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OpenAI whistleblower found dead at 26 in San Francisco apartment | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[–] 18 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I'm wondering if this might have stemmed from A) OpenAI making it a nightmare for him, B) feeling despondent about the case, or C) personal things unrelated to the lawsuit. Kind of like what happened with the Boeing whistleblower after he had been fighting them for years and Boeing retaliated against him and got away with it. I don't know if we'll ever know though.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    In any case, I think we have to acknowledge that companies are capable of turning a whistleblower's life into hell without ever physically laying a hand on them.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Yeah, it's always a combination of factors and I have no doubt the stress didn't help, but the idea that OpenAI would put a hit on some guy no one's heard of over his opinions on copyright infringement is laughable. Let's not do that.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm guessing it went like "we will make sure that you'll never be able to land another job in this expertise"

    He quit the job in August and didn't find another one yet

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Full time AI grift jobs would of course be forever closed to any AI whistleblower. There's still a plenty of other jobs.

    I did participate in the hiring process, I can tell you that at your typical huge corporation the recruiter / HR are too inept to notice that you are a whistleblower, and don't give a shit anyway. And of the rank and file who will actually google you, plenty enough people dislike AI.

    At the rank and file level, the only folks who actually give a shit who you are are people who will have to work with you. Not the background check provider, not the recruiter.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    I think there might also be a bit of d) OpenAI has weird nerds defending the honour of their AIfu.

    Imagine whistleblowing about unethical behaviour and than have thousands of nerds need to argue about how that what you did technically isnt whistleblowing.

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