Source: OpenAI makes humanity less safe | Compass Rose, by Benjamin R. Hoffman
If OpenAI is working on things that are directly relevant to the creation of a superintelligence, then its very existence makes an arms race with DeepMind more likely. This is really bad! Moreover, sharing results openly makes it easier for other institutions or individuals, who may care less about safety, to make progress on building a superintelligence.
Suppose OpenAI and DeepMind are largely not working on problems highly relevant to superintelligence. (Personally I consider this the more likely scenario.) By portraying short-run AI capacity work as a way to get to safe superintelligence, OpenAI’s existence diverts attention and resources from things actually focused on the problem of superintelligence value alignment, such as MIRI or FHI.