Lawsuit says chief executive Sam Altman’s deal with Microsoft has broken organisation’s mission
Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of breaching its foundational mission by putting the pursuit of profit ahead of the benefit of humanity.
The world’s richest man, a founding board member of the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, claimed that Altman had “set aflame” the OpenAI’s founding agreement by signing an investment deal with Microsoft.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Thursday, claims that OpenAI is now developing artificial general intelligence a theoretical form of AI that can perform a range of tasks at or above a human level of intelligence – for profit rather than for the benefit of humankind.
“OpenAI Inc has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximise profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit opens with Musk’s often-stated warning that AGI poses “a grave threat to humanity”.
“Where some like Mr Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” said the lawsuit, adding that in the hands of for-profit companies such as Google, AGI poses a “particularly acute and noxious danger to humanity”.
