OpenAI’s 13-page paper, titled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age, follows its surprise acquisition of tech-friendly podcast TBPN and its announcement of plans to open a Washington DC office that will feature a dedicated space called the OpenAI workshop for non-profits and policymakers to learn about and discuss the company’s technology.
“The OpenAI paper has a lot of the sounds of wanting more regulatory oversight,” said Sarah Myers West, co-executive director at the non-profit AI Now Institute, which advocates for more public accountability over the AI industry. “But then when you look under the hood, they have lobbied very successfully for an administration that has taken a very aggressive deregulatory stance toward AI.”
“What they’ve done very cannily here is sort of outline a set of social welfare goals while abdicating any responsibility or any meaningful commitment of resources toward those goals,” Myers West said.
The industry in recent years has staffed up to make its case to lawmakers, and the public. Corporate-owned labs have pulled in formerly independent academics and researchers. In the last few years, Myers West said these labs have also moved away from publishing in peer-reviewed journals toward in-house publications and greater control. Even though respected researchers have left academia and non-profits to work at these companies, the dynamic creates broader questions about the incentives and corporate ownership of their research.
“I don’t think that you could say that they’re in any way meaningfully independent,” Myers West said.
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