American billionaire Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming that the multi-billion dollar alliance between the ChatGPT producer and Microsoft has jeopardized the original mission of this startup, which was to build artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of humanity.
– OpenAI has been transformed into a closed subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft – Musk’s lawyers wrote in a filing issued this week to the court in San Francisco.
– Under its new management, it not only develops but also refines generative artificial intelligence to increase profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity – they add. Musk is seeking a jury trial and for the company, Altman, and co-founder Greg Brockman to return the profits they have made from their business activities.
Both OpenAI’s management and Musk have declined to comment on this lawsuit, but interestingly, the billionaire was one of the co-founders of OpenAI in 2015 when it started as a non-profit organization dedicated to the safe development of ‘general artificial intelligence’ capable of the same level of intelligence as humans, or even higher.
However, Musk left the company’s board three years later, after which the startup established a for-profit subsidiary through which Microsoft invested about $13 billion. Microsoft’s chief Brad Smith commented this week that the companies are ‘very important partners,’ but that ‘Microsoft does not control OpenAI.’
Whether this is true or not will be determined by competition market regulators from the U.S., European Union, and the United Kingdom.
