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.”
He didn’t really choose Russia, it was the only country that would protect him from rendition.
Not even that. He was headed to Cuba, the US government forced him to be in Russia.
“NSA leaker Edward Snowden got stuck at a Moscow airport after Cuba, feeling pressure from Washington, warned that it would not allow an Aeroflot flight from Russia to land in Havana if he were aboard”
And sadly Cuba is all too aware of how petty the USA can be.
I’m not justifying their reasons, I’m just explaining that’s what some of them say.
Oh I know that Mr Squid. I was just adding some context. :)
Maybe at first it was a lack of options, but he’s absolutely become a Russian asset since then. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong about OpenAI, but still.
He’s a Russian PR win, but I haven’t seen him be especially pro-Putin or anything.
He’s not overtly pro-putin, but he did accept Russian citizenship and was denying the possibility of Ukraine being invaded until like literally the day before the invasion started, which was long after it was obvious Russia was planning to invade.
He accepted Russian citizenship for his own safety so he could never be extradited to the U.S. and yeah, I’m not shocked he didn’t do something that would come with a big risk in Russia.
So neither of those really work as accusations.
He got Russian citizenship less than 2 years ago. Why was extradition suddenly a concern when it wasn’t for the previous near decade he had lived there without citizenship?
That’s the thing, he didn’t need to do anything. He could’ve just not said anything at all, but instead he was outright claiming the idea of Russia invading Ukraine was nothing but US propaganda up until like literally a day(iirc) before the invasion actually started.
You could argue he’s only acting as a Russian asset for his own safety, but he’s still acting as a Russian asset.