In a plot twist that could only come from Silicon Valley or perhaps a Netflix legal drama involving robots, Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming the artificial intelligence company he co-founded has abandoned its noble quest to save humanity in favor of doing what many startups eventually do: making money.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that OpenAI’s close partnership with Microsoft has turned the nonprofit into something resembling a for-profit arm of a trillion-dollar tech empire. Musk, who has never been one to shy away from dramatic gestures or flamethrower sales, says the company has veered dramatically off course since its founding in 2015, when the goal was to develop artificial general intelligence that would benefit all of humanity and ideally not try to enslave it.
Instead, according to Musk, OpenAI is now developing AI “to maximize profits for Microsoft,” which would be a spectacular feat of irony given the company’s original non-profit charter. Musk left the company’s board in 2018 but appears to have kept the receipts, or at least a philosophical grudge. He now accuses Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman of constructing a “cynical” corporate structure that prioritizes dollars over doomsday prevention. His filing even claims that GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large language model, is so powerful that it essentially counts as artificial general intelligence already, which raises the stakes considerably, if not the eyebrows.
OpenAI has not yet commented, possibly because it’s still processing the astonishing notion that Elon Musk is worried about a company doing too much capitalism. Microsoft, naturally, has also remained quiet, preferring to continue subtly integrating ChatGPT into every corner of the Windows operating system, Office suite and possibly the vending machines in Redmond.
Musk’s lawsuit seeks a court order that would force OpenAI back to its original mission of openness and non-commercial bliss, which is a quaint notion in today’s tech ecosystem, where most things open tend to close right after the IPO paperwork is filed.
Whether this ends in a legal victory, a Supreme Court showdown or simply another X.com post storm, Musk has once again positioned himself as the sentient force tugging Silicon Valley back from the brink — though that brink seems to be the one between altruism and market share.
Turns out humanity’s salvation may have a licensing fee.