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moritzwarhier | on: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining
> What do you think is more likely: this or the other way around: getting the "ethics team" to align with investor goals? Hint: Where does the money come from?

From the (ethics) team obviously, because the investors just have goals and aren't a team!

Big irony marker of course. But remarkably, in human history, this line of thinking would not be unheard of. Of course, I don't think it easily adapts to companies, so I don't really disagree with you.

Remember that MTV show offering people like 5 grand or something to lick an elevator handway in front of a camera?

Well, if someone has a useful idea in this world, and want to build a company from it, the MTV "lick-the-stairway" offers will be the largest and first hurdle before anything else happens. People will simply offer to buy you out, and that's not limited to founders and creatives.

That's how our system works.

Terr_ | parent
I feel I missed some logical step in-between "corruptive power of money" and the elevator/stairway railing/banister thing.

> People will simply offer to buy you out, and that's not limited to founders and creatives.

A less-obvious failure case would be bankrupcy court, where all sorts of ethical promises and even explicit contracts may be voided in pursuit of recovering a buck for creditors.

moritzwarhier | root | parent
It was supposed to be a provocative example for a situation that makes it very hard for someone selling something, more specifically, something immaterial, to judge what is an appropriate price for it.

Of course nobody asks people they want to get into a contract to lick an escalator handway. That was the word I was looking for, I think.

The show ran on TV when I was young, I didn't even watch it.