This is an inflammatory way of saying the guy got served papers. I’m not in love with OAI, but it rankles me when someone nakedly tries to manipulate the narrative.
I don’t understand the nuances of whether it’s normal for the guy to be subpoenaed—it could all be as dirty as he says, but the title makes me assume the rest of the article is just as skewed, and I walk away feeling like someone tried to recruit me to a cause rather than inform me.
OpenAI went beyond just subpoenaing Encode about Elon. OpenAI could (and did!) send a subpoena to Encode’s corporate address asking about our funders or communications with Elon (which don’t exist).
If OpenAI had stopped there, maybe you could argue it was in good faith.
But they didn’t stop there.
They also sent a sheriff’s deputy to my home and asked for me to turn over private texts and emails with CA legislators, college students, and former OAI employees.
This is not normal. OpenAI used an unrelated lawsuit to intimidate advocates of a bill trying to regulate them. While the bill was still being debated.
in context, the subpoena and the way in which it was served sure smells like an attempt at intimidation.
From that guy’s twitter? The primary source of this article is that guy, who is a lobbyist and lawyer. Someone whose career is based on legalistic wordsmithing to convince people that other people are bad.
I’ve seen papers served before, both by a cop and a regular dude (going by appearance). The fact that the server was a deputy in this case doesn’t honestly seem relevant at all. Cops are frequently hired because someone in a police uniform knocking on your door is more likely to be answered than someone who looks like a salesman. But jurisdictions are different—I’ve never heard of papers being served by registered mail, for instance.
That’s why I’d like for the journalist to have brought in some kind of legal analyst to weigh in. They didn’t and what we have is a bunch of quotes from an expert wordsmith and a tech journalist who may not know anything more about the legalities than we do.
I genuinely appreciate that you took another step to look into this and respond, but hearing more from the guy’s own perspective doesn’t help me feel like I know what’s really going on here.
I think I’m done with this whole topic until I hear something about it from a better source. If this is never mentioned again, I’ll assume this is just an attempt at manipulating public opinion over a mundane matter that isn’t outrageous at all. If there is something to it, we’ll hear more about it.
I don’t know how it went down, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to give the Sheriff anything. He’d have time to go over the subpoena with a lawyer the same as if it was just mailed. It doesn’t sound like there was any warrant for the Sheriff to perform a search or do anything other than drop off the papers.
I agree, and the actual real implication in the article sounds just as bad as the headline, so I feel it’s a clickbait machine editor who did this.
The claim BTW is that OpenAI is alleging that random people criticising them are actually in a conspiracy with Elon Musk (the actual person involved in a lawsuit with OpenAI) to discredit them, and the court is humouring this nonsense by subpoenaing random people’s private messages.
He’s not just a random dude, though. His organization is involved in lobbying efforts around OAI. The article claims there’s no connection between the case being subpoenaed for and the stuff he did, and that’s the part that might be abnormal and dirty, but it’s nuanced and the clear bias on display demands their claims be taken with a grain of salt.
It looks to me like this article is carrying the guy’s PR water for him. But just because the article feels manipulative doesn’t mean there’s necessarily no factual basis for it.
This is an inflammatory way of saying the guy got served papers. I’m not in love with OAI, but it rankles me when someone nakedly tries to manipulate the narrative.
I don’t understand the nuances of whether it’s normal for the guy to be subpoenaed—it could all be as dirty as he says, but the title makes me assume the rest of the article is just as skewed, and I walk away feeling like someone tried to recruit me to a cause rather than inform me.
ehh…yes and no.
they could have served the subpoena using registered mail.
or they could have used a civilian process server.
instead they chose to have a sheriff’s deputy do it.
from the guy’s twitter thread:
in context, the subpoena and the way in which it was served sure smells like an attempt at intimidation.
From that guy’s twitter? The primary source of this article is that guy, who is a lobbyist and lawyer. Someone whose career is based on legalistic wordsmithing to convince people that other people are bad.
I’ve seen papers served before, both by a cop and a regular dude (going by appearance). The fact that the server was a deputy in this case doesn’t honestly seem relevant at all. Cops are frequently hired because someone in a police uniform knocking on your door is more likely to be answered than someone who looks like a salesman. But jurisdictions are different—I’ve never heard of papers being served by registered mail, for instance.
That’s why I’d like for the journalist to have brought in some kind of legal analyst to weigh in. They didn’t and what we have is a bunch of quotes from an expert wordsmith and a tech journalist who may not know anything more about the legalities than we do.
I genuinely appreciate that you took another step to look into this and respond, but hearing more from the guy’s own perspective doesn’t help me feel like I know what’s really going on here.
I think I’m done with this whole topic until I hear something about it from a better source. If this is never mentioned again, I’ll assume this is just an attempt at manipulating public opinion over a mundane matter that isn’t outrageous at all. If there is something to it, we’ll hear more about it.
I don’t know how it went down, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to give the Sheriff anything. He’d have time to go over the subpoena with a lawyer the same as if it was just mailed. It doesn’t sound like there was any warrant for the Sheriff to perform a search or do anything other than drop off the papers.
I agree, and the actual real implication in the article sounds just as bad as the headline, so I feel it’s a clickbait machine editor who did this.
The claim BTW is that OpenAI is alleging that random people criticising them are actually in a conspiracy with Elon Musk (the actual person involved in a lawsuit with OpenAI) to discredit them, and the court is humouring this nonsense by subpoenaing random people’s private messages.
He’s not just a random dude, though. His organization is involved in lobbying efforts around OAI. The article claims there’s no connection between the case being subpoenaed for and the stuff he did, and that’s the part that might be abnormal and dirty, but it’s nuanced and the clear bias on display demands their claims be taken with a grain of salt.
It looks to me like this article is carrying the guy’s PR water for him. But just because the article feels manipulative doesn’t mean there’s necessarily no factual basis for it.
So I just… don’t feel informed at all.
I get you. I feel that way about most news I consume these days.