Stepbrother of Anthropic employee pulls AI ballot proposals after OpenAI asks watchdog to examine: I was naive | Latest Tech News
The California man behind a pair of AI-related ballot measures that appeared aimed at OpenAI has withdrawn the proposals – a transfer that got here immediately after Sam Altman’s firm requested a local watchdog to examine him.
As The Post completely reported, OpenAI’s legal professionals filed a grievance with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission on Monday that referenced East Bay native Alexander Oldham and cited “serious questions” about his potential motives.
Oldham, a self-described “nobody” in the AI coverage world, filed proposals that, if accredited, would have empower state officers to regulate major AI corporations.
The grievance arose after The Post revealed that Oldham is the stepbrother of Zoe Blumenfeld, a senior employee at OpenAI’s chief rival Anthropic, and he also has ties to tech entrepreneur Guy Ravine, who has waged a bitter legal battle with OpenAI over who got here up with the concept for the company.
OpenAI requested a California watchdog to examine who was actually behind the ballot measures. Christopher Sadowski
Oldham said he filed paperwork to withdraw the measures on Tuesday “due to threats and intimidation from primarily OpenAI” – an obvious reference to the FPPC grievance.
“I was naive,” Oldham said in an interview with Politico. “I don’t want any more negative consequences because I was stupid enough to think that I could just put an idea out for people to look at in today’s world.”
Oldham also told the outlet that he had merely forgotten that his stepsister labored for Anthropic. He has vehemently denied that either Blumenfeld or Ravine had any involvement in crafting the measures.
“I didn’t even think of her,” Oldham said. “It is just a pure coincidence that she works for Anthropic, like I honestly didn’t even clock that.”
Oldham beforehand told The Post that he used AI chatbots to craft the ballot measures and didn’t converse with any legal professionals or exterior consultants before submitting them with the California attorney common’s workplace.
He has insisted the measures weren’t focused at OpenAI.
Nonetheless, in the grievance to the FPPC, OpenAI’s attorneys alleged that they “appear to be designed to impose complex and unnecessary regulatory burdens on OpenAI.”
OpenAI filed a grievance with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.
“Experts stated and warned that the initiatives’ language is surgically tailored to target OpenAI’s unique public benefit corporation structure and could empower regulators to single out specific companies rather than set industry-wide standards — all while Mr. Oldham maintains ties to a businessman with a long-running dispute against OpenAI. These connections raise serious questions about who is really behind this effort,” the grievance states.
OpenAI also requested the watchdog to look at whether or not Oldham had any ties to a nonprofit called Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity (CANI), which publicly backing a separate ballot proposal filed by Poornima Ramarao, the mom of an ex-OpenAI employee-turned-whistleblower who was ruled to have died by suicide, that goals to reverse OpenAI’s restructuring.
OpenAI alleges that the three measures had “unmistakable formatting similarities, suggesting that they were drafted by the same individuals.”
Zoe Blumenfeld is a senior communications employee at Anthropic. LinkedIn/Zoe Blumenfeld
Oldham has denied any connection to CANI.
“I thought basically, it gets seen by people, and they’d like it, or it just wouldn’t … and it’d just be whatever,” Oldham told Politico. “My main thing is, I’m afraid that a big world of AI is a big world of zero accountability,”
OpenAI beforehand accused CANI of obscuring its funding and violating state lobbying legal guidelines requiring public disclosures. The company has also accused CANI of probably being a entrance for Elon Musk, who is at the moment suing OpenAI for abandoning its nonprofit mission.
Oldham didn’t return The Post’s request for additional remark.
When reached for remark, OpenAI attorney Brian Hauck said “recent reports questioning the personal ties and motivations of other AI ballot measure proponents are concerning.”
OpenAI’s chief rival is Anthropic. AFP via Getty Images
“Voters shouldn’t have play detective when mystery donors stay in shadows,” Hauck said in a assertion. “If they won’t disclose who’s behind it, voters can’t put their trust in it. Measures that can’t be defended openly don’t belong on the ballot. We respectfully ask the FPPC to encourage full candor and transparency so the public can evaluate these efforts on their merits.”
In his authentic assertion to The Post, Oldham said hadn’t “been in touch with Guy Ravine in nearly a decade and I have not been in touch with Zoe in more than two years. This initiative was filed, created, and funded by me.”
Anthropic also denied any connection, stating it “has had no involvement in, coordination with, or knowledge of any ballot proposals filed by Alexander Oldham, and the company does not support either proposal.”
Ravine vehemently denied that he had colluded with Oldham in any means or had any foreknowledge about the ballot measures, a sentiment echoed by Oldham.
“I have had no involvement in his initiative,” Ravine said. “I have not been in contact with Alex Oldham in approximately 10 years. My only connection to him is that his mother was an investor in a company I was involved with over a decade ago – a tenuous link at best.”
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