OpenAI hits back at Elon Musk's lawsuit in court filing

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Axios

Updated 11 hours ago


Elon Musk has sued OpenAI over its planned for-profit restructuring, but Musk's own emails show he wanted OpenAI to have a for-profit component and wanted to own and run it himself, OpenAI argues in a new court filing Friday.

Why it matters: Musk helped found OpenAI in 2015 but has since become a bitter opponent and critic of the ChatGPT maker.

The big picture: Friday's filing is the latest salvo in a high profile legal battle pitting the AI revolution's standard-bearing company against president-elect Trump's closest tech adviser. Musk is also the founder of xAI, an OpenAI rival.

The current suit, filed in August, is the successor to a similar previous suit Musk filed in March and then withdrew in June.

His new suit seeks to block OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, from proceeding with a plan that would effectively transform the firm, which is now controlled by a nonprofit organization, into a more traditional corporation.

In the decade since OpenAI's founding, AI has rapidly evolved from a field of research into a hot but costly investment magnet.

Driving the news: OpenAI's new court filing includes a number of e-mails between Musk (and his representatives) and other OpenAI co-founders, including Altman and Ilya Sutskever.

The emails discuss the ideal structure for the company as well as the growing need for more capital to fund the massive amount of hardware needed to pursue OpenAI's work.

OpenAI maintains that Musk was pushing for a for-profit entity in which he had both control and a majority equity stake.

OpenAI also disclosed that Musk registered in September 2017 to incorporate a public benefit corporation entitled "Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc."

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/12/13/elon-musk-openai-altman-lawsuit-filing-nonprofit

[Mike 03]

1. I don't trust the motives of either side.

Elon Musk is jealously attacking a competitor he feels personal acrimony towards because of his prior involvement. Sam Altman and some others (though not everyone) at OpenAI abruptly decided they want their huge payday from AI. So to hell with the "societal watchdog and guardian" aspect of OpenAI's original stated ideals.

Nothing that they do from here on out is for the benefit of human beings, despite all the justifications and excuses we might hear from either side. It's 100% on the AI companies that the "genie is out of the bottle," in spite of the fact they will blame all of humanity for "needing AI capabilities right now at this moment in history" or arguing that "AI could not be contained." They'll call AI a baby ready to be born, and you can't stop the baby from coming out.

[groundloop]

2. Yep, this is just a pissing contest over money