Musk's lawyers also highlighted Altman's departure and return to OpenAI last year, facilitated by the company's non-profit structure. Musk claims that under the new board, OpenAI is refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for humanity's benefit. He also argues that OpenAI's primary goal of developing AGI is now veiled in secrecy, making it hard to assess externally. Musk, Altman, and Brockman were all cofounders of OpenAI, with Musk contributing the majority of funds in the first few years.
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of deviating from the company’s original goal of developing an open-source artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity, and instead focusing on maximizing profits.
- Musk alleges that Altman, Greg Brockman (another OpenAI cofounder), and OpenAI have breached their agreement by restricting access to its technology to maximize profits, and has asked the court to force the company to return to open source.
- Musk also criticizes OpenAI’s close relationship with Microsoft, which he claims is profiting from the company’s AI model, GPT-4, and accuses it of being a 'de facto Microsoft proprietary algorithm'.
- The lawsuit also focuses on Altman’s departure and return to OpenAI last year, and the restructuring of the company’s board, which Musk claims is now focused on maximizing profits for Microsoft rather than benefiting humanity.