Edward Snowden wrote on social media to his nearly 6 million followers, “Do not ever trust @OpenAI … You have been warned,” following the appointment of retired U.S. Army General Paul Nakasone to the board of the artificial intelligence technology company.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor, was charged with espionage by the Justice Department in 2013 after leaking thousands of top-secret records, exposing the agency’s surveillance of private citizens’ information.
In a Friday morning post on X, formerly Twitter, Snowden reshared a post providing information on OpenAI’s newest board member. Nakasone is a former NSA director, and the longest-serving leader of the U.S. Cyber Command and chief of the Central Security Service. He retired from the NSA, a position he held since 2018, in February.
Snowden wrote in an X post, “They’ve gone full mask-off: do not ever trust @OpenAI or its products (ChatGPT etc.) There is only one reason for appointing an @NSAGov Director to your board. This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on Earth.” He concluded the post, writing, “You have been warned.”
That’s not good enough. There are countless cases throughout history of professors, scientists, and other public authority figures who have made well-reasoned, well-supported and argued claims and also made completely unsubstantiated rubbish claims.
This is an unsubstantiated appeal to authority. Snowden is saying “trust me” but refusing to elaborate. Well, sorry, but no.
OpenAI hiring a former NSA director raises a lot of questions and we in the public have the right to demand answers. If OpenAI refuses to answer or is otherwise evasive about their motives then we have genuine reason to be suspicious.
I think overall we should treat ALL cloud service providers with the same degree of suspicion, regardless of who they hire. They are handling our personal data which is a serious responsibility that should not be betrayed.
However, I think there is a legitimate reason for OpenAI making this hire: they want to market their language models as a tool for automated signals intelligence analysis. Hiring a former NSA director puts them on a fast track to getting the opportunities and intelligence community contacts they seek.
It is ABSOLUTELY good enough when the question is about TRUST.
He’s not making positive claims that specific things will happen. He’s saying don’t trust putting a wolf in charge of the hen house.
The fact you do not understand this basic tenant of life is frankly pathetic.
And I’m saying you shouldn’t be trusting any of these cloud providers implicitly, regardless of who they hire. A company needs to demonstrate trustworthiness first. Starting off from a position of trust is foolish.
Yes, it should start at not trusting them, but this move distinctly and specifically means they are EVEN LESS trustworthy.