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Thanks for the correction! I was mixing up "Public Benefit Corporation", which is a legal offering by state governments, and "B-Corp", which is a non-profit that certifies wholesome for-profit firms like the Tillamook Dairy Cooperative.

I'd stand by the general assertion that it's little more than a pinky promise because they merely have to "balance" the concerns according to "any reasonable person"--an extremely weak-seeming obligation to this non-lawyer--but it's certainly much more impactful than I thought, namely:

  Sections 365 (b) and (c) provide broad protection to directors of public benefit corporations against claims based on interests other than those of stockholders
https://www.legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=2235...

Good on you, Anthropic! In this specific case I believe in the director(s) a lot more than I believe in the shareholders ethics-wise, so it seems like a perfect choice. They can always fire him/them I suppose, but truly catastrophic AI risks would move faster than that, anyway.






Yes, this is the real legal accomplishment of B-Corps!

By law and precedent a C-Corp’s only obligation is to shareholders, thanks to a case from almost a century ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.#:~:t....

A B-Corp was the first and somewhat successful attempt to create a legal framework where company executives are allowed to work on behalf of all their stakeholders without it creating an automatic basis for a suit.

Generally, people who care very deeply about a thing bring a higher ethical standard than any regulatory body can impose.




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