On Thursday, Elon Musk sued OpenAI for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair business practices. OpenAI arrived in 2015 as a non-profit organization with the aim of benefiting all humanity. Among the founders were Musk and now CEO Sam Altman. The lawsuit alleges that while the company still claims to adhere to its founding principle, “OpenAI, Inc. has transformed itself into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”
Elon Musk sued OpenAI and the war is heating up!
Microsoft partnered with OpenAI in 2020 for $13 billion. Since then, the company has continued to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and the lawsuit claims that the company is using AGI to increase Microsoft's profits under its new board.
The goal of the lawsuit is to force OpenAI to “join the Founding Agreement and return to its mission of developing AGI for the benefit of humanity.” Also have co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman return profits. Microsoft is not named as a defendant.
The development of GPT-4 and the rehiring of Altman are included in the lawsuit
The lawsuit alleges that the release of GPT-4 is evidence of OpenAI's apparent change in goals. Previously, OpenAI's technology was open source, with the public connected to what was happening. But GPT-4, launched last year, remained secret during its development. The lawsuit alleges that the secrecy is due to commercial rather than security considerations.”
Another incident highlighted in the process was Altman's firing and subsequent rehiring of OpenAI at the hands of the board. CNN says industry experts saw the rehiring as the right move to commercialize AGI. The lawsuit alleges that the Altman debacle demonstrated Microsoft's control over the company and noted that “the public still does not know exactly what the Board of Directors' 'deliberative review process' revealed” that resulted in Altman's firing.
The lawsuit alleges that “while some, like Mr. Musk, see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power.” Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft have publicly addressed the lawsuit so far.