Elon Musk vs OpenAI: The Cold AI War That Keeps Going

Just when you thought the dust on the Elon Musk vs OpenAI saga was settled, Musk yesterday dropped a new lawsuit on the world’s largest AI startup.

The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and its founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, deliberately misled Musk about the organization’s nature and concealed its intention to pivot from a non-profit to a for-profit organization.

“Elon Musk’s case against Sam Altman and OpenAI is a textbook tale of altruism versus greed,” the lawsuit said.

“Altman, in concert with other defendants, intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by AI.”

When asked about the lawsuit, an OpenAI spokesperson told Techopedia via email that “as we said about Elon’s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon’s prior emails continue to speak for themselves.”

This was a reference to emails where Musk appears to acknowledge the need to compete against Google and responded “yup” to an email where Ilya Sutskever said: “as we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open.”

In any case, the lawsuit rumbles on in a philosophically tricky year for artificial intelligence.

The lawsuit follows one Musk issued in February that accused ChatGPT of straying from its non-profit status. Musk dropped the lawsuit in June after OpenAI released prior emails from Musk, in which he indicated that the company should build additional revenue streams.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Elon Musk vs OpenAI: Latest Lawsuit
3. Battle Between Closed and Open Source AI
4. OpenAI's Brush with Controversy
5. The Bottom Line
6. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Elon Musk vs OpenAI: Latest Lawsuit
3. Battle Between Closed and Open Source AI
Show Full Guide
4. OpenAI's Brush with Controversy
5. The Bottom Line
6. References

Elon Musk vs OpenAI: Latest Lawsuit

With many of Elon Musk’s high-profile public moves, there is an element of theater and showmanship, a wink at the camera, if you will. We can see this in recent spats with Meta’s Head of AI Yann LeCunn, and even accepting a fight against President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

However, Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI doesn’t appear to be a PR move. The severity of the accusations made, and the revised case makes it clear that he has some serious grievances about the AI startup’s alleged transition from nonprofit to for-profit AI development.

One of the lawsuit’s core contentions is that Altman and Brockman “assiduously manipulated Musk into co-founding their spurious non-profit venture, OpenAI, inc., by promising that it would chart a safer, more open course than profit-driven tech giants.

“Altman assured Musk that the non-profit structure guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value. But as it turns out, this was all hot-air philanthropy — the hook for Altman’s long con,” the lawsuit said.

So, the argument here is that Musk wouldn’t have contributed to OpenAI if he had known that AI development would take a for-profit, proprietary approach rather than an open-source model.

In addition, the lawsuit also seeks a decision on whether or not OpenAI’s license with Microsoft, which gives the latter permission to use its models, is null and void.

The idea is that tools like GPT-4 could be considered outside of the agreement if they are categorized as artificial general intelligence (this is unlikely as while chatbots can do many things, the “original thinking” phase seems a way off).

Battle Between Closed and Open Source AI

Musk’s lawsuit not only addresses his personal grievances with OpenAI for moving from a non-profit to a for-profit company but also the clash between open and closed-source AI.

Michael Umansky, CEO and co-founder of AI workflow company SmythOS, told Techopedia:

“Elon Musk’s latest lawsuit against OpenAI underscores a fundamental clash between two visions for AI’s future. Musk, an advocate for stringent AI safety, co-founded OpenAI to democratize and secure AI technology.

“However, under Sam Altman’s leadership, OpenAI shifted towards a more commercial and profit-driven approach, particularly through its partnership with Microsoft.”

After all, models like GPT 3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-4o are black box models, built for profit, which the general public has little to no transparency over. Black box development means there’s little knowledge of how these models are trained and how they make decisions.

“While I appreciate OpenAI”s groundbreaking products, Musk’s lawsuit highlights crucial issues like the abandonment of long-term AI safety measures, potential self-dealing with the company, and the prioritization of profit over ethical considerations.

“This legal battle could shape the future trajectory of AI development, balancing innovation with the essential need for safety,” Umansky said.

OpenAI’s Brush with Controversy

Although it’s still too early to speculate on if and how this case will play out in the courts, it’s undeniable that OpenAI has had a rough year in terms of controversy.

Last November, CEO Sam Altman was fired and reinstated shortly after, before The New York Times filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit alleging the company had trained its models on copyrighted materials.

Of course, the controversy didn’t stop there. Just a few months later, its super alignment team imploded, as ex-insider Jan Leake alleged OpenAI was putting “shiny products” ahead of safety. The company was also being criticized for threatening to force employees to sign non-disparagement agreements or lose vested equity.

Also in May, Scarlett Johansson released a statement that she was “angered and in disbelief” that OpenAI had used a voice for GPT-4o that sounded like hers without consent.

OpenAI has had a range of rebuttals to each of these controversies, which we won’t get into here, but the point is that each controversy is not a good look when we consider Musk’s allegations.

The Bottom Line

This latest lawsuit against OpenAI shows that the drama is far from over between Musk and OpenAI.

Given the seriousness of the allegations against OpenAI, the AI startup needs to act cautiously to ensure the public doesn’t lose faith in its commitment to responsible AI development.