OpenAI has eliminated a page on its website that used to express its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The URL “https://openai.com/commitment-to-dei/” now redirects to “https://openai.com/building-dynamic-teams/,” a page that talks about people with “different backgrounds” with no use of the word “diversity.”
The previous page stated that the company’s “investment in diversity, equity and inclusion” was ongoing. It also said that it was serious about this work and was committed to “continuously improving our work in creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization,” as captured by the Internet Web Archive and also as cited by a 2023 CNN article.
It isn’t clear exactly when this change was made, but there’s some evidence it was very recent. The diversity commitment web page was cited as available by an ABC News story published on January 22. By January 27, OpenAI had published the new, replacement “building dynamic teams” web page.
The new page says, “At OpenAI, we recognize that the strongest ideas emerge when they are tested, debated, and improved by people
13 Comments
moralestapia
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anonylizard
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401Hqvn
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bayarearefugee
Job hires should be done strictly on merit.
Like for example, if you're a drunkard weekend network news talking head domestic abuser this obviously qualifies you to run the world's largest military and the largest single organization that is part of the US government.
Or if you've somehow managed to make decisions about your own health that led to having part of your brain eaten by a pork tapeworm in AD 2010 this clearly qualifies you to be responsible for the health initiatives of an entire nation.
Or if you've killed a homeless black person on the subway this obviously qualifies you as the sort of "move fast and break things" go-getter needed at a venture capital firm.
C'mon guys this is pretty common sense stuff.
yapyap
they never cared, it’s just that one extra step to suck up to the current leader
mc32
You should have never had them in the first place.
Hire fairly. Avoid [bigoted] bias in your hiring.
That you had to advertise you did that meant you were not doing it in the first place. Meaning you were not treating equally and fairly.
Lots of these corporate efforts, whatever they are, are a money printer for organizations “helping” including those proposing streamlining, time management, equity, X analysis, etc. whether delivered by the big5, individuals or any other entity, they are money pits that make management feel good: they’re doing something.
guywithahat
I mean this seems objectively good. All of the early issues with OpenAI were the AI refusing to respond to a prompt for political reasons. Generic models should be as politically neutral as possible.
mmooss
There's a simple mathematical or logical concept that solves the problem: For absolute value of differences between X and Y, there is no difference between an advantage or a disadvantage.
The formula for people who care about 'liberty and justice for all' is to say, 'we agree about eliminating racial or other biases in hiring and promotion' and then also identify and eliminate programs and processes biased in favor of, e.g., white males (the bias varies by situation, of course, but generally – almost by definition – favors the status quo).
For example, in college admissions eliminate legacies, wealthy donor's kids, and other things are biased toward white men and women. And then in OpenAI hiring, look beyond elite universities that have biased results, and beyond personal networks that are biased. In internal hiring and programs, eliminate or change those that advantage any groups, not just those that advantage vulnerable groups.
Another way of saying the same thing is that the standard hiring practices are DEI / affirmative action for the status quo (usually white males, possibly Asian males in SV) – that's what they always have been.
I'm serious. We can all then agree: Eliminate affirmative action and DEI for all. Could civil rights advocates use anti-DEI laws to sue on behalf of vulnerable minorities, saying that hiring practices are DEI for the status quo?
Or imagine Congress passing a law requiring merit-based advancement; imagine how that could be used to provide true 'liberty and justice for all.' (I don't know how that would work practically – how it's defined, how enforced, etc. Maybe you just have to quantitatively prove bias.)
dpedu
DEI was never really a genuine endeavor, or it would not be rolled back so quickly by major corporations. If DEI was truly and measurably beneficial to the company, it would not be rolled back so quickly.
poszlem
They should have never had them in the first place. I have been a strong critic of wokeness, DEI, and all that nonsense. Yet, it is mind-blowing and eye-opening to see how quickly these companies can bend to the will of a powerful autocrat.
It’s no longer a mystery to me why Hugo Boss would make uniforms for the Wehrmacht, and I can now fully imagine such companies willingly collaborating on "streamlining the delivery of people" to gas chambers, should the government ever asked for it.
delichon
How do they write this story without mentioning the executive order?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi…
The Stargate initiative will invest at least $500B. Whoever wouldn't scrub their website for a chunk of that is unusually principled.
phantomathkg
Many commenters in this thread talks about hiring, but the actual fact the page mentioned is not only about hiring, but DEI at a wider sense[0]
> We believe the development of general-purpose artificial intelligence that benefits all of humanity must be carried out with a knowledge of and respect for the different perspectives and experiences that represent the full spectrum of humanity.
>
> Our investment in diversity, equity, and inclusion is ongoing, executed through a wide range of initiatives, owned by everyone across the company, and championed and supported by leadership. We take this work seriously and are committed to continuously improving our work in creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization.
>
> In addition to our dedication to creating an inclusive organization on the human level, OpenAI actively pursues technical work that is aimed at improving our understanding of, and ability to mitigate, harmful biases learned by AI systems, and supports conferences and groups involved in such work in the larger AI community.
The text of course can be interpret in different way. But as an AI company that grok lots of raw data and generate response based on input, it is also VERY important for the AI models to be impartial and not biased toward anything.
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On hiring, that would be a completely different subjects. Should we strike for equal or fair? I don't think the answer should be 100% equal or 100% fairness.
[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20240112174043/https://openai.co…
notepad0x90
DEI doesn't affect who gets hired at all. If someone hires based on race, sex,etc… that's a blatant violation of the law. DEI just means making people who are not in the majority group of the country feel welcome and included in the organization. It would be ridiculous to hire or keep employed someone based on their biological characteristics instead of value to the business.
What I suspect everyone already knows is that the anti-DEI initiative is designed to do the opposite of what DEI was intended to do, make those same people feel unwelcome in society altogether. Look at musk's track record and racism lawsuits against him.
Personally, I found DEI stuff very boring and performative, I don't enjoy it at all. However, I would have to be naive and ignorant to pretend that it didn't actually make people feel welcome and included.
Think about the society these people are trying to create. in 1-2 decades, minorities will become the majority, short of a genocide this trend cannot be reversed. Now imagine a country where the majority of the population is explicitly disenfranchised and excluded from government and any decent job. This really scary stuff guys, there are now several different paths the country is most likely to take that all lead to a social collapse and a civil war. Not a fun time to be young at all.
I'm just going to assume anyone in a position of power (talking about CEO's and founders that lurk here!!) that isn't actively speaking out against the white supremacists in power is in bed with them.
What's more confusing is musk claiming americans aren't smart enough for tech jobs and wants more H1B hires but they're against making those minorities (immigrants or not) welcome (which is all DEI does).
I'll even go further than that. I expect everyone to be welcome in the workplace and government. if these white supremacists feel like white people are not being included then I really think they should implement affirmative action like policies benefiting white people that are legitimately being left out of schools,jobs,etc.. No problem with that at all. But please pay attention to this, they are not doing things to benefit white americans but rather to harm non-white americans. They are not acting to benefit their group but to harm other groups. There are plenty of impoverished mostly white places in America that need colleges, better schools, better infrastructure and social safety-nets. There are programs that pay people to immigrate to places like south dakota and the rust belt to be employed as doctors and even factory workers (the later, because of rampant illegal drug usage which could be solved by treatment focused approaches).