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Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, alleging they have compromised the start-up’s original mission of building artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of humanity.
Lawyers for Musk argued in a filing issued to a San Francisco court on Thursday that OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft meant it has reneged on a commitment to safely build “artificial general intelligence” — an AI that is capable of the same level of intelligence as humans, or an even higher level.
“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity’,” they wrote. “In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”
Musk says the goal of the lawsuit is to “compel” OpenAI to adhere to its founding agreement to build technology that does not simply benefit individuals such as Altman and corporations such as Microsoft.
OpenAI declined to comment. Representatives for Musk have been approached for comment. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The tech billionaire was one of OpenAI’s co-founders in 2015. In his legal filing, Musk said he had donated $44mn to the group in total.
The Tesla chief left OpenAI’s board in 2018 following disagreements with Altman on the direction of research. A year later, the group established a for-profit arm, through which Microsoft has invested about $13bn.
The Microsoft-OpenAI alliance is being reviewed by competition watchdogs in the US, EU and UK. Microsoft’s president Brad Smith told the Financial Times this week that the companies were “very important partners” but that “Microsoft does not control OpenAI”.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas to OpenAI executives in November as part of an investigation into whether Altman had misled its investors, according to people familiar with the move.
That investigation came shortly after OpenAI’s board fired Altman as chief executive only to reinstate him days later. A new board has since been instituted including former Salesforce co-chief executive Bret Taylor as chair.
There is an ongoing internal review of the former board’s allegations against Altman by independent law firm WilmerHale.
OpenAI has become a leader in generative AI — software that can produce text, images and code in seconds — which analysts believe will shake up industries across the world. Other Big Tech rivals, such as Google and Amazon, are also investing heavily in building the technology.
In his lawsuit, Musk’s lawyers write that OpenAI’s founding agreement requires the start-up to make its “technology freely available to the public”, but instead has been used “as proprietary technology to maximise profits” for Microsoft.
Musk’s allegations are founded on the fact that, if OpenAI makes a breakthrough that led to the creation of AGI, Microsoft does not own the rights to the revolutionary technology.
He added that OpenAI’s new board was “ill-equipped” to determine “whether and when OpenAI has attained AGI — and hence when it has developed an algorithm that is outside the scope of Microsoft’s license”.
The lawsuit is also seeking a judgment by the courts as to whether technology such as GPT-4 — OpenAI’s latest AI model — can already be considered to be AGI.
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