Billionaire Elon Musk has sued Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly breaching their contract.
The lawsuit accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of specifically violating their original mission statement by placing the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of benefitting humanity.
“Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, cites the lab’s founding agreement that the company would use its technology to benefit the public and that it would open its technology for public use. Yet OpenAI has veered away from that mission with its latest AI model, GPT-4, which it hasn’t released to the public, the suit alleges,” according to CBS News.
“At the same time, OpenAI has formed commercial ties with Microsoft, which has invested billions in the AI company. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI’s GPT-4 tech into its software programs and developed an AI app called Copilot that’s geared to helping consumers automate various tasks,” CBS News notes.
OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.
Not what I intended at all.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023
“Mr. Altman caused OpenAI to radically depart from its original mission and historical practice of making its technology and knowledge available to the public. GPT-4’s internal design was kept and remains a complete secret except to OpenAI — and, on information and belief, Microsoft,” the lawsuit reads.
“There are no scientific publications describing the design of GPT-4. Instead, there are just press releases bragging about performance,” it continues.
The result, according to the suit, is that instead of serving the public’s interest, OpenAI has become a tool for Microsoft’s commercial interests.
“OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” the suit reads. “Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft.”
According to CBS News, the purpose of the suit is to convince the court “to order OpenAI to make its AI models open to the public” and “to prohibit it from using its technology to benefit its executives, Microsoft or any other person or company.”
He also wants OpenAI and Altman to pay back all the money they’ve been paid by Microsoft.
It isn’t clear to me how the OpenAI structure is legal at all.
I was offered shares a various points, but it seemed unethical/illegal to accept them.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2024
This development comes about a year and a half after the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s very popular artificial intelligence interface.
“The AI tool quickly became the fastest-growing consumer application in history and kick-started the launch of rival chatbots from companies such as Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft,” CNBC notes.
This development also comes amid Musk’s launch of his own AI company, xAI.
“Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI — which powers the snarky Grok chatbot — is aiming to raise billions of dollars in the coming weeks in a private funding round that could value the company as high as $20 billion,” the New York Post exclusively reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
“Musk is looking to raise between $1 billion and $3 billion in cash from outside investors at a valuation that could range between $10 billion and $20 billion, two of the sources said. The mercurial tech billionaire may also personally invest several billion dollars in the startup himself, one of the sources said,” according to the Post.
All this comes amid the uproar over Microsoft’s own AI bot, Gemini, pushing out “woke” results that erase white people.
Perhaps it is now clear why @xAI’s Grok is so important.
It is far from perfect right now, but will improve rapidly. V1.5 releases in 2 weeks.
Rigorous pursuit of the truth, without regard to criticism, has never been more essential.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2024
Let hope so because we can’t count on Woke Gemini Al pic.twitter.com/AY5sW1FWas
— I Meme Therefore I Am (@ImMeme0) February 22, 2024
“The timing for an xAI capital raise may be ripe given the recent disaster at Google, which was forced to disable its Gemini chatbot’s image creation tool after it began spitting out historically and factually inaccurate ‘diverse’ pictures such as Black Vikings and female NHL players,” according to the Post.
“Gemini’s bizarre behavior was widely mocked on social media and held up by critics as a clear indication of political bias in the chatbot’s training – with Musk personally declaring that the ‘woke mind virus is killing Western Civilization,'” the Post notes.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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