Zinger Key Points
- Elon Musk has revived a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming its founders prioritized commercial interests over their founding mission.
- The suit alleges OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft betrays the original intent to benefit humanity.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comment from OpenAI.
Elon Musk has reignited a legal battle against OpenAI, the creator of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, continuing a six-year-old dispute.
What Happened: Musk, in a new complaint filed on Monday in federal court in Northern California, accuses OpenAI and its co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, of prioritizing commercial gains over their original mission of benefiting humanity.
The Tesla Inc TSLA CEO had previously withdrawn a similar lawsuit seven weeks ago, just before a judge was set to decide on its dismissal.
In dialogue with the New York Times, Musk attorney Marc Toberoff described the new suit as a more robust version of the previous one.
See Also: Elon Musk Drops Lawsuit Against OpenAI A Day After Threatening To Ban Apple Devices
The fresh lawsuit echoes earlier claims, alleging that Altman and Brockman “betrayed” Musk by partnering with Microsoft Corp. MSFT in a multibillion-dollar deal.
An OpenAI spokesperson told Benzinga Monday: “As we said about Elon’s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon’s prior emails continue to speak for themselves.”
In a previous blog post addressing Musk’s initial lawsuit, Altman and his team said: “The mission of OpenAI is to ensure A.G.I. benefits all of humanity,” and stressed that their focus is to develop safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) and distributing its benefits broadly.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Musk, Altman, Brockman, and several AI researchers. The startup served as a counterbalance to AI developments at Alphabet Inc‘s GOOGL Google.
Musk says he grew concerned that Google, under co-founder Larry Page, was not adequately considering the potential dangers of AI. Sharing these concerns, OpenAI’s founders launched the company as a nonprofit, pledging to share their technology openly, arguing that AI was too powerful and dangerous to be controlled by a single entity.
Musk parted ways with OpenAI in 2018 after a power struggle and withdrew his financial support.
OpenAI, backed with at least $13 billion from Microsoft, is a partnership between its original nonprofit and a capped profit arm.
The release of ChatGPT in 2022 by OpenAI triggered an industry-wide AI race involving major tech companies and startups. Meanwhile, Musk founded his own AI company, xAI, continuing to voice concerns about AI’s existential risks.
The suit claims that the founders “intentionally courted and deceived Musk,” exploiting his humanitarian concerns about AI’s dangers. Moreover, it argues that OpenAI violated its promise to open-source its technology by granting Microsoft an exclusive license.
The lawsuit seeks to determine whether OpenAI’s recent advancements have achieved AGI and if the company’s contract with Microsoft should be invalidated.
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