Elon Musk accuses tech giants of profiting from AI that poses a “danger to humanity” in OpenAI lawsuit

ELON Musk has accused OpenAI’s Sam Altman of betraying his trust by creating technology for profit rather than “the good of humanity” in a scathing new lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in the District of California courtis not Musk’s first attempt to sue Altman and his company, which played a role in popularizing artificial intelligence technology.

The SpaceX founder first sued in March and withdrew his complaint in June — but it appears he has reignited the fight.

In court documents reviewed by The US Sun, Musk accuses Altman and an associate of tricking him into financially supporting the company.

Specifically, Musk’s lawyers claim that he was misled into believing that OpenAI would be a nonprofit organization that sought to serve the public.

“The idea that Altman sold to Musk was that a nonprofit organization, funded and supported by Musk, would attract world-class scientists and conduct cutting-edge research and development in AI,” the suit says.

Musk’s lawyers note that OpenAI was designed to serve “as a significant counterweight to Google’s DeepMind in race for Artificial General Intelligence”, making your code freely accessible to the public.

News It emerged in 2013 that Google planned to acquire DeepMind, then one of the most advanced AI companies in the industry.

Musk’s lawyers claim that he was “deeply concerned about this development” and draw a comparison with the way he runs SpaceX and Tesla; in the case of the latter, by making patents “open and available for public use.”

The technology mogul “believed that in the hands of a giant private company like GoogleAGI would pose a particularly acute and harmful danger to humanity,” and tried unsuccessfully to stop the sale, the lawsuit states.

Musk accuses Altman of “presenting himself” as someone who shares concerns about the “threat” posed by AI – although it is unclear what that means.

“Altman assured Musk that the nonprofit structure ensured neutrality and a focus on security and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value,” the lawsuit says.

“But as it turns out, all of this was shameless philanthropy — the hook for Altman’s long con.”

According to the document, Altman tried to “woo” Musk with different proposals and finally won his support by launching a laboratory that sought to “create the first general AI… and use it for general training”.

“The technology would be owned by the foundation and used ‘for the good of the world,’” the lawsuit says.

Altman recruited Stripe CTO Gregory Brockman to seal the deal, and in November 2015, Musk agreed to “commit funding and help recruit the key scientists needed to make Altman’s project a success, as long as – as Altman and Brockman had repeatedly promised – OpenAI, Inc.. it would be a non-profit organization.”

5

This promise was reaffirmed when OpenAI filed a Certificate of Incorporation with the Delaware Secretary of State in December 2015.

Musk claims he has become OpenAI’s biggest backer, contributing a total of $44 million.

But relations broke down between 2017 and 2018, when Altman and Brockman “moved to recast the nonprofit as a money-making effort to attract shareholders, sell shares and raise capital.”

The group reached a deal with Microsoft, and Musk claims that the company’s opinions did not align with the mission he envisioned. OpenAI.

“Whereas Musk was concerned that AI posed an existential danger to humanity and the technology should be decentralized and open, Nadella and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates downplayed Musk’s concerns as “panic” and too far in the future. future,” the lawsuit says.

5

Tesla CEO accuses Altman and Brockman of establishing a network of for-profit companies.

“When Defendants launched OpenAI, LP (now OpenAI OpCo, LLC), they sold out the nonprofit OpenAI, Inc.. of most of its staff and transferred them to the new company, which now also houses much of OpenAI’s research and development,” the lawsuit says.

“Altman and Brockman are also now employees of the private for-profit company OpenAI OpCo, LLC, which conveniently shields them from public oversight and financial disclosures from nonprofit organizations like OpenAI, Inc.. must do.”

From them next step “was to block non-profit organizations technology”, the process continues.

“Obviously, the public would not pay for something that was open and free, so, as detailed below, the Defendants began withholding [its] scientific research and accumulating its technology.”

5

Musk accuses Altman of “deliberately” withholding information about his personal holdings in OpenAI and having the nonprofit “exclusively license its technology to Microsoftthe largest for-profit corporation in the world.”

Altman, OpenAI and Brockman are accused of fraud and breaches, breach of contract and extortion, among a host of other charges.

Musk seeks “constructive reliance on Defendants’ ill-gotten earnings, property and assets traceable to Musk’s significant contributions to OpenAI” and “a judicial determination that OpenAI, Inc.. license to Microsoft is null and void.”

It is worth mentioning that Musk himself was accused of acting against users best interestsmainly in relation to its acquisition of Twitterwhich he renamed as X.

5

Despite his efforts to appear like a selfless martyr in the process, Musk doesn’t have a squeaky clean record.

Users accused him of turning X into a haven for racists and misogynists and offering them impunity.

This includes showing favoritism to certain accounts by reinstating them after a breach. the platform’s terms of service

And the accusations have only piled up against the embattled tech mogul.

Most recently, he was accused of creating a political action committee called American PAC to undermine the democratic process in the 2024 presidential election.

The PAC allegedly ran ads on X that promised to register voters but actually collected information from users in swing states.

This triggered an investigation by the Michigan Secretary of State, with other states expected to follow suit.