Elon Musk is frustrated that OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – is planning to turn itself into a profit-driven company. Speaking to CNBC, Musk shares that OpenAi wouldn’t even exist without him and that the company’s original idea was to create a non-profit competitor to Google.
In the early years of artificial intelligence, according to Elon Musk, Google was the only major player in this field and OpenAI had to change that.
Profit motivation is dangerous
Later in the conversation, Musk calls OpenAI’s new profit motivation a dangerous development. Probably mainly because he is concerned about the dangers of artificial intelligence for society if you let it develop in an uncontrolled way.
Musk was also one of the people who signed the petition some time ago to pause the further development of artificial intelligence, so that we as humanity can better think about the consequences.
“Somehow it feels strange that a non-profit open-source company can transform itself into a closed and profit-driven company. Imagine financing a company to save the Amazon rainforest and then turning it into a logging company,” said a stunned Elon Musk.
The entrepreneur says this because he initially invested $50 million in the creation and setup of OpenAI. The fact that it is now becoming a profit-driven company clearly blows his mind.
Start a lawsuit?
Musk also asks himself in the conversation with CNBC whether what people do at OpenAI is legal. There seems to be a chance that he will bring his legal team to the matter to find out whether there is anything to be gained with a lawsuit, so that the switch from OpenAI may still be stopped.
“OpenAI started out as an open-source company, hence the name ‘Open’ AI (…) but now it is a closed company that is completely profit-oriented and effectively under the control of Microsoft. That’s not what I wanted with it,” said Elon Musk.
It sounds like this issue is going to get a little bit further and we are, of course, at the front to report on that.
