Elon Musk has initiated legal proceedings against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on the grounds that the company has abandoned its original mission of developing artificial intelligence technology for the betterment of humanity in favor of profit maximization. Musk contends, in a lawsuit filed on Thursday with a San Francisco court, that OpenAI has been converted into a profit-driven closed-source de facto subsidiary of Microsoft as a result of the partnership.
The lawsuit, which Musk filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco late on Thursday, represents the culmination of his protracted opposition to the startup that he co-founded. OpenAI has emerged as the leading entity in the field of generative AI, in part because of Microsoft’s billions of dollars in funding. Afterwards, in July of last year, Musk established his own artificial intelligence venture, xAI.
According to the lawsuit filed by Musk, Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman initially approached him with the intention of establishing an open source, non-profit organization. However, the 2015-founded startup has since shifted its focus towards generating revenue.
The complaint specifically addresses OpenAI’s decision in 2023 to maintain the confidentiality of the GPT-4 design and enter into exclusive licensing agreements with Microsoft. Elon Musk claims that this effectively transformed OpenAI into a profit-oriented closed-source organization, which contradicts its original founding principles.
This case is filed to compel OpenAI to adhere to the founding agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity, not to personally benefit the individual defendants and the largest technology company in the world.
the complaint reads
Prior to co-founding OpenAI, Musk was a skeptic of the societal risks that the development of artificial intelligence could pose and advocated for the implementation of safeguards to prevent such systems from being used to replace humans. Musk and AI researchers penned an open letter to corporations last year urging them to cease “giant AI experiments.” After establishing his own artificial intelligence firm, xAI, he introduced an AI program to the social media platform X.
The lawsuit asserts that the OpenAI GPT-4 model, which was unveiled in March 2023, not only demonstrates reasoning capability but also “outperforms average humans at reasoning,” as evidenced by its 90th percentile score on the Uniform Bar Examination for attorneys. It has been speculated that the organization is working on a more sophisticated model called “Q Star,” which asserts itself as genuine artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was controversially removed from his position a year ago. As reported, the board reportedly lost faith in Altman’s ability to lead, and some individuals, including Musk, speculated that OpenAI might have created a technology that is “dangerous to humanity.” Nevertheless, this only endured for a limited duration of days, as Altman regained his position the subsequent week.
The new Board members lack substantial AI expertise and, on information and belief, are ill equipped by design to make an independent determination of whether and when OpenAI has attained AGI — and hence when it has developed an algorithm that is outside the scope of Microsoft’s license.
claims the lawsuit
Regulators in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States are presently examining the partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft in order to determine whether or not it impedes competition.
