/Ernie/will-ilya-sutskever-turn-out-to-hav

The verb "working" simply has more than one meaning, it can mean "is employed by" and it can mean "actually performing work" (it has even more meanings such as in the phrase "working title" etc).

In most cases context allows to disambiguate, if not then it's on the speaker to make it clear which one they intend or on the listener to ask for clarification.

So, in the situation you describe it's ok to say "X is working for C" as long as you mean X is employed by C, and it would be incorrect to say the same sentence if you meant they are actually performing work. It's all in the intent and the meaning that needs to be conveyed.

@Odoacre see my docs declaring myself exempt from legalism and stating I'll resolve things according to distinctions human beings care about. If the journalist wouldn't state Ilya was "working* in that state why should I?

@Ernie it is you that is being legalistic about it. The journalist could very well say Ilya was "working" at openai and it would be correct, as long as there was the understanding that the meaning of working was "employed by"

@Ernie from your doc

I do not agree with legalism, the idea that ambiguous words fall back to their definitions under US law or any other law, including manifold wiki law, community consensus, or anything else.

I think that's fine.

But in this specific case in the context of your market the wording was ambiguous and applying different completely reasonable definitions of the verb "to work" results in different outcomes. That's unfortunate.

I think since the context was missing it's your job as the market creator to state what you had in mind and I think it should be your right to do so.

But you should also accept that you are arbitrarily picking one definition over the other. Don't pretend you are some kind of philosopher or that this process where you make a discussion and then post a creators manifesto changes that.

Just say: I think the best definition to apply in this case is such and such, resolve, try to be better next time and move on.

Manifold: pictured here, "Lester Burnham, while working at his advertising magazine company"

@Ernie who works at the advertisement company* is correct (assuming he's employed there)

@Ernie you can definitely find things worded that way. "Back when when I was working at X, I used to hang out at the gym".

Pictured: Some guy at a gym, during his time working for <company>.

This kind of language use doesn't make sense if you mean literally doing work, and does make sense if you mean "currently employed by".

@chrisjbillington okay, my example here is bad. Look at the imagined interview with Ilya below and see how that works for you?

@Ernie

Interviewer: "My lawyer will be speaking to you later, he really insists you WERE working there

The interviewer wouldn't say that, they would understand the lawyer was saying Ilya was employed, and that that implies paycheck but not much else. The hypothetical confusion isn't realistic.

FWIW I won't be able to reply further for a bit, so apologies if I don't address any further followup.

@Ernie

Ilya: "Well, actually I wasn't working there, I was home, locked out of their systems, after the dispute from the end of 2023."

Interviewer, who is a human being and understands how language works: Oh, I see, so you were technically employed by OpenAI but we're doing no actual work there.

Ilya: that's right

Interviewer: thanks for clearing that up. Have a great day.

@Odoacre yes. So, the statement "Ilya was working at OpenAI in Jan 2024" is not true. That's my point.

@Odoacre I don't think traders entered their bets here because they were interested in ach wires from one bank acct to another. I think they were interested in whether the brilliant mind of Ilya would be allied and contributing to ai progress along with sama at OpenAI.

@chrisjbillington yes. I think I have the same choice. I'd rather do what the journalist did and not act as if he was working there when he wasn't

@Ernie I think they were primarily interested in whether he would be fired or leave, and whether he would be contributing long-term, regardless of a potential period of not much contribution (if that's happening).

I'm quite confident traders took the market to be about employment status and expected it to resolve accordingly, whether that's an imperfect proxy for what they were interested in or not.

And it's not because they're all rules-lawyering literalists - I like to think I'm not. It's just a good operationalisation of what would otherwise be a bit subjective, and is the simple interpretation of the criteria. If you'd meant something else, people would assume you'd have worded the question differently to ask about his contributions rather than using wording that normally refers to paycheck-receiving status.

yes. So, the statement "Ilya was working at OpenAI in Jan 2024" is not true. That's my point.

How do you get that?

@Ernie

I don't think traders entered their bets here because they were interested in ach wires from one bank acct to another.

Apparently, at least some of them did, right? And it was a reasonable interpretation.

Also I think this discussion would be better if you made it clear if the question in the poll at the top is abstract or if it refers to a specific market resolution dispute.

I just don't accept law's attempt to take over the meaning of words

working means being committed to sometimes do meaningful things for someone, sometimes while expecting payment. Ilya is in a dispute with Sam. If either Sam is refusing to accept the work, or Ilya is refusing to contribute, that isn't "doing work" to me. We don't actually know what's going on, but if that is what's happening, I'd have a hard time saying Ilya is working for OpenAI.

I think manifold is so used to defaulting to legalism that everyone assumed everyone else would say "he has a contract and is being paid? okay, he's working". But I don't agree with that. I want to resolve claims in an anti-legalist way - based on identifying what actually matters about the conflict, and resolving based on how that went.

We didn't have a problem realizing that claims about twitter aren't impacted by the name change to x.com. Same here. Work and affiliation and support is what matters, that's why I said "working at" not "employed by".

The problem with legalism is that it isn't defined internationally, and that we aren't lawyers. We all just watched a bunch of courtroom dramas. Anti-legalism at least has the chance to resolve things based on what we actually care about.

@Ernie

I just don't accept law's attempt to take over the meaning of words

I really don't that's what this is. If you ask about the sun rising and someone gives you a legal definition of sunrise that you weren't going for, then I can understand your objection. And I happily bet in your market about "poisonous snakes" without hesitation, it was clear what you meant, and would have been even without you drawing attention to it.

But if you ask about employment, you're asking about the agreement between people to exchange work for money. The way that is done in practice is through employment contracts, which is what makes the relevant markets about employment contracts. It's not an inexorable drift towards legal concepts, its just because the question being asked is interpreted by most to refer to employment, which is about agreements between people, in whatever form those agreements take. If it was an informal employment agreement with no written contract, that would be fine too, we could still discuss whether the agreement seems to be in effect (and if someone's still getting paid, that would seem to imply yes).

The dispute here seems to be about whether "someone working for a company" is about the agreement, or the fact of actively contributing at a given time. Most would interpret the former. You're developing a fondness for the latter. Neither is more legalistic than the other - the fact that employment agreements might be written by lawyers isn't really relevant, that's not why people think these questions are about employment agreements. If it was an illegal cash-in-hand job, we could equally be having the same dispute. You don't need to quote anything legalistic to say that "working for a company" is interpreted by most to mean "is employed by company". That's just a regular discussion about what words are interpreted to mean in different contexts.

But if you ask about employment,

I didn't ask about employment, though. I asked "working at OpenAI"

employment doesn't mean money, you can work somewhere without pay

I am calling this legalism because I see a divide between what I think people wanted to know: "would Sam and Ilya make up and get back together as a team" and what everyone is acting like this is about "is there a piece of paper in a vault and are there ach transfers between one account and another".

I don't care about the latter, and I do care about the former.

Using word definitions to try to make a claim about something not really important, rather than the important point, is what I'm calling legalism.

If it was an illegal cash-in-hand job, we could equally be having the same dispute.

What would we be saying? I think in that case they're clearly working for the person; i feel like the lack of a contract there is clearly irrelevant

Also; all the above is only if evidence that Ilya really isn't contributing anything these days. If he is, or if we don't find out anything at all, it's not going to be the exact judging method for the related markets, since we won't know which situation we are in at all, and if this applies or not.

@Ernie I should have written my comment in a different order so that I didn't talk about it being about employment first. Obviously the dispute is whether it is about employment.

I was saying that the fact that "employment" seems like a legalistic thing is not relevant, and people's interpretation of these questions as referring to employment isn't "legalism taking over the meaning of words". An informal employment agreement without any lawyers or contracts or legal status would not rid us of the dispute.

I'm just saying it's nothing to do with legalism. Most people interpret "working at $COMPANY" in a general context to mean employment, and the reason for that has nothing to do with creeping legalism, it's just what the phrase means.

If it was an illegal cash-in-hand job, we could equally be having the same dispute.

What would we be saying? I think in that case they're clearly working for the person; i feel like the lack of a contract there is clearly irrelevant

I agree the lack of a contract is irrelevant, that's my point - people disagree with you even if there's no contract or legal recognition or anything. I'm trying to point out to you that legalism is irrelevant to the dispute between you and seemingly everyone else (I think you're alone in your preferred definition, and not doing traders any favours by preferring it. You're not protecting them from legalism, you're preferring a definition that none of them assumed you meant).

The cash-in-hand scenario can be made exactly the same, which is what I intended to imply: the employer could be posting the employee cash once a week with the employee doing no work, whilst their employer and they figure out their future, and whilst the employee is still expected to show up if asked (and it seems plausible that they intend to honour that). Or they could be sick and there be an understanding they they still have their job - with cash posted to them in the mail until they get better.

This seems identical to the OpenAI hypothetical, but without a contract. Is it clear that the person is still working for them in that case? I think yes if you interpret "working for" = "employment" and no if you interpret it as "actively doing work". And the existence of a contract isn't needed.

The illegal cash job example was just to emphasise that people's interpretation of "working for" as meaning "employed by" isn't due to a burning desire to define everything in terms of contracts, the same dispute about what "working for" means exists with informal agreements too. It's just they they interpret the questions to be about "employment", which is a concept that exists regardless of legal status and contracts.

@chrisjbillington ah, I see. If the person and the employer were engaged in a dispute, and one or the other of them is actively refusing to work or allow them to work unless the other agrees to a concession, though, then I think in that case I'd say the person isn't working there either, though.

What would you say in that case? If we find that either Ilya said "I want to work there, but you have to do X before I'd come back" and OpenAI said "let's talk about it" and until now, they haven't solved it. Or Ilya said "I want to do work and come in" and Sam said "You have to agree to X before we let you do that, you're locked out" and they're still in that state.

In such a state I would find it hard to say "Ilya is working at OpenAI". That's more like he's not working since they are in a dispute.

@chrisjbillington

even deeper, though, the main q gave options like "working at openai" and "working on his own company" and "working on grok w/Elon"

it was "big picture, who or what will the powers of Ilya be serving?"

and if we find out that they weren't serving OpenAI this whole time.. if he's been fighting with Sam and not serving him then it feels wrong to say he was supporting OpenAI

This frame is also supported by my phrasing "what will he be DOING"

This is about DOING. What's he DOING with his life. Nothing about agreements without action. This is about doing things.

@Ernie That's one of your markets, there's this one too whose price has been dropping on these comments:

/Ernie/will-ilya-continue-at-openai-til-en

"Doing" is more ambiguious, and it's a shame it's a linked market, because "Working at OpenAI" as one of the answers will have been interpreted by most to refer to his employment, but it is not incompatible with him "doing" other things too.

@Ernie

What would you say in that case? If we find that either Ilya said "I want to work there, but you have to do X before I'd come back" and OpenAI said "let's talk about it" and until now, they haven't solved it. Or Ilya said "I want to do work and come in" and Sam said "You have to agree to X before we let you do that, you're locked out" and they're still in that state.

If Ilya is making demands and refusing to come in, then OpenAI have the option of giving him an ultimatum - come in or we'll consider you in violation of your agreement. If they make that ultimatum and he doesn't come in, then they might fire him. Then he doesn't work for them. If they don't make that demand, then they're acquiescing and he's still employed - his refusal to come in has not actually been tested, and OpenAI is saying "fine, for the moment your job is to do nothing, and we might fire you for it in the future, but we're not making that call now".

His demands mean nothing unless they fire him over them or he resigns. If he hasn't resigned and they haven't fired him, then the dispute has not escalated to the level where it has affected whether he works for them. Both parties are going along with the agreement that he works for them, even if it involves no actual work.

I don't know if we're understanding each other. I acknowledge that if this were about employment status, I would agree he's still employed (assuming he's being paid, has contract, just isn't being given tasks and is barred from coming in). In that world, the fact that he isn't fired would mean he was still employed, and would then be "working at" openAI.

So I think I get your argument. Do you feel that i do, yet? I want to make sure I really get what you mean here. So please let me know if I'm not understanding a point or claim you're making.

My argument is different. I don't think the above matters because I don't think the market is about whether he's employed. I think it's about what Ilya would be DOING. Would he devote his time - would he make up with sam, or would he go elsewhere, or would he drop out?

Anyway, I really hope there are leaks or new info cause this is brutal to decide. We aren't even at the point raised by this poll - this is just a possibility, among other even murkier ones.

I've gotta do other coding tonight, so I'm going to try to stop responding at this point til tomorrow. Thanks for keeping on trying to explain. I really appreciate it.

@Ernie I think you get that I prefer it to mean "employment", and I think I get what you're saying.

You may or may not have gotten why I've been making a lot of the arguments I have been though. A lot of what I've been saying has been to try to convince you that the distinction between "actually working" and "employed" isn't one of legalism, and therefore that you should not prefer "actually working" over "employed" out of a disdain for legalism (A disdain I share with you). I've been trying to speak of employment as a concept that can be blurry and messy and informal, to try to convince you that it can be a concept fairly up to interpretation itself, and devoid of lawyers, and yet still be distinct from "actually working".

It's an empirical question what people thought you meant, and I think that they think you meant "employment", and furthermore I don't think they think that because of any kind of creeping legalism on Manifold. Perhaps you can see that I'm making that last point as well?

I'll be honest, I think your dislike of legalism is leading you astray here. I think you had a thought that the distinction might apply to these markets, and are running with it even though it's a false positive. You might be assuming that the pushback you are getting is related to others' preferring legalistic definitions of things, and I don't think that's true. I am very often waving the spirit-over-letter flag, I don't think literalism taken seriously is even a coherent way to think about market criteria. And I'm giving pushback. I think you should take that seriously.

I think you should keep your disdain for legalism, whilst recognising that it's not really a factor in these markets. Employment is the common-sense interpretation that most of your traders will have thought these markets were asking about, I think that's mostly all that matters, and that's a practical argument, not a legalistic one.