OpenAI Denies Elon Musk's Allegations, Claims Independence and Competition with Microsoft

Elon Musk is once again in the spotlight, this time for suing OpenAI, accusing the organization of now solely pursuing profits.

Reportedly, Elon Musk, also one of the founders of OpenAI, is suing the company he helped establish and its current CEO, Sam Altman.

The CEO of X social media stated that OpenAI has violated their status as a nonprofit organization and the basic contract agreement to develop AI for the benefit of humanity.

Not only that, OpenAI is accused of becoming a "de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft because it has invested USD 13 billion and holds 49 percent of the shares.

These allegations have immediately sparked reactions from the top executives of the ChatGPT maker company. OpenAI strongly refutes the claims made by Tesla's boss.

The company stated that they strongly disagree with these claims, as quoted from Gizchina on Monday (4/3/2024).

They also emphasized that the company has made significant progress towards its mission despite the statements made by the SpaceX boss.

The company also refuted the accusation of pursuing profits at the expense of the original purpose of OpenAI's formation.

According to an internal memo from the artificial intelligence company to its employees, OpenAI "strongly disagrees" with Elon's allegations.

Bloomberg reported that OpenAI's Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Kwon, refuted Elon's statement that OpenAI is a 'de facto subsidiary' of Microsoft.

Kwon also stated, “the company's mission is to ensure that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) benefits everyone, and OpenAI is independent and directly competes with the technology giant."

It is worth noting, as quoted from Engadget on Saturday (2/3/2024), Microsoft uses OpenAI technology to support generative AI tools such as Copilot.

According to the lawsuit, under the current OpenAI board, they are suspected of developing and refining artificial general intelligence (AGI) to maximize profits for Microsoft, not for the benefit of humanity.

"This is a betrayal of the Founding Agreement," reads the contents of Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI.

The lawsuit defines AGI as a machine with intelligence for various tasks like humans.

Elon Musk argues in his lawsuit that GPT-4, purportedly better at reasoning than the average human, is equivalent to AGI and is effectively owned by Microsoft.

Musk has long expressed concern about AGI. He claims that the theory of this technology poses a significant threat to humanity, especially in the hands of closed and nonprofit organizations like Google.

According to the lawsuit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman persuaded Musk to help them start a nonprofit organization and fund its initial operations in an effort to counter Google's advancements in AGI with DeepMind.

He noted that their initial agreement called for OpenAI technology to be freely available to the public.

Musk claims to have donated USD 44 million to the nonprofit organization between 2016 and 2020. He then resigned from the OpenAI board in 2018.

As reported by TechCrunch, Musk previously stated that he was offered shares in OpenAI's nonprofit subsidiary but refused them on principled grounds.

Elon Musk recently revealed the successful achievements of SpaceX through their satellite internet service, Starlink.

Quoting information from Gizchina on Tuesday (27/2/2024), Starlink via its social media account revealed that they have successfully accessed the internet directly from Starlink satellites in outer space.