Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters
Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, and others, accusing them of deserting the company’s original purpose of developing artificial intelligence for the good of humanity rather than making profits.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in San Francisco alleges that Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder, had originally asked for Musk’s help in creating open-source AI out of shared concerns about the threats that the technology could eventually pose. The Tesla boss now says that the ChatGPT maker has been “transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”
Musk, who helped to found OpenAI in 2015 before stepping down from its board three years later, is basing his case on a founding agreement among himself, Altman, and Brockman about the principles to which their research lab should adhere.