OpenAI gives $1 billion to healthcare and children and that has nothing to do with an IPO

A billion dollars for humanity. From the company that uses humanity as raw material. The data, the attention, the anxiety, the searches at three in the morning from people who don’t know what to do with themselves. That’s the material. The billion is the packaging.

The setup is elegant in its simplicity. You build something that causes harm. You catalog the harm: labor market disruption, children’s mental health, biosecurity threats. You don’t call the harm harm. You call it a focus area. You hire people to lead the focus areas. Head of AI Resilience. Head of Life Sciences and Health. Head of AI for Civil Society. With an IPO on the horizon that could push the company toward a trillion dollars, and a lawsuit heading to court before the year is out, you issue a press release.

The safety researchers are gone

Nearly all of them. The people who asked the questions the company didn’t want answered have left or been pushed out. In their place stands a Foundation with an equity stake the company itself valued at $130 billion. No independent assessor. The company, about itself. The press reports it as fact.

The costs nobody asked for

Electricity bills are rising in the communities where the data centers are located. That’s included too, as context, as concern, as a reason why it’s good that a Foundation exists. Not as costs shifted onto people who were never asked whether they wanted that. As concern. There’s a difference, and the company is counting on you not noticing it.

Beneficiaries, not victims

The people who lose their jobs to the systems this company builds are called beneficiaries. Not victims. Beneficiaries. The word positions the company as giver and the affected party as recipient. The power dynamic stays exactly as it was, just presented the other way around. Nobody made a mistake.

The lawsuit is ongoing. The IPO is approaching. We wish you a most pleasant rest of your day.