Elon Musk has launched a legal case against OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company he helped found in 2015, accusing its leaders of “betraying” its founding mission.
The tycoon, who left OpenAI in 2018, argued in documents filed in a San Francisco court late Thursday that the company was always intended as a nonprofit entity.
But he said recent boardroom changes meant OpenAI was now effectively a subsidiary of software giant Microsoft, arguing this was a breach of contract.
Musk has accused Microsoft of controlling OpenAI multiple times, with both companies denying the claims.
Antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe are also investigating ties between the companies.
Microsoft declined to comment.
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OpenAI captured the public imagination in late 2022 with the release of the chatbot ChatGPT, which can create poems and essays and even ace exams.
The company has also developed image and video creation tools that are considered leaders in their field.
The success of its products has helped attract massive investment in artificial intelligence, which boosters say could transform every aspect of human life.
Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI since 2019, poured billions more into the company last year.
And the software giant stepped in when OpenAI’s board fired CEO Sam Altman in November last year, hiring him and offering to house any staff members unhappy with his ouster.
OpenAI’s board later came down, Altman was reinstated, and Microsoft was given an observer position on the board after members critical of Altman were removed.
“The events of last November are well known. And it doesn’t seem to me that what happened there was a clear violation of the agreements,” said Anupam Chander, a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.
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“Disastrous consequences”
OpenAI began life as a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), a term loosely defined as a type of artificial intelligence that would surpass human abilities in all measures of intelligence.
The idea was for OpenAI to guarantee that such technology would be safe for humanity.
But Musk’s legal case said that founding principle had been “subverted,” accusing OpenAI of secretly proceeding “toward a profit-focused future with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity.”
Among other claims, Musk’s lawsuit alleges that GPT-4, the company’s current model, is AGI and that OpenAI’s board failed in its duty to disclose the fact, as set forth in its company’s mission.
The changes made to OpenAI in 2023 were “a flagrant betrayal of the Founding Agreement, subverting that Agreement and perverting the mission of OpenAI Inc,” the filing said.
“If the question is, did they deviate from what they profess to be their mission? I would say clearly, yes,” said Nicholas Guggenberger, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center.
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“But that’s not necessarily a sufficient basis for a lawsuit by someone who is no longer part of the project.”
The paper pointed out that OpenAI still claims to pursue AGI that “benefits all of humanity.”
“In reality, however, OpenAI Inc has become a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft.”
Musk is seeking damages from the court, to force OpenAI’s leaders to make their research public and to bar them — or Microsoft — from profiting from the technology.
“The appeal has the benefit of at least shedding more light on OpenAI’s decision-making process, which is really important to the world,” said Professor Chander of Georgetown University.
Since leaving OpenAI, Musk has joined the chorus of critics warning that superintelligence could spell the end for humanity.
He also launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, last year and said he wanted to raise $1 billion from investors.
Source: AFP