Elon Musk Sues OpenAI, Sam Altman for Making Money Over Benefitting Humanity
www.rollingstone.com
Elon Musk sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, saying they've gone back on an agreement to build AI tech that betters humanity and doesn't make a profit.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/9303135

Huh, though the #ElonMusk clock is broken, this is one of the times of the day it’s still correct:

Elon Musk accused Sam Altman and OpenAI of pursuing profit over bettering humanity in a new breach of contract lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court yesterday, Feb. 29.

Musk helped Altman found OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 (Musk left the board of directors in 2018 and no longer has a stake). Central to the lawsuit is OpenAI’s “founding agreement,” which, per the lawsuit, stated the lab would build artificial general intelligence (AGI) “for the benefit of humanity,” not to “maximize shareholder profits,” and that the technology would be “open-source” and not kept “secret for propriety commercial reasons.”

Musk’s new lawsuit alleges that OpenAI has reversed course on this agreement, particularly through its $13 billion partnership with Microsoft. It further calls out the secrecy shrouding the tech behind OpenAI’s flagship Chat GPT-4 language model and major changes to the company’s board following Altman’s tumultuous hiring and re-firing last year.

“These events of 2023 constitute flagrant breaches of the Founding Agreement, which Defendants have essentially turned on its head,” the suit reads. “To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity.’ In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”

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[archive link]

  • PrincessLeiasCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    4 months ago

    Much of that board was booted once Altman was brought back, and the lawsuit suggests he “hand-picked” a new board with little “technical expertise or any substantial background in AI governance, which the previous board had by design.”

    Instead, the lawsuit states, the new board included members “with more experience in profit-centric enterprises or politics than in AI ethics and governance. They were also reportedly ‘big fans of Altman.’

    Bro let me tell you about a little company called “Twitter”. Sit down tho, because that shit is wild.

    • wewbullEnglish
      13·
      4 months ago

      Twitter was never non-profit with a founding charter. Two very different organisations.

      • PrincessLeiasCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Agree, and I was more so using the comparison between “early intentions” vs “real action” that both of the companies made. Basically, they lied to everyone, got in control, and did whatever they wanted.