OpenAI shot back at accusations from Elon Musk that the ChatGPT maker betrayed its founding goals of benefiting humanity and chose to pursue profits, vowing to get his lawsuit thrown out. The first comments from OpenAI since the Tesla CEO sued last week have escalated the feud between the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company and the billionaire that bankrolled its creation years ago.
Quick Read
- OpenAI has refuted Elon Musk’s accusations that it strayed from its original humanitarian goals and is now focused on profit. The company is determined to dismiss Musk’s lawsuit.
- OpenAI emphasized its mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, involving the development of safe and beneficial AGI technologies and promoting widespread advantages.
- Musk’s lawsuit alleges that OpenAI breached an agreement made at its inception, which stipulated that the organization would remain a nonprofit dedicated to public welfare. He is seeking an injunction to prevent any financial gains from OpenAI’s technology, including by entities like Microsoft, which has invested heavily in OpenAI.
- OpenAI disclosed email exchanges between its leaders and Musk, discussing the transition to a for-profit model, highlighting disagreements on the terms. Musk’s response to the blog post was to suggest OpenAI change its name, accompanied by a humorous reaction on social media.
- Musk was a significant supporter and co-chair of OpenAI’s board with Sam Altman when it was founded in 2015. Despite his claim of investing “tens of millions,” OpenAI clarifies that his contribution was less than $45 million, with the organization raising over $90 million from other donors.
- The realization that achieving AGI would require extensive computing resources and substantial funding, potentially billions annually, led to discussions on transitioning OpenAI to a for-profit model. This requirement exceeded the initial expectations of Musk and others regarding the capital needed to fulfill OpenAI’s mission.
The Associated Press has the story:
OpenAI says Elon Musk agreed ChatGPT maker should become for profit
Newslooks- (AP)
OpenAI shot back at accusations from Elon Musk that the ChatGPT maker betrayed its founding goals of benefiting humanity and chose to pursue profits, vowing to get his lawsuit thrown out.
The first comments from OpenAI since the Tesla CEO sued last week have escalated the feud between the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company and the billionaire that bankrolled its creation years ago.
“The mission of OpenAI is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, which means both building safe and beneficial AGI and helping create broadly distributed benefits,” OpenAI said in a blog post late Thursday from five company leaders, including CEO Sam Altman. “We intend to move to dismiss all of Elon’s claims.”
AGI refers to artificial general intelligence, which are general purpose AI systems that can perform just as well as — or even better than — humans in a wide variety of tasks.
Musk’s lawsuit said that when he funded OpenAI as it was launching, he secured an agreement that the company would remain a nonprofit developing technology for the benefit of the public.
His lawsuit claims breach of contract and seeks an injunction preventing anyone — including Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI — from benefiting financially from its technology.
OpenAI said both the startup and Musk recognized the need for the company to become a for-profit entity, posting screenshots of emails between the Tesla CEO and OpenAI leaders in which they discuss the possibility but can’t agree on terms.
“Change your name,” Musk replied Wednesday on X, the social media platform he owns that’s formerly known as Twitter.
He also posted a laughing emoji in response to a user who tweeted that OpenAI should be renamed OpenEmail.
Musk was an early investor in OpenAI when it was founded in 2015 and co-chaired its board alongside Altman. He said in his lawsuit that he invested “tens of millions” of dollars in OpenAI.
However, the company said that while Musk invested less than $45 million, it has raised more than $90 million from other donors.
OpenAI said that by 2017, the company leaders started to realize that building artificial general intelligence would take vast amounts of computing power.
“We all understood we were going to need a lot more capital to succeed at our mission — billions of dollars per year, which was far more than any of us, especially Elon, thought we’d be able to raise as the non-profit,” it said.
