Mr. Musk claims OpenAI has shifted its approach to being profit-focused after aligning itself with Microsoft.
Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its co-founders, alleging that they violated the company’s founding agreement by developing artificial intelligence (AI) for profit rather than advancing it for the good of humanity.
Mr. Musk, who was an original board member of OpenAI but left in 2018, said in his complaint that the defendants—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Gregory Brockman—broke their pledge to develop AI “for the benefit of humanity” and are instead pursuing profit and power.
The lawsuit, filed late on Feb. 29 in San Francisco, alleged a breach of contract, arguing that Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman initially joined forces with Mr. Musk to launch OpenAI as an open-source, non-profit company.
Mr. Musk said the founding agreement required that OpenAI make its technology, such as the AI chatbot GPT-4 that the company developed, “freely available” to the public. However, Mr. Musk says that OpenAI has shifted its approach to being profit-focused after aligning itself with Microsoft, which has invested around $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,” Mr. Musk wrote in the complaint, referring to Microsoft.
Vast Power ‘Unduly Concentrated’
In the lawsuit, Mr. Musk argues that OpenAI’s GPT-4 constitutes artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is an AI whose intelligence is so advanced that it is on par with, or surpasses, that of humans.
“OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” Mr. 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.”
Mr. Musk’s lawsuit also hones in on the 2023 firing and subsequent reinstatement of Mr. Altman as the chief executive. He argues that Mr. Altman’s temporary departure prompted Microsoft to step in and push for the resignation of board members who tried to oust him, leading to a restructuring that changed the face of the company.
By Tom Ozimek
