs to appease the current administration and expect the public to believe you when you make new commitments, like the Frontier Safety Framework.

Exclusive: Google removes 'underrepresented' language from its grant website Just weeks after Google said it would review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Google for Startups Founders Fund web page is peppered

Seems to be ubiquitous across the company:
techcrunch.com/2025/03/07/g...

Google: Since 2018, Google’s AI Principles have served as a living constitution, keeping us motivated by a common purpose.

Also Google: 🙄

Company: @anthropic.com
Date: February 27th, 2025
Change: Removed "White House's Voluntary Commitments for Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI," seemingly without a trace, from their webpage "Transparency Hub" (formerly "Tracking Voluntary Commitments")

Some thoughts in 🧵

Can we trust OpenAI? Artificial Intelligence is the most important technology in history. We ought to hold the companies developing it to exceptionally high standards.

www.safetyabandoned.org

AI Developers Are Bungling Their Dress Rehearsal • The Midas Project Here’s a sobering fact: artificial intelligence today is the worst it will ever be. From here on out, AI will only become more and more capable — and dangerous. All the top AI developers know this. Op...

We may only have a few years to prepare for AI that transforms society on a massive scale.

If Big Tech wants to prove that they are capable of shouldering this responsibility, they need to be far more proactive about safety and responsibility.

www.themidasproject.com/articles/202...