Musk’s Lawsuit: OpenAI’s Abandonment of Humanity’s AI Mission

Musk alleges in the complaint that OpenAI has given up on its goal of creating AI that will benefit all people.

TFD – Dive into the controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging a departure from the organization’s mission to develop AI for humanity’s benefit.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman for allegedly abandoning OpenAI’s original mission to develop artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.

In the late-night lawsuit, Musk’s attorneys claimed that OpenAI, Inc. had become a de facto closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft, the world’s largest technology corporation. The case was filed in San Francisco on Thursday.

The complaint asserts that the company’s new board is “not just developing but refining an AGI [Artificial General Intelligence] to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” “I believe that GPT-4 is an AGI algorithm based on information.”

One of the OpenAI cofounders is Musk. According to the lawsuit, he was instrumental in founding the company, allegedly providing over $44 million between 2016 and 2020 to cover office space costs and persuade important team members, such as chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, to join the venture. According to the lawsuit, Musk took these actions because he wished to fund an organization that would use AI research for the good of humanity. Rather, the filing asserts that his contributions were “twisted” to the advantage of Microsoft and OpenAI.

“Consider donating to a nonprofit organization whose stated goal is to save the Amazon rainforest, only to have the organization establish a profit-driven logging business in the Amazon and use the donations to clear the rainforest,” the lawsuit states. “That is OpenAI, Inc.’s story.”

OpenAI’s organizational structure is distinct. It is a nonprofit organization tasked with defending humanity against artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a theoretical AI system that is capable of performing most activities more efficiently than humans. However, the business also launched a for-profit division with a less charitable mission in late 2019, following Musk’s departure from the board. (OpenAI LP’s revenues are theoretically capped; investors can receive a return on investment of 100 times their initial investment, with any profits above that amount going back to the organization.) The GPT-4 AI model is in high demand, and ChatGPT’s explosive popularity has made that portion of the business valuable at an estimated $80 billion. This has infuriated Musk.

According to the lawsuit, OpenAI’s organizational structure has grown “increasingly complex” in recent years. Additionally, it criticizes OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft, which has contributed almost $13 billion to the AI company’s for-profit operations. This collaboration has drawn regulatory attention from the US, the EU, and the UK. The CMA, the UK regulator, stated in December that it was looking into the possibility that the agreement may have an effect on competition in the AI market. WIRED requested comment from both Microsoft and OpenAI, but neither company responded right away.

According to the lawsuit, Microsoft and OpenAI are keeping the internal design of GPT-4, the company’s most recent model, a secret because they stand to gain much from offering the public access to the AI model. The document states, “GPT-4 is thus the opposite of ‘Open AI.'”

AI systems vary in their level of openness, from entirely closed to fully open source, based on how much of their internal workings are disclosed to the public and researchers. Open source proponents contend that the methodology fosters better innovation and transparency. Geopolitical rivals or criminals may be able to access strong AI models, according to arguments made against it. While there are certain usage restrictions, Meta’s Llama 2 model can be downloaded, altered, and used without charge, whereas GPT-4 cannot.

David Shrier, a professor of practice, AI, and innovation at London’s Imperial College Business School, says, “Let’s remember that Elon Musk has multiple competing AI efforts, but notably [he founded] xAI, a competing AI company.” He goes on to say that the lawsuit might be an effort to lessen competition for xAI.

In any case, according to Shrier, Musk’s lawsuit is a reflection of a wider concern about OpenAI’s ability to make a profit, given that the company’s founding charter forbids supporting the use of AI or AGI that would endanger mankind or unfairly consolidate power. He is correct, according to Shrier, in that OpenAI’s initial goal didn’t seem to align with the company’s current direction.

The foundation of OpenAI’s original mission was its nonprofit division. In principle, the nonprofit is in charge of the for-profit portion of the business, according to Nicolas Moës, executive director of the research tank Future Society. In public, Altman has endorsed such configuration. In June, the CEO told Bloomberg, “I think it’s important that the board can fire me.”

But after five days of drama, involving a threatened staff exodus and Microsoft announcing the hiring of important OpenAI personnel, including Altman, to head its own AI division, the board did indeed fire him in November, and Altman was back in his position as CEO. “This nonprofit [aspect of the business] has basically no say, is in complete disarray, and the board itself is not really in control of what the for profit does,” Moës argues, referring to the OpenAI board crisis in November.

Altman announced a new non-voting board position for Microsoft upon his reinstatement at OpenAI.

According to Laura Lazaro Cabrera, director of the equity and data program at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, and counsel, “this dispute brings into focus a larger issue, which is the fact that many AI startups, like OpenAI, find themselves in a position where they’re reliant on big tech finances and infrastructure.”

According to the lawsuit, Musk has played a significant role in the recent development of AI and is quite concerned about the path the sector is going in.

According to the lawsuit, Musk was under “extreme mental stress” from his obsession with the advancements being made by AI company Google DeepMind while he was assisting Altman in finding talent for OpenAI. According to the document, Musk “thought (and still does) that AGI poses a particularly acute and noxious danger to humanity in the hands of a closed, for-profit company like Google.”

According to the lawsuit, Altman informed Musk that OpenAI will be “the opposite of Google.” Musk now claims that a “for-profit partner of the world’s largest corporation” was established with his money instead.

Revision: 3/1/2024, 11:02 a.m. EST We’ve updated this story with more information from the lawsuit.