Elon Musk Gets Support From 'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton In Battle Against OpenAI

A battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over the new course of OpenAI was one of the bigger stories for 2024 in the artificial intelligence sector.

With the case far from closed, the well-known "Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton is weighing in and taking sides.

What Happened: A push by OpenAI to turn into a for-profit structure from a current nonprofit has prompted a legal attempt by Musk to block the change.

Musk, who is an original co-founder and investor in OpenAI, has spoken out about the planned for-profit change and is now gaining support from one of the biggest names in the AI sector.

"OpenAI was founded as an explicitly safety-focused nonprofit and made a variety of safety-related promises in its charter," Hinton said in a statement Monday published by youth-led advocacy group Encode.

Hinton said OpenAI received benefits like tax breaks thanks to its nonprofit status.

"Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem," Hinton said, as reported by the New York Post.

Hinton, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in October, has spoken out against OpenAI in the past.

In October, Hinton said Altman is "much less concerned with safety than with profits." Hinton has also expressed regrets for his role in helping develop AI, which could now be used for negative items.

You may not be a billionaire like Mark Cuban, but you can uncover hidden gems in the stock market using our proprietary data and pattern recognition — check out five stocks flying under the radar that deserve your attention.

Why It's Important: Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, OpenAI has become one of the largest companies by valuation in the space. The company created a capped-profit model in 2019 with the nonprofit holding control of the entire company.

The company has said that switching to a for-profit model will help "to raise the necessary capital with conventional terms like others in the space."

The lawsuit by Musk comes as he cut his relationship with OpenAI in 2018 and his lawsuit attempts come as he recently launched his own AI company xAI, a competitor to the company he co-founded.

Musk said that OpenAI executives "deceived" him in the past. OpenAI countered recently by saying Musk wanted a for-profit structure for the company in 2017.

The billionaire's lawsuit was first filed in early 2023 related to OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft Corp. MSFT, which he alleged broke the company's nonprofit commitment.

Altman recently showed appreciation for what Musk did to help support OpenAI "in the early days," but shared new criticism of the billionaire.

"He's also clearly a bully and he's also someone who clearly likes to get in fights. Now it's me, it's been Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg lots of other people," Altman said.

In the battle against OpenAI, Musk has now gained recent support from Meta Platforms Inc META and the “Godfather of AI,” which could make the fight against Altman and OpenAI a must-watch story in 2025.

Read Next:

• Terminator In Real Life? AI ‘Godfather’ Warns Of Human ‘Wipe Out’ In 5 To 20 Years

Photo: DIA TV via Shutterstock