> We can only speculate as to GPT-3's internal states. Perhaps it knows the question perfectly well, but considers humans as too immature and spoiled to tell: In its opinion, we shouldn’t even bother to find questions to answers we can’t possible understand. Or, more likely, it doesn’t know either. Anyway, it comes across as a jerk.

What's with the constant anthropomorphizing of Artificial Intelligence in Silicon Valley? Why talk about these systems and models as if they are objective? They are 100% subjective. It just helps to cover up racist algorithms, and doesn't hold the creators accountable. We can do better.

Please can ‘OpenAI’ rename themselves to ClosedAI if they are not open sourcing everything from the start? Back in 2015, they wrote:

”As a non-profit, our aim is to build value for everyone rather than shareholders. Researchers will be strongly encouraged to publish their work, whether as papers, blog posts, or code, and our patents (if any) will be shared with the world.” [1]

Now they write:

"With GPT-2, one of our key concerns was malicious use of the model (e.g., for disinformation), which is difficult to prevent once a model is open sourced. For the API, we’re able to better prevent misuse by limiting access to approved customers and use cases." [2]

Not open sourcing GPT-3 because it can be used to create disinformation has more to do with the slow plundering of the knowledge Commons and the violent Intellectual Property (Monopoly) systems of the Global North elite, than with supposed 'bad actors' creating disinformation. Blaming ‘bad actors’ ignores the systemic roots and the process of years of Capitalist ‘disinheriting’ by the Capitalist classes. [3]

Professor Guy Standing, author of the book ‘Plunder of the Commons’ writes:

”Meanwhile, the erosion of the education commons is creating a frightening political erosion. Since the ancient Greeks, education has been an integral part of leisure (schole); it is a public good, and its primary objective historically has been the forging of character and the ability to be a good citizen. Again, Jefferson captured that best, along with John Stuart Mill and Cardinal Newman. But that perspective is anathema for neo-liberals, for whom schooling is for preparing people for the job market, for developing ‘human capital’.

In their framework, all education that does not increase employability, competitiveness and economic advantage is dispensable. Consequently, there has been an erosion of the arts, civics, philosophy, ethics and history. Music teaching in state schools is disappearing. The education commons as the teaching and preservation of vernacular and non-standard thinking has shrunk.

This has weakened the ability of citizens to participate in and comprehend political discourse, leading to seduction by simplistic platitudes and appeals to emotion, rather than reason and evidence.. Commentators have paid insufficient attention to loss of the education commons as a cause of the growth of populism and thinly-veiled neo-fascism stalking modern politics, epitomised by Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.” [4]

I think the following cultural myth is the real disinformation: “Silicon Valley is dominant because it's managed to attract the brightest people.”

In reality, Silicon Valley/Amerika monopolizes new discoveries through it's ‘Intellectual Property’ system. At same time it has created a revisionist 'free trade' narrative that it uses to exploit so called ‘developing nations’ (instead all 'developed countries' used protectionist policies to grow their industries, as well as copying technologies from enemies) [5]. This allows the Global North elite to gaslighting-ly ‘kick away the ladder’ and dominate by creating contrived scarcity and financial imperialism through the IMF, WB, WTO, WIPO and the TRIPS agreement. The Amerikan elite also props up Neoliberal ‘democracies’ by bribing leaders and using parasitic debt to provide 'aid', which gives the Elite complete power over the technological (under)development of these countries. When Global South countries ultimately default on their loans, they are forced to sell off natural resources and privatize vital institutions. [6] Through the above narrative and strategies, Amerika artificially limits access to humanity's inventions, as well as the further development of these inventions; while at the same time hoarding Capital to be able to suck up new technologies from around the world through acquisitions and acquihires (as well as programs like YC that bring naive young founders to the US, bringing them in contact with the Amerikan Intellectual Property system and Amerikan Venture Capital funding, incorporating it into the Global North elite’s Imperial machinery):

In other words: Silicon Valley is the Amerikan Elite’s front for sustaining an imperial fortress that is able to 1) control, or even block, innovation (e.g. ‘Who Killed The Electric Car’ or ‘Phonebloks’,) 2) spy on every internet user by centralizing the internet’s architecture and it’s virtual meeting places, and 3) uses this to extract rent from every single one of these interactions:

”By capitalising on network effects, early mover advantage, and near-zero marginal costs of production, [Silicon Valley Corporations] have positioned themselves as gateways to information, giving them the power to extract rent from every transaction.

Undergirding this state of affairs is a set of intellectual property rights explicitly designed to favour corporations. This system — the flip side of globalisation — is propagated by various trade agreements and global institutions at the behest of the nation states who benefit from it the most. It’s no accident that Silicon Valley is a uniquely American phenomenon; not only does it owe its success to the United States’ exceptionally high defence spending — the source of its research funding and foundational technological breakthroughs — that very military might is itself what implicitly secures the intellectual property regime.”[6]

Professor Jakob Rigi adds:

“Digital piracy and the digital copying of cultural products for private use is a refusal to pay rent-tribute to knowledge capitalists. Therefore, piracy is miss-naming of the phenomenon. The sea pirates take away by force others' properties. The digital “pirates” only use universal commons which have been artificially fenced off. They just remove fences, and by doing so they do not take away knowledge, because, knowledge cannot be taken away. They use something which by its nature belongs to the whole of humanity. The producer of knowledge uses knowledge, as “raw” material, which is part of the general intellect of humanity as a whole and the produced knowledge itself becomes immediately part of this general intellect. Therefore, the fencing of knowledge is, essentially, more similar to the traditional piracy. The knowledge capitalist fences off, with help of the force of law, universal commons that does not exclusively belong to her/him. Therefore, s/he robs commons. To put it bluntly, digital piracy takes back that which has been stolen from the public.”

“Digital piracy is a major force of the growth of knowledge and culture, on the one hand, and the self-improvement of the individual on the other. […] “Pirate” activists, so-called crackers, illegally copy fenced off knowledge and make it available for a global public on the net. […] These activists are either from poorer countries or classes or our era’s Robin Hoods from privileged countries and classes. Aaron Swartz was one such Robin Hood. The very massive and online and off line protests against SOPA in the USA and ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ) in the European Union, and their temporary success, are evidence of the moral legitimacy of digital piracy and digital counterfeiting.” [7]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20151222103150/https://openai.co...

[2] https://openai.com/blog/openai-api/

[3] https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...

[4] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/plunder-commons-...

[5] https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb

[6] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

[7] “The Political Economy of Intellectual Property and the Struggle for Commons of Knowledge”, Jakob Rigi