First, OpenAI was founded as a non-profit. Under CEO Sam Altman the company’s recently rearranged to become what’s essentially a for-profit business nested under a non-profit with oversight power. In other words, as Wired reported, OpenAI can operate like a for-profit business but it has to adhere to the company’s original charter of developing AGI that benefits all humankind. Interestingly enough, the company that OpenAI appears to be trying to catch up to with this deal is Google — another for-profit business once guided by the principle “don’t be evil.” Despite that motto having not worked out, Google’s current resources and talent dwarf that of nearly every other AI venture, OpenAI’s included. Enter Microsoft. The deal seems like a marriage made in heaven: Microsoft has the coffers and hardware, OpenAI has Ilya Sutskever and dozens of other researchers who’d be the smartest people in most rooms. But, based on everything we’ve seen, this isn’t a joint research deal, or a developmental partnership, or even a pledge to work on the same problems together. It appears to be a deal in which OpenAI will develop all or some of its technology on Azure for Microsoft to sell, distribute, or choose to open source. In return Microsoft will hand OpenAI cash over the next decade to eventually equal about $1B, but it expects to get all of it back as OpenAI pays for using Azure or other compute services. Lol. Here’s what Microsoft’s blog post on the deal had to say: OpenAI’s take was a little different: And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just made things fuzzier. According to the New York Times: What’s really going on here? Who knows. New York Times writer Cade Metz had a take that might explain it:

— Cade Metz (@CadeMetz) July 22, 2019 And AI expert Stephen Merity had an absolutely satisfying thread on the subject where he seemingly points out that the only thing keeping OpenAI in adherence with its non-profit, open-source roots is the fact that it promises not to act any different now that it’s ready to commercialize. Big tech promises eh, what are those worth?

— Smerity (@Smerity) July 22, 2019 But, hands-down, the most entertaining take on the deal to be found on Twitter was a simple three-tweet interjection by Google AI expert Francois Chollet (opinions are his own, according to bio):

— François Chollet (@fchollet) July 24, 2019

— François Chollet (@fchollet) July 24, 2019 Is OpenAI a doomsday techno-cult? Probably not. But all of this creepy, PR-filled nonsense smacks of the kind of closed-door, marketing crap that makes idealistic developers leave big tech to work in academia or the non-profit sector. For many fans of OpenAI, this is like your favorite punk band selling out and becoming used car salespeople. I’m kind of hoping it’s a doomsday techno-cult instead:

— Tristan Greene (@mrgreene1977) May 12, 2019