American tycoon Elon Musk initiated legal proceedings against OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) company he co-founded in 2015 and which is the parent company of the famous ChatGPT, by filing charges its leaders of a “betrayal” of its founding mission.
The entrepreneur, who left OpenAI in 2018, argued in documents filed late Thursday in a San Francisco court that the company was always designed to be a nonprofit organization.
But in his view, recent board changes show that OpenAI is now effectively a subsidiary of tech giant Microsoft, which he says is a breach of contract.
Musk has made several allegations Microsoft should control OpenAIbut both companies have denied this.
Microsoft vs. Musk
The company that created the operating system “Windows”, one of the main investors in OpenAI since 2019He pumped billions more into the AI company last year.
In fact, when OpenAI’s board fired CEO Sam Altman last November, he intervened by hiring him and offering to accommodate any employees unhappy with his firing.
Later, Altman was reinstated and Microsoft was given an observer position on the council of the company after firing members who criticized Altman.
Antitrust authorities in the USA and Europe are also investigating connections between the two companies.
Microsoft declined to comment Musk legal action.
OpenAI delighted the public in late 2022 with the launch of its chatbot ChatGPT, capable of creating essays and even passing exams from simple written commands, as well as developing groundbreaking tools for generating images and videos.
Elon Musk claims that since partnering with OpenAI, Microsoft has changed its goal and focused on making money, which contradicts its founding agreement.
“OpenAI has become a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” the lawsuit says. “Under his new board, he is not only continuing to develop AGI (general AI capable of matching or even exceeding human capabilities), but also perfecting it to maximize Microsoft’s profits, not for the benefit of humanity.”
The idea was that OpenAI will ensure that this technology is safe for humanity.
But Musk claims in his legal complaint that this founding principle has been “turned on its head” and accuses OpenAI of secretly “working toward a future focused on economic benefits with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity.”
Musk vs. Altman
It was Musk who put Altman in charge of OpenAI. However, that employment relationship was terminated in 2018 when he left the organization.
Since then, Altman has become the visible leader of the generative AI revolution, which his company is largely driving.
The managing director was suddenly fired from Open AI at the general meeting last year. However, due to pressure from staff, he was reinstated in less than a week.
With information from AFP.
ORP