Elon Musk has initiated legal action against OpenAI and its co-founders, asserting that they have violated the company’s founding principles by prioritizing profit over the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) for the betterment of humanity.
In his complaint, Mr. Musk, an original board member of OpenAI who departed in 2018, accuses OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Gregory Brockman of deviating from the company’s initial mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity, instead focusing on profit and power.
The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 29 in San Francisco, alleges a breach of contract, contending that Altman and Brockman strayed from the agreed-upon objective of establishing OpenAI as an open-source, non-profit entity.
According to Musk, the founding agreement mandated that OpenAI make its technology, including the AI chatbot GPT-4, freely available to the public. However, he claims that OpenAI shifted its approach toward profit after forming ties with Microsoft, which has invested approximately $13 billion in the startup.
“Contrary to the Founding Agreement, Defendants have chosen to use GPT-4 not for the benefit of humanity, but as proprietary technology to maximize profits for literally the largest company in the world,” Musk stated in the complaint, referring to Microsoft.
In the lawsuit, Musk argues that OpenAI’s GPT-4 represents artificial general intelligence (AGI), which possesses intelligence equivalent to or surpassing that of humans.
“OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” Musk continued. “Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI [artificial general intelligence] to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.”
Musk’s lawsuit also addresses the 2023 firing and subsequent reinstatement of Altman as CEO. He contends that Altman’s temporary departure prompted Microsoft to intervene and advocate for the resignation of dissenting board members, leading to a restructuring that undermined the company’s original mission.
“With the reinstatement of Mr. Altman and the restructuring of the board, OpenAI’s corporate structure that had been designed as a system of checks and balances collapsed overnight,” Musk wrote in the suit.
He alleges that the current board members lack a profound understanding of the technology, and asserts that OpenAI has forsaken its non-profit mission of developing AGI for the benefit of humanity, thereby consolidating vast power within a large for-profit corporation.
Musk has previously criticized OpenAI’s affiliation with Microsoft, expressing concerns about the risks posed by AI to humanity.
OpenAI has not yet responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Last year, Musk joined over 1,100 individuals, including experts and industry figures such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, in signing an open letter urging AI labs to pause the training of systems more powerful than Chat GPT-4 for at least six months.
The letter emphasized concerns over the potential risks of AI to society and humanity, advocating for careful planning and management to avoid catastrophic impacts.
The signatories called for a temporary halt to the development of advanced AI systems to allow for the development and implementation of safety protocols, ensuring that these systems are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.
