Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that they favored profit over benefiting humanity.
Musk’s lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco, California, court, claims that the Tesla CEO was approached by Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman in 2015. After the meeting, an agreement to establish a nonprofit lab to develop artificial intelligence (AI) was negotiated. This project was said to be for the “benefit of humanity.”
Elon Musk is suing Sam Altman and Open AI for putting profit before humanity and betraying its mission.
Here’s what Sam and Elon thought about AI way back in 2015 when they spoke to Aaron Ross Sorkin. Elon hasn’t changed. What happened to Sam? pic.twitter.com/KHz1eFuqgS
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 1, 2024
The lawsuit claimed that Musk, who departed OpenAI in 2018, was a “moving force” behind the creation of the technology company, having supplied a large portion of the funding in OpenAI’s early years. Following negotiations in 2020, Microsoft is now the biggest investor in the company.
Musk claimed that OpenAI is developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) — a theoretical form of AI that can conduct tasks at a level of intelligence far superior to humans to gather profit instead of benefiting humanity.
In the lawsuit, the Tesla CEO’s lawyers said OpenAI’s actions to garner more profit for Microsoft broke the deal the company struck in 2020.
“Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the document states.
“OpenAI Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” it adds.
OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, was released in November 2022. Since then, it has become the fastest-growing consumer application in history, paving the way for rival companies to establish their chatbots, including Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft, according to One America News (OAN).
The New York Post pointed out that the lawsuit comes as Musk’s AI startup, xAI, continues its rivalry with OpenAI.
Musk’s AI company is seeking to raise billions of dollars in forthcoming weeks as part of a private funding round that could value the company up to $20 billion. OpenAI has garnered $11 billion and was recently valued by a secondary stock sale at over $80 billion.
