Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for abandoning the company’s original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not profit.
The lawsuit claims that Altman and Greg Brockman, co-founder of the artificial intelligence (AI) research organization, originally approached Musk to create an open source, nonprofit company.
The focus of the company, which is behind ChatGPT and backed by Microsoft, on making money violated that contract, Musk’s lawyers said in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco.
They added that the company kept the design of GPT-4, the most advanced AI model, “completely secret.”
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from the board in 2018. He also runs electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket maker Space X and bought Twitter for £35 billion in October 2022.
Claim: Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from the board in 2018
Last year, entrepreneur Altman was fired by the former board of OpenAI. It said it was trying to defend the company’s mission to develop AI that benefits humanity. A few days later, Altman returned to the company with a new first board.
OpenAI plans to appoint several board members in March.
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, became the fastest growing software application in the world within six months of its launch in November 2022.
It also led to the launch of rival chatbots from Microsoft, Alphabet and a slew of startups that capitalized on the hype to raise billions in funding.