Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, pointing out breaches of the artificial intelligence startup’s founding principles.
Elon Musk, a key early supporter of OpenAI, contends that the organization has deviated from its original mission of advancing open-source AI technology for the betterment of humanity.
The lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco court, accuses OpenAI and its co-founders, including Greg Brockman, of prioritizing profits over the nonprofit’s founding objective. Elon Musk asserts that Altman and Brockman persuaded him to provide substantial financial support to OpenAI with assurances that it would remain a nonprofit entity focused on countering competitive threats from tech giants like Google.
According to legal documents, Elon Musk contributed over $44 million to OpenAI between 2016 and September 2020, making him the largest donor during that period. However, Musk alleged that OpenAI’s recent collaboration with Microsoft, a leading technology corporation, symbolizes a transition towards commercializing its artificial general intelligence (AGI) research.
Central to Elon Musk’s grievance is OpenAI’s latest natural language model, GPT-4, which Musk contends represents a significant advancement towards AGI. He argues that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft to monetize GPT-4 contradicts the nonprofit’s commitment to advancing AI for the benefit of humanity.
In the lawsuit, Musk seeks to compel OpenAI to adhere to its original mission and refrain from profiting from technologies developed under its nonprofit status. He requests the court to recognize AI systems like GPT-4 as artificial general intelligence, thereby holding OpenAI accountable to its founding principles.
The legal complaint emphasized concerns regarding changes in OpenAI’s governance structure, with Altman allegedly hand-picking a new board lacking technical expertise in AI governance.
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