Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman for “betraying” the nonprofit’s AI mission

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, its founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, and affiliated entities on Thursday, alleging that the makers of ChatGPT have violated their original contractual agreements by pursuing profits rather than the nonprofit’s founding mission to develop artificial intelligence that benefits humanity.

Musk, an early backer of OpenAI, claims Altman and Brockman convinced him to help found and fund the startup in 2015 with promises that it would be a nonprofit focused on countering the competitive threat from Google.

The lawsuit says OpenAI has shifted to a for-profit model focused on commercializing its artificial general intelligence (AGI) research with Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company.

“Yet, in reality, OpenAI, Inc. has turned into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft.” The lawsuit adds: “Under its new board, it is not only developing; “The reality is to improve artificial general intelligence to maximize Microsoft’s profits, not for the benefit of humanity.” “This was a blatant betrayal of the Founding Agreement.”

The lawsuit comes after Musk expressed his dissatisfaction with OpenAI’s shift in priorities in the past year. According to the legal complaint, Musk donated more than $44 million to the nonprofit between 2016 and September 2020. For the first several years, Musk was OpenAI’s largest shareholder, the lawsuit adds. He previously said that Musk was offered a stake in OpenAI’s for-profit arm, but declined to accept it due to ethical concerns.

The lawsuit filed in a San Francisco court centers around OpenAI’s latest natural language model, GPT-4, which Musk claims constitutes an AGI — an artificial intelligence whose intelligence is on par with, if not superior to, that of humans. He claims that OpenAI and Microsoft improperly licensed GPT-4 despite agreeing that OpenAI’s AGI capabilities would remain non-profit and intended for humanity.

Musk seeks to force OpenAI to stick to its original mission and prevent monetization of technologies developed under its nonprofit for OpenAI executives or partners like Microsoft.

The lawsuit also asks the court that AI systems like GPT-4 and other advanced models in development constitute artificial general intelligence beyond licensing agreements. In addition to the injunctions compelling OpenAI, Musk is seeking an accounting and potential clawback of donations intended to fund its public research if a court finds it is now acting for private gain.

“Mr. Altman personally selected a new board that lacked the comparable technical expertise or any substantive background in AI governance that the previous board had by design. Mr. D’Angelo, a technology executive and entrepreneur, was the only member of The previous board of directors remained after Mr. Altman returned. The lawsuit adds that the new board is made up of members with more experience in profit-focused organizations or politics than in AI ethics and governance.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.