OpenAI announced recently that it intends to become a fully for-profit company, which will reduce the emphasis it maintains on humanity’s benefit and safety. When it was founded in 2016, OpenAI stated that its goal was to “advance digital intelligence” while remaining “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” However, operating, developing, and powering an AI company requires an excessive amount of money, so in 2019, OpenAI became a “capped” for-profit company. This meant that it would be driven by a financial incentive, being able to obtain even greater amounts of funding, yet there would still be a limit as to the amount of profits that it could collect. Diverting its mission from one that would solely benefit humanity to one that was divided between financial gain has raised questions about the potential impact this shift would have on the development of its AI technology.

With an emphasis on profit, OpenAI would shy farther away from prioritizing humanity’s most optimal usage of AI and instead prioritize outputting the most for their shareholders and investors. The decision to move from a capped for-profit to fully forprofit company wasn’t without conflict; preceding this decision to convert, several top executives decided to withdraw from their positions, among them being an OpenAI cofounder and the company’s chief technology officer. When asked for the reasons for
departure, several of them expressed concern for the ability to maintain OpenAI’s fundamental values, AI safety and ethical development. With multiple people expressing concern for the direction of OpenAI’s future, it is uncertain whether the increase in company funds will help restore their original core values or further distort their interests of generating wealth.

Microsoft, the biggest investor in OpenAI, will now likely have a much larger influence on OpenAI’s decisions, with other investors also playing a role in deciding a course of action for the company. In general, investors expect to see a maximal return on their money, so there is concern they will pressure the company to make decisions that will most benefit them financially, rather than what may be best from a societal perspective. This may result in OpenAI funding the development of profitable products rather than reinforcing the safety, quality, and ethicality of ChatGPT and other existing products. Additionally, the data that OpenAI receives from their users, which is considered very valuable by other companies, would be able to be sold under this new structure. We have seen this transition before with other giant tech companies, such as Google and Facebook, which also converted to for-profit models. In both cases, user privacy and other ethical issues arose, so it is more than likely that these same issues could arise with OpenAI.

Especially as OpenAI becomes an even greater presence in the AI industry, they could trample their competition, which could end up leaving behind companies, some of which have other priorities, beyond just profit. According to Bloomberg, OpenAI offered Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, around 7% equity, which he has denied taking but would even further contort the company’s vision if he did. Furthermore, the company may charge more for their services as their responsibility is to their shareholders and investors, which could reduce accessibility and quality of AI, along with widening the gap between wealth classes. Providing equal opportunity for the utilization of AI is essential, as its implementation is quickly becoming prominent around the world and will soon be integrated into our daily
lives. With OpenAI growing at a rapid pace while being backed by many powerful allies, it could end up monopolizing the AI industry, which could result in a significant setback in the growth of the technology, as the necessary emphasis may not be present. While OpenAI’s transition from a non-profit to capped for-profit to a fully for-profit may be financially
necessary to maintain its rapid pace of innovation and growth, it remains to be seen whether the company can maintain their underlying principles of humanitarianism in a capitalist environment.