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Reading about OpenAI's success with ChatGPT it becomes quite clear that a major reason why they are perceived as being ahead isn't because they are technically superior to Google/Meta/Microsoft but simply that they have fewer inhibitions. Most of the underlying tech that powers ChatGPT was invented by the major tech firms, they simply sat on that tech and slowed down its release. Exactly why is not explicitly spelled out, but reading between the lines it does appear it was a fear of bad PR + regulatory scrutiny. OpenAI, being smaller and thus escaping the same scrutiny, decided to simply implement the readily available technology and rush it out the door.
Nobody is denying that they have great engineers, but they are not inventing anything fundamentally new. That, at least, is the view of Yann LeCun in his latest interview. Perhaps he is an embittered man trying to protect his turf, but even OpenAI boosters will admit that Google has a similar chatbot which they simply have not publicly released yet.
Google's response has been quick, basically loosening internal controls and "ethics reviews" in order to boost the release cadence. This prompted Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, to publicly criticise Google. This is of course cynical, draping yourself in the flag of responsibility while having had your success based upon being more reckless than the big boys.
I think these developments are part of a larger shift. The ever-increasing "wokism" of Big Tech has not only slowed down but arguably is even starting to decline, albeit gently. The slaughter of a substantial part of Google's AI "ethics" team in recent years come to mind. Timnit Gebru was its most high-profile victim but hardly the only one. OpenAI's success is simply yet another factor that will allow the further sidelining of naysayers inside Big Tech who are preoccupied with slowing down AI development due to social concerns.
I read a lot of inflamed commentary of how SJWs will destroy Silicon Valley during the height of the BLM mania. Ultimately, these developments tell us that once the bottom lines of Big Tech companies are even remotely threatened, they will cast aside any moral qualms without a moment's hesitation. Whether or not that is good is debatable, but it seems to be final. Obviously, this also has implications for any hopes of "holding back" AGI if it ever came close to fruition, i.e. the likelihood of that ever being feasible is probably close to nil.
I think you're misreading companies' regulatory burden for fear of wokism. Google et al are holding back for the former, which is much more central to its daily life. In fact, the biggest fear of wokism in corporations comes from implicit regulatory burden via law suits supported by old civil rights law.
Google saw that openAI got away with releasing tech without the feds slamming down arbitrary regulation (so far) and were like "okay, maybe it's safe." This is all at best tangentially related to wokism. Never forget that the federal government's regulatory apparatus is the #1 concern of any large corporation.
I don't think this is as separated as you seem to think. One of the main tactics of wokeism is to hijack and abuse the government's regulatory apparatus. Ie, a bunch of woke idealogues see something they dislike, complain enough to raise it to public awareness, a woke bureaucrat in the government raises legal action against it via some sort of ambiguous law that can technically be said to apply if you stretch the language a little, and then a woke judge rules against the company.
This only needs to actually happen in a small number of cases in order to create a culture of fear that disincentivizes companies from invoking the ire of the woke, same as with any other legal threat. And because the law's are often ambiguous and/or selectively enforced, this can be wielded as an idealogical weapon. If the government selectively enforces ambiguous regulatory laws against wokeism's targets more often than its allies, then companies can reduce their regulatory burden by being an ally.
I don't think they're separate. Like I said-
But civil rights suits and so on are not the biggest burden. It's one of many burdens, and the burdens become bigger and more arbitrary the bigger the company.
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