Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, on January 18, 2024.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, among others, alleging they breached their contract by abandoning their mission to develop artificial intelligence “for the benefit of humanity at large.”
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in a San Francisco court, Musk’s lawyers said the tech billionaire was approached in 2015 by Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and agreed to form a nonprofit lab which would develop general artificial intelligence to “benefit humanity.”
“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to state that its charter is to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity.” In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” the lawsuit reads.
Musk’s lawyers argued in the lawsuit that OpenAI’s focus on maximizing profits for Microsoft breaks that agreement.
“Under the new board of directors, it is not just developing, but actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the document reads.
OpenAI and Microsoft were not immediately available for comment.
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