Elon Musk has sued OpenAI, the company he co-founded. Now Musk says that OpenAI no longer corresponds to its own name and original vision of being open and non-profit. Instead, he accuses the company of being dependent on Microsoft. In his opinion, this contradicts the founding idea, which he is trying to combat. However, since Musk has long since left the company, it is unlikely that his lawsuit will even be heard. OpenAI still speaks publicly about the allegations, including old emails and justifications – just like in a divorce war.
Advertisement
Shortly after it was founded in 2015, OpenAI writes in the blog post, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Elon Musk realized that they needed a lot more money for their plans than they originally thought. And as early as 2017 they realized that they would need so many billions to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that they would never be able to collect as a non-profit company. Accordingly, there were disagreements about how one could still be successful.
Musk presents OpenAI with a choice: Tesla, power or exit
Musk is said to have suggested further developing OpenAI as part of Tesla – or giving him full control as CEO. OpenAI didn't want that because, as they now write, they saw it as wrong to give one person this power. However, after Sam Altman's brief expulsion last year, his power as CEO has been significantly strengthened and, for example, he is also the sole owner of the OpenAI Startup Fund worth many millions of US dollars. So in a way this is the opposite of what they had in mind at the time.
In order to build up serious competition to Google with DeepMind, Musk said at the time of its founding, the company would have to be big. Because he was denied his Tesla plans or control, Musk dropped out. He wanted to start his own AI company. He did that with X.AI just under a year ago. Musk also wrote in emails from 2018: “Even raising several hundred million will not be enough. We need billions a year immediately or we can forget about it.” This and other quotes come from the emails that OpenAI attached to the blog post.
OpenAI now receives billions from Microsoft. According to their own statement, they do not have control or any influence on the business and development of OpenAI. However, the EU and US antitrust watchdogs are checking whether this is actually the case. And Musk also doubts its accuracy.
OpenAI's understanding of openness
OpenAI wants to rebut the accusation that it is no longer open, including in the sense of open source, by saying that Musk gave his consent when Ilya Sutskever, also a co-founder of OpenAI, changed the plans. In the blog they quote from the emails: “As Ilya said to Elon: “The closer we get to developing AI, the more sense it will make to be less open. The “Open” in openAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after it's developed, but it's perfectly fine not to share the science…” to which Elon replied, “Yep”.” This confirms that OpenAI no longer wants to be open.
also read
OpenAI's mission, as they write in every blog post and several times on the website, is to develop an AGI that benefits everyone. As examples, they cite that Albania is preparing to join the EU with ChatGPT and Iceland wants to preserve its own language with GPT-4. However, the overall funding of OpenAI and AI tools is on shaky ground. OpenAI is financially dependent on Microsoft. Both provide chatbots free of charge, but access to the more powerful models is subject to a fee. However, even these costs probably do not cover the operating costs as well as the costs for development and research.
“We are saddened that someone we deeply admired has come to this – someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, founded a competitor, and then sued us when we did began making significant progress on OpenAI's mission without him,” OpenAI's blog post concludes. Musk has not yet commented on this again.
(emw)