2024-06-12 - tech

Musk sues Ultraman! The "love-hate entanglement" behind the lawsuit against Open

On February 29th local time, company CEO Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that they prioritized profit over the benefit of humanity, violating the founding agreement of the artificial intelligence startup, which was to develop AI for the welfare of humanity rather than for profit.

Musk's lawsuit states, "To this day, OpenAI's website still claims that its mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. However, in reality, OpenAI has transformed into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the world's largest technology companies and has kept the design of its most advanced AI model, GPT-4, completely confidential."

Musk's complaint, spanning 46 pages and 14,000 words, takes OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and President Greg Brockman to court.

According to the document, Musk accuses OpenAI of deviating from its non-profit, public, open-source AGI mission, instead forming an exclusive partnership with Microsoft and secretizing GPT-4, becoming an accomplice in Microsoft's pursuit of commercial interests.

In the lawsuit, Musk demands that OpenAI restore open-source status. Additionally, he requests that the court issue an injunction prohibiting OpenAI, President Gregory Brockman, Altman, and Microsoft from profiting from the company's general artificial intelligence technology.

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Musk's "love-hate history" with Altman and OpenAI:

In 2015, Musk, along with Altman, Silicon Valley notable investor Peter Thiel, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston, among other Silicon Valley dignitaries, jointly founded OpenAI. At the end of 2022, the company launched the widely discussed AI chatbot ChatGPT.

According to a statement released by OpenAI on December 11, 2015, these tech leaders were committed to creating a non-profit organization with the core mission of advancing the development of artificial intelligence in the "way most likely to benefit all of humanity."

At that time, Musk had warned that artificial intelligence is the "greatest existential threat" to humanity. The founding statement of OpenAI mentioned: "If artificial intelligence reaches human levels, the potential benefits it could bring to society are incalculable. Similarly, if developed or applied improperly, it could also bring unimaginable harm to society."However, in 2018, Musk chose to leave the OpenAI board. OpenAI explained in a blog post: "Considering Tesla's increasing focus on artificial intelligence, Musk's departure helps to eliminate potential conflicts of interest that may arise in the future." At the same time, they also stated that Musk would continue to provide guidance and support to OpenAI.

But according to insiders, Musk's departure also meant that he abandoned his commitment to provide additional funding to OpenAI. This put a huge financial pressure on Altman and others. Altman once said: "This was a very difficult period, and I had to readjust my work and life schedule to ensure that we had enough financial support."

Reports indicate that Altman and other co-founders of OpenAI rejected the business proposal put forward by Musk in 2018. It is said that Musk wanted to take sole control of the company to challenge Google's position in the field of artificial intelligence. When his proposal was rejected, he chose to withdraw funding and officially left the OpenAI board.

In 2019, Musk shared some thoughts on why he left OpenAI, one of the main reasons being that he "disagreed" with the direction of OpenAI. He once stated on Twitter: "I must devote myself entirely to the engineering and manufacturing issues of Tesla and SpaceX. Considering the talent competition between Tesla and OpenAI, as well as the differences in some views between me and the OpenAI team, a peaceful breakup seems to be the best choice."

Since then, Musk has repeatedly publicly criticized OpenAI's decisions and direction. Two years later, in response to the MIT Technology Review's report on OpenAI's internal culture of secrecy, he bluntly pointed out: "OpenAI should be more open." He further criticized Dario Amodei, who was leading OpenAI's strategy at the time (and is now the co-founder and CEO of the AI startup Anthropic), expressing low confidence in the latter's safety.

In December 2022, the release of ChatGPT put OpenAI at the forefront of controversy. Musk pointed out that OpenAI had the ability to access Twitter's database (which has been acquired by Musk) without permission to train its chatbot. However, he temporarily set aside this dispute, stating that he needed to gain a deeper understanding of OpenAI's future governance structure and revenue plans. He emphasized that OpenAI was originally created as an open-source and non-profit organization, but now both of these have become nominal.

Reports suggest that the huge success of ChatGPT angered Musk. This chatbot attracted a lot of user attention due to its excellent multi-tasking capabilities, from writing papers to writing basic code. Musk further stated in February 2023 that the current OpenAI is "far from my original intention."

Musk wrote on Twitter: "OpenAI was originally created with the purpose of being open-source and non-profit, aiming to compete with Google. However, it has now become a closed-source company pursuing profit maximization, actually controlled by Microsoft. This is completely contrary to my original intention."

A month later, he reiterated this point, saying: "I still feel confused, why did I donate 100 million dollars to this non-profit organization, and now it has become a for-profit organization with a market value of 30 billion dollars. If such a transformation is legal, then why doesn't everyone do it?"

Now, Musk is turning his dissatisfaction into a lawsuit.OpenAI Executives Say Musk's Lawsuit is Regret Over Leaving, Altman: Misses the Old Him

In response to being sued by former co-founder Elon Musk, the artificial intelligence (AI) giant OpenAI has issued a statement.

On March 1st local time, it was reported that in an internal memo from OpenAI, company executives questioned Musk's allegations and suggested that it stems from dissatisfaction with no longer being part of the company. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in the memo that Musk is his hero and expressed that he misses the old Musk.

OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in the internal memo, "We believe that the claims in this lawsuit may stem from Elon's regret over no longer being involved in the company's affairs... Seeing Elon take such action against a company he helped found, especially considering his close collaboration with some of you who are still here working towards the mission, I am deeply disappointed."