You don't have access because you aren't supposed to. Nothing about the founding, laws or customs of the US suggest that you (nor the government itself) have access to information about other people/companies any time you/they feel like "finding out what's happening behind the scenes".
As for "too important to privatize"... practically all the important work in the world is done by private companies. It wasn't the government who just created vaccines for Covid. It isn't the government producing weapons for defense. It's not Joe B producing houses or electricity or cars or planes. That's not to say the government doesn't do anything but the idea that the dividing line for government work is "super important work" is wildly wrong and it's much closer to the inverse.
> Nothing about the founding, laws or customs of the US suggest that you (nor the government itself) have access to information about other people/companies any time you/they feel like "finding out what's happening behind the scenes".
Isn't there entire processes about "We suspect they doing something illegal behind the scenes so lets go and check"? Isn't that what search warrants for example is all about? Or senate/congress inquiry or whatever they're called?
When someone is suspected (with some amount of evidence) of doing something illegal, sure.
With respect to inquries - if congressman X asks Sam Altman for the details of an algorithm at a congressional hearing, he is not obliged to answer. He can get his lawyer and argue the case - this happens and cases go to the supreme court to decide whether the question is in scope of the powers granted to congress under the consitution. The question has to be directly applicable to one of the responsibilities of congress, which are enumerated in the constitution. In practice redacted documents, limiting of question scope etc are discussed and worked around. Also in practice it's a bit of a political circus where most questions are for show rather than substance and you'll not really see them ask questions that would result in confidential information been given.
Corporations and private establishments only exist if there is a benefit to the public good. We allow them to operate as long as it benefits us. Once that changes then that is a cause for concern and we can revoke there ability to operate within the public sphere. Remember private interest and government operate by consent of the people, not the other way around, contrary to the current status quo.
They are still operating in the public sphere. That's why we have charters for corporations to operate. We allow them to operate in our societies, you're not going to convince anyone otherwise by just saying its different from what we have established in law.
a written grant by a country's legislative or sovereign power, by which a body such as a company, college, or city is founded and its rights and privileges defined.
"the town received a charter from the Emperor"
The legislative process for a charter says otherwise. We, the people, define what the government is and by extension what the rights a company has. The fact that states don't enforce the revocation of a company's charter doesn't mean that the power, given by the people, to the government doesn't exist.
Which actual jurisdiction are you referring to? In the US the power to create corporate entities is state level, not federal. The relevant legislation is at a state level. Maybe look into Delaware and have a concrete idea.
It's the principle, behind common law, that matters. Principles, that establishes the right of the people to give power to government to assign a certain scope of rights and privileges to corporations. All laws are based on principles.
Thanks for that tip. Check out some books related to common law perspectives on the principles of how law is established. You will find that all law is based on formulating guidelines for behaviors of people in society for the benefit of society.
From Wikipedia: "Ancient natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. The foundations of law are accessible through reason, and it is from these laws of nature that human laws gain whatever force they have",
Analytic jurisprudence (which is what I think you are talking about) is something that people think is more important (a belief, codified in law) than Natural Law. But Common Law, derives from Natural Law and it still has a place in this area of focus even though people believe that it doesn't, or it shouldn't. The actual harms in society are caused by the belief that laws can be legislated though power dynamics. Analytic jurisprudence cannot contend with the idea that all law, stems from natural law, and when you deviate from it, it cause harms for society. Plus it's at the whim of people in power. Just because it happens, doesn't make it right or required.
Jurisprudence is the study and theory and philosophy of law. It's the whole giant field, it's not a specific position. If you think it's a settled topic, or obvious, you haven't studied it.
I'm saying that one specific part (Natural Law) is the foundation for all law and is more important then all the others parts when it comes to behavior of individuals and corporations. Natural law takes presence over it all because it's the foundation of all law.
That's nice. The folks who believe in legal positivism have a different point of view. And then some people think these things can both simultaneously be a basis. And there are 27(made up) different positions on the topic. Hence the field of study known as jurisprudence, where very smart people waste time sitting around debating this stuff forever.
The comment about access is related to a US company. The relevant legal jurisdiction and framework is the US. If it were a French company, the relevant jurisdiction would be... France. You may not realize this, but OpenAI is a US company.
The comment about all the important work in the world being done by private companies was indeed a global comment. You may not realize this, but covid vaccines were made by astrazeneca (UK), BioNTech (Germany), several US companies and others. Defense companies are located in every major economy. Most countries have power systems which are privately owned. Commercial planes are mostly built by one large French company and one large US company. All the large producers of cars around the world are private companies - big ones exist in the US, Japan, various European countries, Korea and China.
NSF budget is 10 bill or so out of a 20+ trill economy, less than a tenth of a %. Even if you thought 90% of work wasn't important... 10 bill out of 2 trill is tiny.
Re-read it. I'm measuring the amount of work by the amount of money. Total GDP = total work. 10% of GDP = 10% of total work. GDP is a decent proxy for total work... Add reading comprehension 101 to econ 101 and then it will compute.
Nope, the calcs above assume all NSF work is important, and they show how little work they do as a % of all the work. Then as a % if we assumed 90% of all work (keeping all NSF work important) wasn't important.
To calculate a %, both the numerator and denominator have to be the same units.
> and they show how little work they do as a % of all the work. Then as a % if we assumed 90% of all work (keeping all NSF work important) wasn't important.
Great, you're simply saying that pretty much all of science has the same importance as 10% of all other work being done. And you consider budget as a measure of output.
All that in the context of a conversation about technological breakthroughs, mind you.
By that metric, someone like Richard Feynman has produced less important work than your average run-of-the-mill engineer with a slightly higher salary.
Did you time-travel here from the USSR? The leadership there had similar ideas back in the day.
As for "too important to privatize"... practically all the important work in the world is done by private companies. It wasn't the government who just created vaccines for Covid. It isn't the government producing weapons for defense. It's not Joe B producing houses or electricity or cars or planes. That's not to say the government doesn't do anything but the idea that the dividing line for government work is "super important work" is wildly wrong and it's much closer to the inverse.