Elon Musk
recently filed a lawsuit against
ChatGPT maker
OpenAI stating that the
AI company
has deviated from its original mission to develop AI tools for humanity’s benefit and is now making money for
Microsoft
. The ChatGPT-maker has now responded to the claims highlighting that he had plans for a for profit company, wanted to have the control of the board and even merge it with his other company Tesla.
In a long response that included the screenshots of emails exchanged between Musk and Greg Brockman (now president of OpenAI),
Sam Altman
(now CEO) as well as Ilya Sutskever (co-founder and former Chief Scientist at OpenAI), the company said that it and Elon recognised a for-profit entity would be necessary to acquire resources needed for the development of AGI.
“We realised building AGI will require far more resources than we’d initially imagined. Elon said we should announce an initial $1 billion funding commitment to OpenAI. In total, the non-profit has raised less than $45 million from Elon and more than $90 million from other donors,”
OpenAI
said. The company added that Elon said he would cover “whatever anyone else doesn't provide.”
‘Musk wanted to merge OpenAI with Tesla’
OpenAI highlighted that even Musk recognised the need for a for-profit entity to acquire resources and discussed a structure in order to further the mission. However, it said, Elon wanted OpenAI to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control.
“Elon left OpenAI, saying there needed to be a relevant competitor to Google/DeepMind and that he was going to do it himself. He said he’d be supportive of us finding our own path,” the company noted.
“In late 2017, we and Elon decided the next step for the mission was to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. In the middle of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman bridged the gap to cover salaries and operations,” OpenAI alleged.
‘OpenAI, Musk couldn’t agree on terms on a for-profit’
OpenAI also noted that the company and Musk couldn’t reach an agreement on terms for a for-profit entity as “it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI.”
Musk also pushed OpenAI to “attach to Tesla as its cash cow”, commenting that it was “exactly right… Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero”.
However, Musk chose to leave OpenAI, saying that the probability of success of the company was 0, and that he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.
English (US) ·