Elon Musk sues OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman

Elon Musk, in a move that highlights the tensions between big tech and AI ethics, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, its CEO, over the ChatGPT platform.

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for breach of contract https://t.co/bnwtuT2MyR

— CNN (@CNN) March 1, 2024

In this complaint, OpenAI is accused of having strayed from its initial ideals and of having favored profits over its primary mission: to create artificial intelligence for humanity.

Its argument rests on the idea that OpenAI, at the outset, was a non-profit entity which, according to the complaint, had promised to make open source contributions to AI.

In the lawsuit, Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman are accused of breaching their founding agreement after OpenAI began moving toward a more profit-oriented structure.

In particular, the lawsuit highlights Microsoft’s significant financial ties. Musk believes that Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI and its new “capped-profit” business model, adopted to attract funding, was the catalyst for this change.

The move also revives an old debate about the ethics of AI and the responsibility of technology companies to ensure ethical conduct in AI development. Mr. Musk has expressed his concerns about AI, which he sees as a “double-edged sword”.

This could be a turning point in the evolution and alignment of AI companies with broader societal goals.