Elon Musk accuses OpenAI of losing its way because of the powerful knight of money
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2024 9:57 am
Elon Musk has decided to file a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of betraying the company's founding mission by putting financial gains before achieving benefits for humanity.
The world's richest man, who was once a board member of OpenAI, claims that Altman has "set fire" to the founding agreement of ChatGPT's parent company by signing an investment agreement with Microsoft .
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Thursday, alleges that OpenAI is currently developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can potentially match or surpass real-life humans in performing certain tasks, for the economic benefits that this could bring to OpenAI, rather than for the advantages such AI could bring to humanity.
“ OpenAI has transformed itself into a closed-source company that is a de facto subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft . And under its new board of directors, OpenAI is actually refining AGI to maximize Microsoft’s profits and put benefits to humanity on the back burner,” the lawsuit says.
That complaint opens with the warning, which Elon Musk has put on the table on multiple occasions, that the IAG "poses a serious threat to humanity . "
“Where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AI , others see a source of profit and power ,” the lawsuit says, adding that in the hands of profit-driven companies like Google, AGI poses a “particularly acute and damaging danger to humanity.”
Elon Musk and other tech experts are concerned that AI could evade human control and take actions that potentially endanger the planet.
Elon Musk accuses Sam Altman of violating OpenAI's founding principles
The complaint alleges that Sam Altman once shared the same concerns as Elon Musk regarding the creation of an AI laboratory and that for this reason in 2015 he proposed the creation of a non-profit AI laboratory that would be “the opposite of Google”. This non-profit laboratory is OpenAI. Together with Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, who has also been sued by the South African businessman, Altman and Musk agreed to create a laboratory whose principles would be enshrined in a founding agreement.
The lab would be focused on “benefiting humanity” and would be a nonprofit, open-source company.
The suit notes that Musk, who cut ties with OpenAI in 2018, was a major “driving force” in the creation of ChatGPT ’s company and provided the majority of its funding in its early years . Microsoft is now OpenAI’s primary investment arm since the two companies sealed a deal in 2020.
According to Musk's lawsuit, Altman and Brockman blew up OpenAI's founding agreement in 2023 after the release of GPT-4 , the design of which was kept secret, thus radically breaking with the company's original mission to be an open source enterprise.
“Such secrecy is driven primarily by commercial considerations, not security con cameroon whatsapp data iderations ,” the complaint says, noting that GPT-4 is an IAG technology whose de facto owner is Microsoft (something that would be outside the collaboration agreement that the two companies signed at the time). In addition, the complaint insists, OpenAI has in the works a language model known as Q* that goes even beyond what an IAG is at first glance.
The complaint filed by Elon Musk also reveals that the tumultuous period that OpenAI had to face in November 2023, when Sam Altman was temporarily dismissed as CEO of the company, highlighted Microsoft's great influence over ChatGPT's parent company.
With his lawsuit, Elon Musk wants to urge OpenIA to “adhere to its founding agreement and return to its mission of developing an IAG for the benefit of humanity and not for the personal benefit of the defendants and the largest technology company in the world .”
It so happens that the OpenAI-Microsoft deal is currently under scrutiny by competition authorities in the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The world's richest man, who was once a board member of OpenAI, claims that Altman has "set fire" to the founding agreement of ChatGPT's parent company by signing an investment agreement with Microsoft .
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Thursday, alleges that OpenAI is currently developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can potentially match or surpass real-life humans in performing certain tasks, for the economic benefits that this could bring to OpenAI, rather than for the advantages such AI could bring to humanity.
“ OpenAI has transformed itself into a closed-source company that is a de facto subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft . And under its new board of directors, OpenAI is actually refining AGI to maximize Microsoft’s profits and put benefits to humanity on the back burner,” the lawsuit says.
That complaint opens with the warning, which Elon Musk has put on the table on multiple occasions, that the IAG "poses a serious threat to humanity . "
“Where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AI , others see a source of profit and power ,” the lawsuit says, adding that in the hands of profit-driven companies like Google, AGI poses a “particularly acute and damaging danger to humanity.”
Elon Musk and other tech experts are concerned that AI could evade human control and take actions that potentially endanger the planet.
Elon Musk accuses Sam Altman of violating OpenAI's founding principles
The complaint alleges that Sam Altman once shared the same concerns as Elon Musk regarding the creation of an AI laboratory and that for this reason in 2015 he proposed the creation of a non-profit AI laboratory that would be “the opposite of Google”. This non-profit laboratory is OpenAI. Together with Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, who has also been sued by the South African businessman, Altman and Musk agreed to create a laboratory whose principles would be enshrined in a founding agreement.
The lab would be focused on “benefiting humanity” and would be a nonprofit, open-source company.
The suit notes that Musk, who cut ties with OpenAI in 2018, was a major “driving force” in the creation of ChatGPT ’s company and provided the majority of its funding in its early years . Microsoft is now OpenAI’s primary investment arm since the two companies sealed a deal in 2020.
According to Musk's lawsuit, Altman and Brockman blew up OpenAI's founding agreement in 2023 after the release of GPT-4 , the design of which was kept secret, thus radically breaking with the company's original mission to be an open source enterprise.
“Such secrecy is driven primarily by commercial considerations, not security con cameroon whatsapp data iderations ,” the complaint says, noting that GPT-4 is an IAG technology whose de facto owner is Microsoft (something that would be outside the collaboration agreement that the two companies signed at the time). In addition, the complaint insists, OpenAI has in the works a language model known as Q* that goes even beyond what an IAG is at first glance.
The complaint filed by Elon Musk also reveals that the tumultuous period that OpenAI had to face in November 2023, when Sam Altman was temporarily dismissed as CEO of the company, highlighted Microsoft's great influence over ChatGPT's parent company.
With his lawsuit, Elon Musk wants to urge OpenIA to “adhere to its founding agreement and return to its mission of developing an IAG for the benefit of humanity and not for the personal benefit of the defendants and the largest technology company in the world .”
It so happens that the OpenAI-Microsoft deal is currently under scrutiny by competition authorities in the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom.