Comment by nickff
1 day ago
The employees of the Wikipedia foundation did not create the dataset, though they definitely contributed to the infrastructure behind it. Sam Altman (and the OpenAI employees) contributed even more to OpenAI's continuing success (and that of their industry). Both groups are still rent-seekers, as they are attempting to profit off a market position which was developed under different auspices.
Oh, i don’t think I realized you were calling wikimedia rent seekers - not just the employees.
I guess that does vaguely match the description of rent seeking. But given that the alternative is handing the AI companies the wikipedia data set for free, so they can rent-seek with it - i’m not sure I care about that.
Did you see the subthread that the motivation behind this union does not seem to be collective bargaining over compensation, but in response to management's decision over personnel issues:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48665062
Indeed, the OP does not mention increased pay at all, but rather "concerns over transparency, trust, and the organisation’s future direction."
You can go ahead and call that rhetoric, but you are also reading in intentions that do not seem to match reports from the ground.
>” You can go ahead and call that rhetoric, but you are also reading in intentions that do not seem to match reports from the ground.”
This just seems like standard union rhetoric, like when they talk about quality, or caring about the company’s clients. If the union gets concessions on transparency, and less than a 5% raise for the first year, I’ll do my best to come back to this thread and post a retraction. I don’t think I’ll have to do that.
Oddly enough, employers will often give wage increases more easily than other concessions. I’ve seen at least two union negotiation go that way - employees seeking better working conditions are given a hard no on something they are asking for like advance notice of scheduling changes but offered a wage increase in exchange.
Also, a 5% raise is approximately what inflation is likely to be this year (2.8% in the UK as of may) so if that’s all they get that’s basically a wage freeze.
In good faith I feel obligated to point out the following, so that those who may read this thread in the future don’t interpret any lack of a response on your part as an confirmation of your claims:
HN threads close automatically after a few weeks, so I don’t think that you would be able to do that even if you intend to do so.
Based on your own rhetoric, I am not convinced that you would even if you could, but I admit that parsing tone in text is difficult, and I may be mistaken. What comes across as sarcasm and hyperbole to me may be earnest and sincere to you.
In good faith, I must assume that you don’t know that HN threads close automatically, otherwise I must admit the possibility that I’m wrong, and that you do know this, and are exploiting the fact that others may not know this fact as part of your argumentative strategy.