Snowden is one of those guys like Stallman who you can disagree with and think their position is extreme but it is foolish to completely dismiss them. There is currently a gold rush to circumvent IP rights and exploit the works of billions without attribution or remuneration while society and legislators are sleeping.
Richard Stallman has never done a single thing to make me believe he’s anything other than motivated by deeply held principles rooted in the right to privacy and other individual liberties.
The problem with a whistleblower from an intelligence agency is much like one from a tobacco company. Yes, they may be nobler than their peers in those institutions who didn't blow the whistle, but at the end of the day, they are the sort of person who would work at an intelligence agency or tobacco company in the first place.
> but at the end of the day, they are the sort of person who would work at an intelligence agency or tobacco company in the first place.
Yes? Snowdens position was never that the government shouldn’t be allowed to spy on citizens, it was just that individual warrants should be sought instead of what he perceived as illegal “catch all” approvals of broad spying on everyone.
It's difficult to imagine a person of good character, knowing the atrocities intelligence agencies regularly do (overthrow inconvenient foreign governments, spy on and blackmail civil rights and other groups trying to make a better society) joining such an agency. At best they simply don't care about being associated with such a agency. Otherwise they actually enjoy the idea. We knew since the 1960s the crap intelligence agencies do.
> At best they simply don't care about being associated with such a agency. Otherwise they actually enjoy the idea.
You can assume that, but it's like saying that anyone working in big tech supports child labor in lithium mines. In the strictest sense you're kinda right, but a lot of these people are legitimately stupid and don't know how the sausage is made or think they're one of the "good guys". I'd rather those people have a late change-of-heart than continue to stay complicit in things we can both easily agree are immoral.
I don't need Snowden to tell me not to trust OpenAI. The feeling I got when reading just a few words when I first found out about the company was the same feeling one gets when walking into a used car shop run by the guy who bullied you in high school.
Of course not. I want more people to say it. I want everyone to say it, to condemn OpenAI, to condemn big tech ad nauseum. I want everyone to stop using big tech products as much as possible and I want big tech to go bankrupt.
Of course there is a legitimate reason for having Nakasone on the board.
OpenAI is highly sensitive to regulation which is why they have such a large lobbying team trying to push the US government in their direction. He (a) brings political connections and (b) gives confidence that any advancements won't threaten US national security. It is pretty common amongst enterprise boards.
The reality is that the perceptions of what AI can do is impacting the world far more than what it can actually do.
Theranos would have made exellent military gear. I can already see the fieldtest machines, printing out "not software as a service" related on every patients results. All thats missing is a forward assist..
And aside from being NSA director he was Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, experience highly relevant to both OpenAI's security and safety posture, and to selling to government and defense buyers.
According to the OpenAI CTO, ChatGPT5 is not going to break new ground.
So if you were Sam the smart thing to do is to get your platform embedded absolutely everywhere before the heat starts to come out of this iteration of AI.
I mean I think gpt4 from a year ago is more advanced that what we have available publicly, so for my fellows in the peanut gallery I just want to call out that 'much more advanced' is a pretty subjective classification
The most charitable positive spin on this is that his connections will help stop government from going fact-less banhammer on AI in general. But jesus I would assume most peoples brains can go real negative on this one.
Not parent, just giving my opinion. The perception of what it may become is causing pressure to change wide reaching laws and legal practice.
A) Copyright. The AI companies are blatantly disregarding practically everyones copyright when they train on all the data they can find online. The rights holders have not given them permission to do so.
B) Privacy. Companies are just taking all the data of their customers and using for training. This is directly in opposition with GDPR, recently established in the Eurozone. Companies, notably Meta, are arguing - oh but AI is so important, that we do not have to ask for users consent.
C) Compute/algorithms. Regulations on "AI" itself. With several actors, notably OpenAI/Altman saying it is so dangerous that only corporations like them can do it responsibly, aiming to do regulatory capture which benefits them.
Large forces from the biggest companies in the world are attempting to change the legal landscape, and manipulate the perception of politicians and the public to ensure sufficient support to get the changes through.
Dunno the details of this specific issue, but hyperbole is pretty standard for Snowden. I don't blame him too much. The guy has been through hell. But let's just say his Twitter proclamations aren't exactly neutrally worded.
To be fair, his experience in life would be considered hyperbole by most people whose most difficult challenge is whether or not they have time to get a coffee on their 20 minute commute.
His words reflect his personal experience as a person who feels compelled to point out legitimate dangers to a free and democratic society.
It turns out that “free and democratic “ societies react harshly to criticism of their powerful agencies.
Ironically, he has ended up having to flee to a place that is much, much less “free and democratic” but letting him freely criticise the rest of the world is politically useful for now, so he is allowed the bully pulpit.
According to Wikipedia: his first noteworthy anti-corruption publication was in 2010, he was charged with corruption in 2012 with a 5 year suspended sentence, in 2014 he was placed under house arrest without due process or any access to family or lawyers, in 2016 he paid a large fine to avoid negative consequences for his brother who had been wrongly implicated alongside him, in 2019 he was charged with a contractual breach and in 2020 he was poisoned which ultimately led to his death via some more wrongful imprisonment and lack of access medical care.
Looks like less than one decade of public anti-corruption work was enough for the state to attempt to murder one of the most famous politicians in the country with the rest of the world looking on. Not exactly sure how this can be seen as a regime with a notably high tolerance for dissenters.
There was the NSA who was spying on the public without warrants as a military organization, in contravention to the constitution. Probably they’re also to blame. He just told us about the violations of the highest laws we have.
Please do elaborate. I am not aware of any information that Snowden has published that was not factually correct and informative.
I think that of all people, Snowden would have a much more nuanced understanding of what it means for a former NSA chief to join the board of a company like OAI.
That "nuanced understanding" is not on display here. It's just insinuating something nefarious in a very simplistic way. It's like saying because the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline is on the board of Microsoft that Windows will now ship with antidepressants.
What does it mean when a Russian citizen [0] on social media smears an American company that's blocked Russian disinformation campaigns [1] for appointing somebody that's been in charge of defending against Russian disinformation campaigns [2], who has said as recently as last month: “If they are trying to influence or interfere in our elections, we should make it as hard as possible for them.”[3]?
(Vf guvf ahnaprq haqrefgnaqvat be vf vg vafvahngvba?)
I don’t think that being a CEO of another company is nearly as indicative of the nature of the character and priorities of a person as other kinds of life or professional experience.
Being a career military person that ends up as a head of a three letter agency requires a very specific kind of professional focus, worldview, and set of priorities.
A better example might be if a former member of the grateful dead joined the board of OAI. That would also be an indication of an intentional incorporation of a worldview into the guiding intellect of a company.
I think there is a significant lack of explanation in his jump to step 2, but I think this is where his domain experience is being applied.
The underwear -gnomeish jump here I think is: the “only” reasonable explanation for this (overtly terrible from an optics perspective) selection is that this is the NSA getting their hooks deeply into openAI in the same way they did with Google, which can now be reasonably considered a commercial extension or at least a close partner of the NSA.
Arguably, googles business model is based on violating the privacy of every person on earth to the maximum extent that they can get away with, so the somewhat hyperbolic statement seems less extreme in that context.
But, that is just my interpretation, I’m not in his head, so I could definitely be wrong. Still, this is my best estimate of the situation.
Unfortunately we live in a world where in effect, many companies have become, for all practical purposes, cartoon villains. So , lamentably, cartoon villain plots are now reasonably anticipated outcomes.
The only thing missing is the motive of harm, which is handily replaced by the motive of profit with indifference to harm.
My hypothesis is that in his time with the NSA, Snowden witnessed the cartoon-villainy that he called out, and that because of that experience, he identifies this recent event (of appointing an ex-NSA military officer to guide OAI) as a highly probable symptom of further villainy, this time is something arguably more expansive and impactful than FAANG.
It seems to me a rather reasonable conclusion , and framing it in sensational terms as the most reasonable approach to “sound the alarm “- a role that, for better or for worse, Snowden has taken.
Where there is smoke, there is fire is still an extremely useful adage, despite the overt lack of scientific rigor in its application.
This is not what I had in mind when I hoped I would live in interesting times.
I’m not sure I understand the analogy. To me there’s a difference between a former intelligence general being courted by a private company that sells services for rapidly and semi-autonomously generating content that bad actors have used and will likely continue to use for influencing geopolitical public sentiment, and a pharmaceutical company that does not sell similar technology.
The point is that anybody can make baseless insinuations about what a board appointment means that have nothing to do with the actual qualifications of the person.
Perhaps others may make inferences about what a board appointment to a company with growing influence in government security matters means based on the appointee’s history in government security leadership.
Like how some of OpenAI's current challenges include a) not leaking everything they create to the PRC and b) not having their tools abused for disinformation campaigns, so they appointed someone with leadership experience in keeping secrets from the PRC and combating disinformation campaigns.
What is "(Vf guvf ahnaprq haqrefgnaqvat be vf vg vafvahngvba?)"? Is this a romanization of Russian? Or is it some sort of coded message? What does it mean? Despite agreeing with the bulk of your post I'm hesitant to upvote something that concludes with a line I don't understand.
To the contrary, Snowden is an object lesson in what happens when you actually take your oaths to protect democracy and freedom seriously. Taking those oaths seriously is almost
always punished with the full coercive force of the state. They are supposed to be interpreted as being loyal to one’s superiors, not as actual commitments to any abstract set of principles or ideals.
Living unmolested in hierarchical societies is mostly an exercise in the effective interpretation of doublespeak and toeing the line.
"Protect democracy and freedom" contrasts starkly with seeking refuge in Russia and becoming a Russian citizen. In many ways, he's the _perfect_ mouthpiece for anti-US propaganda. I'm not sure what that doesn't give more people pause.
I agree with all of this, but I just mean to show that his outlandish and outrageous claims have so far never been hyperbole, but plain unembellished documentation of outlandish and outrageous acts.
No he never cried wolf. That tweet makes no false claims.
All he did there was fail to believe that Putin would actually do something quite that extremely terrible. (Not my assumption. Later tweets supplied that.)
He was accusing Biden and the media of probably crying wolf.
He expressed a perfectly valid and supported-by-evidense opinion that the media stokes fires and the US manipulates the people via the media, and therefor you shouldn't just accept everything without question.
The media and the US government do in fact both do those things. You in fact should not just accept everything without question. That is all true and was true on that day too, because it's true at all times every day.
Merely in that case, that specific claim by Biden and the media was not false.
And because he got that wrong, he stopped tweeting at all because he considered his opinions and advice of low value on that subject. What lack of integrity!
"he considered his opinions and advice of low value on that subject."
"perfectly valid and supported-by-evidense opinion"
He was clearly holding an invalid, incorrect opinion and supported the Putin state position that allowed a better chance of a surprise coup on Kyiv.
Educated geopol and intel circles already knew about the impending invasion months before, a very major "how the world works" event. That he was so crassly wrong, months after it was obvious, should be a stark lesson to you that Snowden does not in fact know "how the world works." and you should appropriately downgrade his opinion on such matters. If you did not know about this invasion in 2021, your intel sources and analysis are also garbage like Snowdens.
But it sounds like you'll twist anything to support your preconceived notions, even when confronted with the obvious contradictions. Try again
Those were two different opinions about two different things, and the valid one was and still is valid. It is a simple fact of the world, directly observable everywhere at all times and so not actually an opinion at all.
I don't think you are in a great position from which to to remark about anyone else's twisting and preconceived notions and contradictions.
"There is nothing more grotesque than a media pushing for war." -Snowden
Clearly implicating that US-adjacent media is the prime culprit for wanting war, not the 100k Russian troops already stationed on the border, with plans from months before to assault Ukraine and kill thousands. Rather than the media simply announcing, months late, the impending invasion.
"if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM"
Clearly implicating Biden as being the one wanting the invasion to happen, instead of accurately warning the world what is going to transpire, and that nothing is going to happen anyway (wrong).
"your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns"
The journalism wasn't uncredible! It wasn't disinformation! It was accurately reporting the impending invasion.
Nothing here is ambiguous at all with decent reading comprehension. Snowden himself says "If there's an invasion tomorrow, dunk on me because I have been spectacularly wrong."
You are clearly the one with the "twisting and preconceived notions and contradictions." because you're denying Snowden was wrong when he literally admits it.
It strikes me as more than a little possible that he was coerced into that viewpoint or at least that statement. Given his circumstances, one would be wise to consider (his?) statements regarding strategic considerations of the RF vulnerable to compromise, while his criticisms of western companies and policy would tend to be unmoderated, in order to conserve his value as a pulpit speaker.
When interpreting public content, it is generally useful to carefully consider the perverse and straightforward incentives and value propositions of the parties involved. Most public speech (and most “news”) is fundamentally characterisable as some flavor of PR exercise.
In light of this, Apple’s choice to integrate with ChatGPT from OpenAI looks worse. Even with its privacy promises of not revealing much information and asking the user explicitly, these and other events in OpenAI should trigger serious concerns with Apple executives. The top Apple executives have said that they started with ChatGPT because it’s the best. Maybe this partnership won’t be around this time next year.
Remember that time Steve was excited to integrate Facebook and Twitter into iOS as first class citizens?
This reminds me so much of that moment
Then I remember how bad Siri is. OpenAI has basically shamed Apple out of no where. They desperately need this just to look competitive in the space .. which is weird and unfortunate
It sounded like they made it flexible so they could slot in other models. Maybe it will even allow users to choose the model, once there are more options.
They could use Mixtral, Minstral, XWin, Mythomax, or Claude 3 Haiku 196M. They’re all great and most/all are better than Siri.
I think the best thing Apple could do is let the user choose which AI to load in. It could be like iTunes or the App Store and called the AI store. Then AI providers can compete on privacy & effectiveness. The store would need lots of features to enable comparison though or users won’t be able to decide which ones might be worth picking.
I ask so many questions of chatbots across so many topics and it has proven valuable many times. But I'm certainly untrusting and wary of them and don't really doubt that I am being surveilled in detail. But I struggle to find scenarios in which it could be used against me. I'd pay more for more privacy and am interested in hosting my own. But of my 99 problems this is pretty far down the list.
Once I sent some saliva to 23andMe. At least some of that data was stolen and I'm probably on a list of ashkenazim for sale somewhere. That's unpleasant. While I can't think of a problem with being surveilled by chatbots now maybe I'm just not being imaginative enough.
If all your friends and all their friends said the sky was purple, even though at odds with your observation, would you be bold enough to declare it blue?
We'll be immersed in AI feedback and we'll all be influenced by the advice it provides. There won't really be a "source" in the sense Google sends you to BuzzFeed and you know you're reading trash. It'll all have the veneer of authority because ChatGPT said so. The product is trust. Would you ask a malicious thug the same questions and reveal your private details? No.
You can feel as untrusting as you want, but the streams of AI advice are like water and we're just like fish. It's influencing you, and if you don't realize how then you probably could pay closer attention.
Such a good reply. Even if somehow you avoid even creeping bit of AI (I'm trying as hard as I can), you will inevitably live amongst others that don't have the same information literacy or skepticism as some of us. And while using a chat bot might be personally innocent, any such users are absolutely feeding and training the beast and enabling OpenAI's next oversteps.
At the risk of a tangent, the real problem with services like 23andMe isnt just that it has your (irrevokable) DNA or traits in it, its that they now have the DNA and traits of your entire extended family up and down the tree(s) to a significant degree. Using a service like that is essentially selling them out, and they have no say in it.
My older brother was pissed that I sent it in. I had a potential cousin contact me via 23andMe and I asked my brother about some possible common relations. He thought that we were probably being scammed and that I was a reckless idiot.
Same as using GMail without PGP. GMail users are selling out the the rest of our data to Google by having one side of that conversation. It’s the same reason I am generally against using a gateway between Discord & IRC/XMPP/Matrix.
OpenAI will presumably offer more than a chatbot in the future. Even so, you can already upload files into it for analysis.
I for one don't think it's a coincidence that Microsoft is pushing Windows Recall for consumers (keeping a permanent index of deleted files), pushing OneDrive as the default save location for O365 enterprise, and sinking billions into OAI.
Heads up: The “article” page has a warning that they’re moving to x.com. Time to add an entry to your filter list.
(I clicked the link to see what fresh breakage they’d display instead of the current tweet. Oddly, the article link works. That hasn’t happened to me in ages.)
Another one bites the dust. Added to the list, paid account canceled, data deleted, account deleted.
Its becoming easier and easier to step back from a service and consider if its essential (its not, as a rule), and remove it WHEN it becomes an abusive relationship.
Other way around. OpenAI and others are the new Google search. The likely suggestion is that OpenAI chats will just be another XKEYSCORE input and OpenAI's algorithms will assist in parsing/forming conclusions on existing data on behalf of the government (a likely bet as there are plenty of rumors swirling about government agencies integrating AI into their processes).
OpenAI - whose CEO is Sam Altman, is financially backed by Microsoft, using Microsoft infrastructure and search and is now embedded in Apple, has crossed the line by adding the former NSA/CSS Commander to the board?
I’m a huge Snowden fan but cmon dude…Give me a break
OpenAI was never some indie thing
OpenAI is the most perfect physical manifestation of cynical, alienating, self-important narcissistic capitalism that has ever been seen
You would think LVMH would take this title, but there’s no more hypnotizing scrying device for burgeoning psychopathic narcissists (CEOs, “influencers”, rappers etc..) than the endless fawning solipsism on demand from a simulacrum of a human
I think yours is the most under-appreciated take on this entire hn thread.
> endless fawning solipsism on demand from a simulacrum of a human
ChatGPT: Every narcissist's best friend. Why settle for a stupid and fallible human when you can have an algorithmically optimized yes-man trained on all of human knowledge and available 24/7/365.
You have a choice, and it is simple. Earn money. Buy GPUs. Download llama3 or comparable open models. Run them. After you do, to the maximum extent possible, stop using the OpenAI LLMs. Stop willingly feeding the surveillance industrial complex.
Anonymity is good, but a VPN doesn't really help for anonymity. It only prevents some MITM security. The moment you access an NSA data provider, e.g. Gmail, over the VPN, your IP address is immediately correlated in time with your chat activity, and your identity is revealed. I know you mentioned an AI-addon, but there are too many limitations there in terms of the number of models available, usage quota, and API access.
Regarding llama3, it works for some applications, not for others demanding higer intelligence. Surely there will be a llama4 and a 5. They're coming fast.
The takeaway is that Llama 3 looks a lot better than Llama 2, and I expect this trend to continue to 4 and 5, to the point where 5 could overtake GPT4.
High-end ones are needed more for large model training and unoptimized tuning, less so for inference alone. Most users would need just inference, at least in the beginning.
Snowden memoir not simply called "Permanent Record" if you like to read, it's in chapter: Part Three - Fourth Estate, or in audiobook at 08:30:24
He writes about CIA CTO, Gus Hunt talk at GigaOM's Structure:Data conference in 2013, still available to witness https://youtu.be/GUPd2uMiXXg?t=1258
TLDR: “At the CIA,” he said, “we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever.”
> The second event happened one year later, in March 2013—one week after Clapper lied to Congress and Congress gave him a pass. A few periodicals had covered that testimony, though they merely regurgitated Clapper’s denial that the NSA collected bulk data on Americans. But no so-called mainstream publication at all covered a rare public appearance by Ira “Gus” Hunt, the chief technology officer of the CIA.
I’d known Gus slightly from my Dell stint with the CIA. He was one of our top customers, and every vendor loved his apparent inability to be discreet: he’d always tell you more than he was supposed to. For sales guys, he was like a bag of money with a mouth. Now he was appearing as a special guest speaker at a civilian tech event in New York called the GigaOM Structure: Data conference. Anyone with $40 could go to it. The major talks, such as Gus’s, were streamed for free live online.
> I got insight, certainly, but of an unexpected kind. I had the opportunity of witnessing the highest-ranking technical officer at the CIA stand onstage in a rumpled suit and brief a crowd of uncleared normies—and, via the Internet, the uncleared world—about the agency’s ambitions and capacities. As his presentation unfolded, and he alternated bad jokes with an even worse command of PowerPoint, I grew more and more incredulous.
> “At the CIA,” he said, “we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever.” As if that wasn’t clear enough, he went on: “It is nearly within our grasp to compute on all human generated information.” The underline was Gus’s own. He was reading from his slide deck, ugly words in an ugly font illustrated with the government’s signature four-color clip art.
> Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”
Good luck trusting OpenAI's generative seductive female operative with Johansson voice.
A consequence of him choosing to be under the protection of an adversary of my country is that his opinions about my country carry much less weight with me now.
Quite the opposite. He's saying that OpenAI is a tool of the American surveillance state. I don't even really disagree with that.
Edward Snowden saying it while under the protection of the Russian government makes me look for ulterior motives. That's how we're supposed to treat disinformation, isn't it?
No, this is about what Snowden thinks the consequences of this appointment will be. At least, that’s the charitable reading of the tweet. Really this is just fear-mongering hyperbole.
He was en route somewhere else, the US cancelled his passport and downed diplomatic planes out of russia that they suspected he was on, this was an international scandal that you conveniently forgot.
Can we please put these myths to bed? or are you intending to intentionally spread this misinformation?
EDIT: parent has edited their comment to be much less inflammatory.
What here are you saying is a myth? I've been a Snowden supporter from the beginning, but it's unwise to ignore the realpolitik of the current situation. It's not like if he starts saying things that are critical of Russia and draws aggro, he can just come back to the West without facing severe persecution. Based on his already having given up so much performing thankless patriotic service to the United States, I'd personally say he's entitled to just live out the rest of his days saying whatever the Kremlin tells him he needs to and otherwise just taking it easy. And I know that's a shitty position for him to be in while still seemingly having plenty to say himself, but that's the reality.
The myth is that he ran to the enemy of the US to be friendly with Russia.
There is no reason for the Kremlin to tell him to say anything. There would be a lot of negative consequences for that if it came out and Snowden is quite literally known for being outspoken, and it would also be harmful for Snowden if he was forced to say something untrue.
Ironically our own politicians misrepresent the truth far more often than Snowden seems to.
But obviously he is refraining from saying anything critical of the very obvious tyrannical situation in Russia
>There would be a lot of negative consequences for that if it came out
The current Russian government doesn't seem too concerned about negative consequences, whether short or long-term.
The consequence is what, bad PR? Lol. It's piss in the ocean. This wouldn't even register in the top 100,000 "negative consequences" that the Russian government is facing right now.
I don't see that anybody here has said he ended up in Russia because he wanted to be friendly with Russia. Rather simply that going to Russia (and then getting stuck there) was the better alternative to being persecuted by USG.
There would be no repercussions for the Kremlin being exposed as having instructed Snowden on what to say. Russian propaganda works in the presence of everyone knowing it's propaganda, by sheer volume. There would obviously be repercussions for Snowden if he talked about any such thing though. The dynamic could also merely just be the implication though, coupled with a bunch of understandable resentment from having been persecuted by USG.
(and I don't really care to engage with the whataboutist relativist argument)
Does he not live in Russia with dual US and Russian citizenship?
Is he somehow more free than everyone else in Russia to criticize the actions of the Russian government?
I don't think Edward Snowden is a bad person. He followed his conscience and I can respect that. Now he is in a situation where his speech about everything other than the United States and its allies is limited.
Are we supposed to believe that him criticizing the US doesn't bring him a material benefit? That there's no quid pro quo for keeping him out the US justice system?
The events you've mentioned are WHY he is in Russia. The fact that he IS there and the Russian leverage over him is what makes me discount his statements.
> Are we supposed to believe that him criticizing the US doesn't bring him a material benefit?
It sure worked out well for him when he had nothing to gain. And it's not like criticizing OpenAI is some absurd position to take, they're being run by the dude that was scanning people's eyes with a silver orb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
That was very rude and I hope it made you feel better.
I will go on with my day knowing that the careful messaging about Russia provided by Edward Snowden is in no way affected by him wanting to stay alive and outside of a Russian prison.
Got the dates mixed up. Apparently they cancelled his passport on the 22nd, after which he departed. As to whether the cancellation catalyzed the flight to Moscow with help from HK is another question.
I wonder what the options are. Seems like any developed country would given him to USA without any issues no matter how illegal it is (see Kim Dotcom saga), and out of all the “pro Russia “ options Russia(Moscow) is the most developed one to have a good lifestyle.
He may have, but it's not as like we knew Manning was going to be pardoned in 2013. She was also put through extremely cruel and unusual treatment during detention, such as being kept in solitary confinement for months at a time for no reason other than to make an example.
Unless you're involved in that decision making process and leaking the information here, that's just pure random guy internet speculation. The scope for them was very different and you're basically saying "trust this with your life, you'll be totally fine".
What is this based on? No matter what people think he deserves, my guess is that Snowden, like Assange, is a character that the ruling class wants to make an example of. Chelsea Manning does not threaten the ruling class, especially after you know what.
how he ended up there has no impact on what influence Putin has over him now. Which is a lot. And incase you don’t follow the war in Ukraine, where dissidents and journalists are jailed for straying even slightly from the main narrative. He doesn’t get a free pass, hes very likely pressured to a large degree especially given the influencer like status he wields.
Totally irrelevant. And I say this as someone who still has family in Ukraine.
Why does it matter what Snowden has to say about Ukraine? He's neither a subject matter expert on the topic nor particularly known for his geopolitical opinions.
I think that's why they mentioned Ukraine - to point out that it's always in Snowden's best interest to be critical of the US and US things, and remind us to bear that in mind when considering him and what he says.
Is it wrong to be critical of the USA? I would judge his opinions based on merit, not where he lives and how free he is to talk. It’s telling that he hasn’t vocally supported Russia or really talked about certain related topics, he chooses to focus on what he can talk about rather than fall victim to becoming a Russian asset. Sure, it’s in Russias favor to talk bad about the USA, but if it’s warranted to do so that’s not morally wrong or anything.
In the USA we’re free to talk bad about our government, and suggesting doing so from another country is wrong is not correct. It’s okay to criticize power.
Look at it this way, if someone is paid to say good things about the company they work for, you take what they say with a grain of salt, don't you? Snowden's situation is similar to this, in a way. He's being paid (by being allowed to stay there and to keep breathing) to criticize the US, so shouldn't we take what he says with a grain of salt? I'd argue that in Snowden's case, since it's not just his livelihood at stake (as with a company shill) but his freedom and likely his life, then he has even more incentive to stir the pot, color his statement's in Russia's favor, stretch truths, perhaps even outright lie, since the consequences of not living up to his side of the bargain are so dire.
Note: I'm not saying he definitely does this, but.... grain of salt!
Seems to me like he gave up his freedom for his morals, so I’d trust him more because of that. You always have to weigh someone’s words, anyways, even “Mr USA American Hero” has a bias. Snowden isn’t any less trustworthy than any politician or other person in power, at the very least.
Considering the US pulled his passport he had only two options: imprisonment/death or remaining in Russia. Based on his travel plans, Russia was certainly not what he had in mind.
It is not a digital war. He won't have much to say other than America wants Russia to fight Ukraine to tire out Russia, even if Ukrainians are devastated.
Although you got downvoted into the ground, parent, note that nobody actually refuted what you said.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of Snowden's motivations, propriety, loyalty, etc, there's just no question that willing or unwilling: yes, he lives his life at Putin's pleasure. If he did not have value to the Kremlin, he would not be free to communicate on Twitter/X.
This shouldn't be controversial, and those that think it is are being naive.
OpenAI did the reasonable and logical thing here. They're easing themselves around regulatory hurdles, possibly avoiding Senate committee interrogations, and legitimizing themselves all with a single board seat.
Snowden's being disingenuous. He knows all of this and has chosen to ignore the above in service of an agenda.
What _actual_ choice did OpenAI have here? If they do not accept an NSA board member today, what would OpenAI be forced to accept later?
OpenAI is very guilty of pushing for regulation of AI, leading to all these issues in the first place. They themselves created the poison of regulation for which they now purchased the antidote. They had a choice to not scaremonger or push for regulation, but to fight for freedom on constitutional grounds.
Also, they should focus on developing AGI, not on buying wortheless executives that the consumer or taxpayer has to pay for.
