Lawyers filed for bankruptcy move in Musk vs. Altman trial heard Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to convince a judge and jury that their respective clients, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are the most well-intentioned, truthful stewards of the mission behind the nonprofit OpenAI. A verdict could be handed down as soon as next week, ending a decade-long battle between two of the tech industry’s most influential entrepreneurs.
But regardless of the outcome, there is a broad set of losers in this case. Based on a fair amount of evidence, it appears that the people most disadvantaged are the employees, policymakers, and community members who believed in the mission of the nonprofit research lab—and supported OpenAI for that reason. What seemed to take priority for Musk and the other OpenAI founders almost everywhere was building the world. leading An AI lab—even if that meant creating a multibillion-dollar profitable company in the process.
“It’s hard to see how the public interest is protected by either of these parties, and that’s exactly what’s at stake in a case about a nonprofit,” says Jill Horwitz, a Northwestern University law professor specializing in nonprofits and innovation, who heard the closing arguments. “The public interest in a nonprofit organization is at stake regardless of who wins.”
OpenAI’s stated mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, but humanity is not the party in this case. In practice, OpenAI has spent the last decade trying to compete with multi-billion dollar companies like Google and build AGI first. Furthermore, Musk and Altman have fought tooth and nail to control OpenAI.
“Musk and Altman are basically locked in a race to be the first to build intelligence, and both are afraid of what the other will do if they win. The rest of us should be afraid of both,” says Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who joined in 2022 and has raised concerns about the company’s safety culture. He was part of a group of former OpenAI researchers who submitted the amicus brief in this case against OpenAI’s for-profit conversion, saying that the nonprofit structure was important in their decision to join the company.
In the trial, the non-profit organization OpenAI was discussed as if it were another corporate investor. Advocates for OpenAI said that giving a nonprofit a $200 billion stake in a for-profit company is proof that OpenAI is fulfilling its mission. Public advocacy groups disagree that funding alone is enough.
“I’m among the many people who are excited to see how much philanthropic resources the OpenAI foundation has at its disposal to do good work,” says Nathan Calvin, VP of government affairs for the AI security NGO Encode, which filed the petition. amicus brief object to OpenAI’s earlier modification in this case. “But it is worth remembering that a non-profit organization also has a governance role, and that the mission of a non-profit organization is not the usual basic one, it is to ensure that AGI benefits all mankind. Money is important to that goal, and it is important to all equally, but it is not the goal itself.”
An Origin Story
Evidence revealed in this case suggests Altman and Musk were in agreement about launching OpenAI as a non-profit organization and operating as a regular startup. They shared the goal of beating Google DeepMind in the AGI race. But creating OpenAI as a non-profit organization turned out to be a very inefficient way to win the race.
Musk has accused Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Greg Brockman, its founder and president, of the mission to establish a non-profit organization. He claims the founders used his $38 million investment to turn OpenAI into an $850 billion company and make several of its founders billionaires.
