OpenAI to challenge Elon Musk's lawsuit claims

OpenAI declared on Wednesday that it would contest every assertion made by Elon Musk in a recent lawsuit. 

The leadership of OpenAI, which includes Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Sam Altman, wrote a blog post disputing Musk's claims and downplaying his influence on the company's growth.

According to the post, Musk has contributed less than $45 million to OpenAI since its founding in 2015, even though he had previously promised to contribute up to $1 billion. In order to fund its research, the startup also received over $90 million from other donors.

Musk responded to a lawsuit he filed against Altman, Brockman, OpenAI, and other affiliates, claiming that the business had broken its original agreements by putting profits ahead of its charitable goal of creating artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. 

Musk argued that OpenAI's turn towards profit-seeking went against the company's original goals of enabling public access to technology.

Musk claimed that OpenAI's choice to prioritise Microsoft's interests over its mission was indicative of the company's decision to pursue profits. 

The case highlighted the intense legal dispute between Musk and OpenAI, which could have repercussions for how AI is developed in the future.

OpenAI contended in a blog post that the shift to a for-profit organisation was essential to obtaining the significant capital needed to advance artificial general intelligence (AGI). The group disclosed email exchanges that discussed their differences with Musk regarding the shift.

“As we discussed a for-profit structure in order to further the mission, Elon wanted us 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,” OpenAI wrote.

“In early February 2018, Elon forwarded us an email suggesting that OpenAI should ‘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,'” OpenAI wrote.

In spite of the legal dispute, OpenAI reaffirmed its dedication to its goal of making sure artificial intelligence (AI) advances humanity. The startup highlighted the benefits of its technology by providing instances of how it has been used in different areas to empower people and enhance their lives.

“We’re sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired — someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him,” OpenAI wrote in the blog post.

In response to Musk's claims that OpenAI had abandoned its commitment to open-source principles, the company said that Musk had both acknowledged and approved of the company's move away from total transparency as it advanced its AGI development.

“Elon understood the mission did not imply open-sourcing AGI. As Ilya told Elon: ‘As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The Open in openAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science…’, to which Elon replied: ‘Yup’.”