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Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
- achow 3y ago> Microsoft gained exclusive licensing to OpenAI's GPT-3 language model in 2020. Microsoft continues to assert rights to GPT-4, which it claims has not reached the level of AGI, which would block its licensing privileges. Not sure this is a common knowledge - MSFT licence vis-a-vis AGI.
- rickdeckard 3y agoIt's described here: https://openai.com/our-structure https://openai.com/our-structure Quote: Fifth, the board determines when we've attained AGI. Again, by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology. > "Musk claims Microsoft's hold on Altman and the OpenAI board will keep them from declaring GPT-4 as a AGI in order to keep the technology private and profitable." Well.....sounds plausible...
- jp_nc 3y agoIf he thinks GPT-4 is AGI, Elon should ask a team of GPT-4 bots to design, build and launch his rockets and see how it goes. If “economically valuable work” means creating terrible, wordy blog posts then yeah I guess it’s a risk.
- bart_spoon 3y agoI don’t think GPT-4 is AGI, but that seems like a foolish idea. An AGI doesn’t need to be hyperproficient at everything, or even anything. Ask a team of any non-aeronautical engineers to build a rocket and it will go poorly. Do those people not qualify as intelligent beings?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- blibble 3y ago> Ask a team of any non-aeronautical engineers to build a rocket and it will go poorly. Do those people not qualify as intelligent beings? I suspect you'd have one person on the team that would say "perhaps you'd be better choosing a team that knows what they're doing" meanwhile GPT-4 would happily accept and emit BS
- ToValueFunfetti 3y agoHave you used GPT-4? I'd criticize it in the opposite direction. It routinely defers to experts on even the simplest questions. If you ask it to tell you how to launch a satellite into orbit, it leads with: >Launching a satellite into orbit is a complex and challenging process that requires extensive knowledge in aerospace engineering, physics, and regulatory compliance. It's a task typically undertaken by governments or large corporations due to the technical and financial resources required. However, I can give you a high-level overview of the steps involved:
- spencerflem 3y agoOutperforming humans does not mean outperforming an average untrained human
- stubish 3y agoWhy does AGI infer outperforming any humans? Half the humans on the planet perform worse than the average human. Does that make them non-intelligent?
- spencerflem 3y agoThat's the definition given by Sam Altman above
- Petersipoi 3y agoYou're just highlighting the issue. Nobody can agree on the definition of AGI. The most people would agree that being able to design, build, and launch rockets is definitely _not_ the definition. The fact that M$ has such a stronghold in OpenAI means that they won't declare anything as AGI even if most people would say it is.
- Andrex 3y agoPre and post-AGI might be a line, but AGI at inception will necessarily be less capable than the same AGI tech later in its life.
- ks2048 3y agoI'm surprised such an important legal issue here is based on the definition of "AGI", seems really hard to define (I really think the concept is flawed). Does this consider that "most economically valuable work" is physical? And more importantly, with such money on the line, no one will agree on when AGI is attained.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoAltman himself said it's nebulous and hates the term.
- sokoloff 3y agoDoes anyone credibly believe that GPT-4 "outperforms humans at most economically valuable work"?
- baobabKoodaa 3y agoNo.
- nicce 3y agoJust a side node; we don’t actually even know. The glance we get to the stated GPT-4 model is highly censored and hindered so that it can be scaled to millions. What if OpenAI can use the uncencored version with the computing power of those millions devices without restrictions? Is that GPT-4 same as we get by spending $25 month?
- sidcool 3y ago[flagged]
- kramerger 3y agoHe was probably high on something when the idea that AGI competes with Nerolink came to him. You know, the same way he decided trains are evil because they competes with his cars.
- hef19898 3y agoYou sure don't want artifical intelligence on chips competing with natural intelligence you ise as your chips, do you?
- hkgirjenk 3y ago[flagged]
- ggm 3y agoContracts probably need to be defended. If he has evidence of intent in a deal, he should sue to the deal's intent being enacted. hate the man not the act.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- standfest 3y agoi think this is the logical next step of a feud which only recently re-gained momentum two weeks ago https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/musk-reignites-feud-with-sam-altman-over-openais-ditched-non-profit-promise/?sh=5be8b3553a37 https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/musk-reig...
- seydor 3y agoSomebody had to do it. It's very dangerous for what could be the world's biggest company to have such a unique and peculiar legal nature.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- seanhunter 3y agoHere's the main filing for those who are interested. There's a lot of backstory incorporated https://webapps.sftc.org/ci/CaseInfo.dll?SessionID=94896165EDA1A92084357E4627A5FA85693A53D0&URL=https%3A%2F%2Fimgquery.sftc.org%2FSha1_newApp%2Fmainpage.aspx%3FWeb_Server%3Dimgquery.sftc.org%26MINDS_Server%3Dhoj-imx-01%26Category%3DC%26DocID%3D08946566%26Timestamp%3D20240301042445%26Digest%3D20d051627cc7aa26968b02fd2a1204e52971cb2c https://webapps.sftc.org/ci/CaseInfo.dll?SessionID=94896165E...
- dang 3y ago(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560965, but we merged that thread hither)
- okhuman 3y agoAI is going to continue to have incremental progress, particularly now in hardware gains. No one can even define what AGI is or what it will look like, let alone be something that OpenAI would own? Features progress is too incremental to suddenly pop out with "AGI". Fighting about it seems a distraction.
- root_axis 3y agoThere's also no reason to believe that incremental progress in transformer models will eventually lead to "AGI".
- snapcaster 3y agoYes, but I think everyone would agree that the chance isn't 0%
- root_axis 3y agoI don't agree, I think many people would argue the chance is 0%.
- snapcaster 3y agoAre you one of those people? how can you be so confident? I think everyone should have updated their priors after how surprising the emergent behavior in GPT3+ are
- nicklecompte 3y agoPerhaps you should update your priors about "emergent behavior" in GPT3+: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.15004 https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.15004
- famouswaffles 3y agoThis is like saying that nothing special happens to water at 100 degrees because if you look at the total thermal energy, it's a smooth increase.
- aamoyg 3y agoIt's kind of rich coming from him, but he has a point. I guess this approach can still work if it's made sure that whatever successors to LLMs there are have rights, but I still get sharecropper vibes.
- Handy-Man 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoOpenAi is also being investigated by the SEC. If "Altman hadn’t been consistently candid in his communications with the board" is interpreted as being misleading then that could be interpreted as misleading investors and therefore securities fraud. https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-investors-were-misled-9d90b411 https://www.wsj.com/tech/sec-investigating-whether-openai-in...
- klysm 3y agoIsn’t everything securities fraud though
- rmbyrro 3y agoWhen the SEC wants it to be, yes.
- dartos 3y agoThe only way to truly make a ton of wealth is to break rules that others follow.
- lanstin 3y agoThis statement represents the complete disintegration of the optimism that ruled in the 90s and before when we ardently believed that networking and communication amongst people would increase understanding and improve lives by ensuring no one would be cut off from the common wisdom and knowledge of humanity. While robber baron economics certainly appeal to a lot of robber barons, the twentieth century pretty decisively shows that prosperity at the median makes society progress much faster and more thoroughly than anything else. One used to hear of noblesse oblige, the duty of those with much to help. One used to hear about the great common task of humanity, which we aspire to make a contribution to.
- dartos 3y agoWelcome to the 21st century. Get that optimism out of here. The game was rigged in the 90s as well (with the likes of enron. Many executives get a few years of minimum security prison in exchange for a small fortune), there was just less dissemination of information.
- bloopernova 3y agoHas there been a successful suit against a company for "abandoning their founding mission"? Does anyone think that this suit will succeed? Another article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/01/elon-musk-sues-open-ai-profit-power-microsoft-sam-altman https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/01/elon-musk...
- nightowl_games 3y agoMaybe the discovery process will benefit Musk and/or harm OpenAI sufficiently to consider it a "win" for Musk. Or perhaps it's just Musk wanting to make a statement. Maybe Musk doesn't expect to actually win the suit.
- pquki4 3y agoI wonder if the lawsuit will simply be dismissed.
- AlbertCory 3y agoThe standard first move by a defendant is a Motion to Dismiss. So of course they'll try that. Don't read too much into it.
- jimbokun 3y agoBut in this case, it wasn’t a company, but a nonprofit.
- staticautomatic 3y agoNonprofit is a tax status, not a corporate structure.
- codexb 3y agoIt is in this case. After Musk invested in them, they’ve incorporated separate for-profit companies to essentially profit from the IP of the non profit.
- ungreased0675 3y agoI do wonder if OpenAI is built on a house of cards. They aren’t a nonprofit, aren’t open, and stole a huge quantity of copyrighted material to get started. But, by moving fast and scaling quickly, are they at the Too Big to Fail stage already? The attempted board coup makes me think so.
- Hamuko 3y agoWhy would OpenAI be "too big to fail"? They seemed pretty close to failing just some months ago.
- tiahura 3y agoRight, and then a bunch of unclearly identified forces came in and swept it all under the rug.
- rightbyte 3y agoYe. The failed "coup" was really shady, in that it failed, even though they fired Sam Altman.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI think that is actually quite illustrative of the opposite point.
- Andrex 3y agoWhat about the CEO drama indicates OAI is "too big to fail"? They're completely orthogonal. No one came to bail OAI out of a budget crisis like the banks or auto industry. I fail to see how it's related at all.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y agoWhen people say too big to fail, normally they're referring to companies which if they fail they would bring down other important parts of society's infrastructure (think biggest banks), and so someone (the gov) will last minute change the rules around to ensure they don't fail. The openai fails, absolutely nothing happens other than its shareholder losing their paper money. So no, they're not too big to fail.
- hereme888 3y agoHas Musk at least been able to profit from the $50-100MM he put in?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- standfest 3y agoi think this is the logical next step of a feud which only recently re-gained momentum two weeks ago https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/musk-reignites-feud-with-sam-altman-over-openais-ditched-non-profit-promise/?sh=5be8b3553a37 https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/musk-reig...
- andsoitis 3y agoMany would argue, reasonably so, that OpenAI is now a de facto subsidiary of the largest company in the world by market cap, Microsoft (Apple is second and Saudi Arabian Oil is third).
- xiphias2 3y agoActually NVIDIA just took over Saudi Aramco, but they are sharing 3rd position.
- TechPlasma 3y agoI read this comment as "NVIDIA just took over Saudi Aramco" and was briefly confused in what could possibly be their reasoning for that acquisition?! Perhaps they decided to get some weird lower price on fuel for their gpus.... Anyways it was a brief but fun bit of confusion.
- Qworg 3y agoThis was a good opportunity to say "overtook" as it breaks the idea of acquisition (and sounds more like racing)
- delfinom 3y agoTo be fair, this is the time for NVIDIA to leverage their stock and buy up shit to diversify because their stock is going to correct eventually lol. So why not buy out a oil producer ahaha.
- wkat4242 3y agoI did too. It's confusing wording. Overtook would be much clearer as someone else mentioned.
- inputError 3y ago[dead]
- jedberg 3y agoThe value of Saudi Aramco can't really be trusted. It's listed on their own stock market which the company controls. It has no reporting requirements, and the float is a single digit percent of the company. It would be the same as me creating my own market, issuing 10,000,000,000 shares, and then convincing 1000 people to buy a share at $100 and then claiming my company is worth $1T.
- thereisnoself 3y agoAllowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important
- carlosjobim 3y agoI think the public already considers non-profit = scam.
- mrWiz 3y agoI don't think the public is quite that cynical, broadly. Certainly most people consider some non-profits to be scams, and some (few, I'd reckon) consider most to be scams. But I think most people have a positive association with non-profits as a whole.
- wkat4242 3y agoAbsolutely. Some nonprofits are scams but those are just the ones that have armies of collectors on the streets showing pictures of starving kids and asking for your bank details. But they stay obscure and out of the limelight (eg advertising) because being obscure is what makes them from being taken down. I think the big NGOs are no longer effective because they are run as the same corporations they fight and are influenced by the same perverse incentives. Like eg Greenpeace. But in general I think non profits are great and a lot more honorable than for profit orgs. I donate to many.
- abfan1127 3y agoif you're not profitable, there should be no tax advantage, right?
- mistrial9 3y agono that is not the test for nonprofit status
- 3y ago
- breadwinner 3y agoIn what capacity is Musk suing OpenAI? Musk may have co-founded the company, but then he left (to avoid any potential future conflict of interest with his role as CEO of Tesla, as Tesla was increasingly becoming an AI-intensive company). Is he a shareholder, if not what gives him any say in the future of the company?
- username332211 3y agoHe's a donor to the OpenAi non-profit organization.
- breadwinner 3y agoA donor usually is only able to say how his donation will be used. For example, if you donate to Harvard University, you can say the money will be earmarked for scholarships, but you don't get a say on how the university is managed. You can at best say you will no longer donate based on how the university is managed.
- whythre 3y agoYou can sue for basically any reason in the US. If Musk is able to prove they are mishandling the money, which I think is debatable, then the case can proceed. Just because you donate money doesn’t mean the charity or nonprofit (or whatever OpenAi is), can do as they like. They may still be committing fraud if they are not using the money in the way that they claim.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- solardev 3y agoDon't you have to have some sort of standing in the lawsuit? If you don't directly suffer harm, I thought you'd have to convince the government to prosecute them instead? (Not a lawyer, obviously.)
- blackoil 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- neom 3y agoimo the most interesting page is page 40 if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39562778
- baking 3y agoI assume you mean Exhibit 2, the email from Sam to Elon.
- alickz 3y agoFrom: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We have a nice extra building in Mountain View they can have. 3. I think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I'd propose you,[blank] and me. The technology would be owned by the foundation and used "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide. The researchers would have significant financial upside but ti would be uncorrelated to what they build, which should eliminate some of the conflict (we'll pay them a competitive salary and give them YC equity for the upside). We'd have an ongoing conversation about what work should be open-sourced and what shouldn't. At some point we'd get someone to run the team, but he/she probably shouldn't be on the governance board. 4. Will you be involved somehow in addition to just governance? Ithink that would be really helpful for getting work pointed in the right direction getting the best people to be part of it. Ideally you'd come by and talk to them about progress once a month or whatever. We generically call people involved in some limited way ni YC "part-time partners" (we do that with Peter Thiei for exampie, though at this point he's very involved) but we could call ti whatever you want. Even fi you can't really spend time on ti but can be publicly supportive, that would still probably be really helpful for recruiting. 5. I think the right plan with the regulation letter is to wait for this to get going and then! can just release ti with a message like "now that we are doing this, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of constraints the world needs for safefy." Im' happy to leave you of as a signatory. Ialso suspect that after it's out more peopie will be willing to get behind it. Sam
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Solvency 3y agoAt worst this just adds sandbags to Altman's personal conquest for money/power, which I'm cool with. At best it puts a bigger spotlight on the future perils of this company's tech in the wrong hands.
- yodsanklai 3y agoCan this complaint lead to anything?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- photochemsyn 3y agoThis is good news. OpenAI's recent decision to dive into the secretive military contracting world makes a mockery of all its PR about alignment and safety. Using AI to develop targeted assassination lists based on ML algorithms (as was and is being done in Gaza) is obviously 'unsafe and unethical' use of the technology: https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20231212-understanding-how-israel-uses-gospel-ai-system-in-gaza-bombings https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20231212-un...
- dash2 3y agoNote that the France24 story on Gaza is about an unrelated technology, there's no claim that OpenAI was involved.
- photochemsyn 3y agoIf you have any links detailing the internal structure of the Israeli 'Gospel' AI system or information about how it was trained, that would be interesting reading. There doesn't seem to be much available on who built it for them, other than it was first used in 2021: > "Israel has also been at the forefront of AI used in war—although the technology has also been blamed by some for contributing to the rising death toll in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, Israel used Hasbora (“The Gospel”), an AI program to identify targets, in Gaza for the first time. But there is a growing sense that the country is now using AI technology to excuse the killing of a large number of noncombatants while in pursuit of even low-ranking Hamas operatives." https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/19/israels-military-technology-complex-is-one-of-a-kind/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/19/israels-military-techno...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mempko 3y agoThe cynic in me believes this is motivated by not Musk's love for the "mission", but by xAI, his attempt to build OpenAI's competitor. I'm guessing this is just a way to weaken a competitor.
- tailspin2019 3y agoYou're probably right, but either way it will be interesting to see this tested in court. I think it's good to have some extra scrutiny over how OpenAI is operating regardless of the underlying motivations that led to the action!
- baobabKoodaa 3y agoAhh, selfish motivations leading to common good as an unintended consequence. Capitalism at work.
- hobofan 3y agoYeah, it's his second/third try. OpenAI was already his way to "commoditize your complement" so that Tesla's AI division could catch up to DeepMind etc.. Now that this accidentally created something even more powerful (and Tesla's autopilot plans don't seem to be panning out), he's trying to stifle the competition so that xAI can catch up. SPOILER: They won't.
- ilaksh 3y agoI assume if there is a jury trial then actually the fact that Musk has his own for-profit AI company now could play a huge part. Even if for some reason they tell the jury to "disregard that fact" or something. I feel like we now have a reasonable expectation that his AI effort becomes open source. Not that I actually expect it, but seems reasonable in this context.
- klabb3 3y agoI agree, but if the bar for cynicism is “not taking a billionaire at their word”, then we’re at peak gullibility. Especially if said actor has a track record of deception for economic, social or political gain. This requires less cynicism than seeing through that Putin invaded to denazify Ukraine, or that your corporate employer rewarded you with pizza because they care about you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- maxglute 3y ago[flagged]
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- BitWiseVibe 3y agoWouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?
- tw600040 3y agothat AGI, instead of benefitting the whole world, in which Musk is a part of, will end up only benefitting Microsoft, which he isn't a part of?
- AlbertCory 3y agoI don't think that qualifies as "standing", but IANAL.
- jlmorton 3y agoI think the missing info here is that Musk gave the non-profit the initial $100 million dollars, which they used to develop the technology purportedly for the benefit of the public, and then turned around and added a for-profit subsidiary where all the work is happening.
- AlbertCory 3y agoHe has plenty of standing, but the "supposed to benefit all mankind" argument isn't it. If that were enough, everyone not holding stock in MSFT would have standing, and they don't.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoHe was also a founding donor, so there is that. If I have a non-profit legally chartered save puppies, you give me a million dollars, then I buy myself cars and houses, I would expect you have some standing.
- AlbertCory 3y agoNote that I didn't say he lacks standing. Just that your argument wasn't it.
- r721 3y agoWhat happened with the ranking? Were there people who flagged all the stories, even the first (obviously newsworthy) one?
- dang 3y agoThe 30 or so submissions of this story all set off a bunch of software penalties that try to prune the most repetitive and sensational stories off the front page. Otherwise there would be a lot more repetition and sensationalism on the fp, which is the opposite of what HN is for (see explanations via links below if curious). The downside is that we have to manually override the penalties in the case of a genuinely important story, which this obviously is. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often, plus the system is self-correcting: if a story is really important, people will bring it to our attention (thanks, tkgally!) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- SilasX 3y agoSometimes I wish you'd prune the users (at least from submission privileges) who can't be bothered to search first, which is how you get these n-fold submissions.
- mise_en_place 3y agoThis is an admirable lawsuit, however, Musk is no longer on the board. That means he has as much say in the direction of the company as a random crackhead living on the BART train. The article states he left the board in 2018.
- hoistbypetard 3y ago> he has as much say in the direction of the company as a random crackhead living on the BART train He donated 8 figures to the nonprofit. So he deserves as much say in the direction as a random crackhead living on the BART train who donated $44M to the nonprofit.
- mise_en_place 3y agoIt doesn't work like that. You can donate millions or invest millions in a company as the founder or lead investor. As soon as you leave the company as a board member, and are not a shareholder, your official relationship with the company is terminated.
- hoistbypetard 3y agoWhen you donate to a nonprofit, they do have to use your donation in a way consistent with the conditions under which you gave it. Donors who believe they haven't can (and have) seek redress in court. Nonprofits are different that way.
- Doctor_Fegg 3y ago[flagged]
- nuz 3y ago> I'd hate to bet against elon winning - @sama https://twitter.com/sama/status/618265660477452288 https://twitter.com/sama/status/618265660477452288
- paxys 3y agoBecause of Twitter's amazing new UI I have no idea what Sam is replying to and what the context is, so the link by itself is meaningless.
- whimsicalism 3y agono it is because the op is private
- nuz 3y agoNew? Looks the same as it has been for years. Also sam is clearly speaking in general terms.
- nickthegreek 3y agoThe link shows only the following: >@danielpsegundo that would be of interest though I'd hate to bet against elon winning We cannot see what Dan asked to understand what Sam is responding to.
- timeon 3y ago> same as it has been for years It is not the same if you are not logged-in. It will not load context. Or not load at all. Seems like Twitter is in some kind of saving mode for some reason.
- baobabKoodaa 3y ago2015
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dash2 3y agoA truly altruistic general intelligence would be deeply concerned for the future of humanity in the face of a devastating existential threat. Tragically I, a mere Neanderthal with a primitive lizard brain, can only settle back and reach for the biggest ever bowl of popcorn.
- v3ss0n 3y ago[flagged]
- modeless 3y agoTL;DR for those wondering, as I was, why Musk would have any kind of plausible claim against OpenAI, the main claim is breach of contract on the "Founding Documents" of OpenAI, Inc. (the original nonprofit funded by Musk). > Plaintiff contributed tens of millions of dollars, provided integral advice on research directions, and played a key role in recruiting world-class talent to OpenAI, Inc. in exchange and as consideration for the Founding Agreement, namely, that: OpenAI, Inc. (a) would be a non-profit developing AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for a for-profit company seeking to maximize shareholder profits; and (b) would be open-source, balancing only countervailing safety considerations, and would not keep its technology closed and secret for proprietary commercial reasons. This Founding Agreement is memorialized in, among other places, OpenAI, Inc.’s founding Articles of Incorporation and in numerous written communications between Plaintiff and Defendants over a multi-year period [...] > Defendants have breached the Founding Agreement in multiple separate and independent ways, including at least by: a. Licensing GPT-4, which Microsoft’s own scientists have written can “reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system,” exclusively to Microsoft, despite agreeing that OpenAI would develop AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for the private commercial gain of a for-profit company seeking to maximize shareholder profits, much less the largest corporation in the world. b. Failing to disclose to the public, among other things, details on GPT-4’s architecture, hardware, training method, and training computation, and further by erecting a “paywall” between the public and GPT-4, requiring per-token payment for usage, in order to advance Defendants and Microsoft’s own private commercial interests, despite agreeing that OpenAI’s technology would be open-source, balancing only countervailing safety considerations. c. [...] And what is he suing for? > An order requiring that Defendants continue to follow OpenAI’s longstanding practice of making AI research and technology developed at OpenAI available to the public, and > An order prohibiting Defendants from utilizing OpenAI, Inc. or its assets for the financial benefit of the individual Defendants, Microsoft, or any other particular person or entity; > For a judicial determination that GPT-4 constitutes Artificial General Intelligence and is thereby outside the scope of OpenAI’s license to Microsoft; And some money, of course. And he requests a jury trial.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- epistasis 3y agoThe defendant list is a bit bewildering. How usual is a corporate structure like this? Which, if any of these, is the nonprofit? OPENAI, INC., a corporation, OPENAI, L.P., a limited partnership, OPENAI, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI GP, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI OPCO, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI GLOBAL, LLC, a limited liability company, OAI CORPORATION, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI HOLDINGS, LLC, a limited liability company,
- zitterbewegung 3y agoThe organization consists of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. (From Wikipedia)
- debacle 3y agoA non-profit can have a for-profit subsidiary?
- stbenjam 3y agoYes
- deaddodo 3y agoYes.
- manquer 3y agoMozilla has been doing that for 20 years ?
- jraph 3y agoThis would be the case of Mozilla (The Mozilla Foundation owns the Mozilla Corporation)
- yanokwa 3y agoYup! Mozilla uses this very structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
- emadm 3y agowhere is Ilya
- kbos87 3y agoUnsurprising turn of events. Musk can't stand not being at the top of the food chain, and it's been widely reported on that he's felt "left out" as AI has taken off while he has been consumed by the disaster he created for himself over at X - https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ai-boom-openai-walter-isaacson-biography-2023-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ai-boom-openai-wal... I can imagine Musk losing sleep knowing that a smart, young, gay founder who refuses to show him deference is out in the world doing something so consequential that doesn't involve him.
- kbos87 3y agoGenuinely curious why I'm getting downvoted - similar comments don't appear to have met the same fate, and I'm by no means defending Altman or OpenAI. If it's because I mentioned that Altman is gay - and I can't find another reason - I think that's relevant in context of Musk's recent hard shift rightward and his consistently aggressive, unprovoked behavior toward LGBTQ people. For some reason the topic looms large in his mind.
- vik0 3y agoI think you're reading too much into it lol I think a more likely interpretation is that a lot of people here are Musk fans, and don't like it when he gets criticized, thus downvoting your comment I'm neither an ultra fanboy nor someone who despises him
- mycologos 3y agoIt seems like he's talked a lot about the T in LGBTQ, not so much the G? Evidence that he would be especially incensed at getting beat by a gay guy seems thin on the ground unless we insist on treating LGBTQ as a bloc. (I don't exactly keep up with Musk's doings, though.)
- kbos87 3y agoLet’s see, he insinuated that a former gay employee was a predator… https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/elon-musk-smears-former-twitter-executive-yoel-roth.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/elon-musk-smears-for... One of several similar specifically anti-gay run-ins if you poke around a bit
- paxys 3y agoWhile I have no doubt everything in the complaint is correct, it's hard to see it as Elon being genuinely concerned about open and safe AI vs just having FOMO that he isn't part of it anymore and doesn't get to call the shots. For example his own AI startup is exactly as closed off and unregulated as OpenAI. Why is that not equally concerning?
- karaterobot 3y agoI don't want to be in the position of defending Elon Musk, but in this case his complaint seems to be that OpenAI claims one thing and does another. If X.ai started out telling everyone it's for-profit and closed off, then it's not hypocritical at all for it to be that. It's something else, sure.
- krisboyz781 3y agoBut Musk claims X is the free speech town square but it isn't
- ReptileMan 3y agoX is definitely more free and allows more types of discourse than a year ago.
- vajdagabor 3y agoUncontrolled free speech benefits the more powerful, manipulative forces the most. Apparently a huge portion of people's minds can be bent with disinformation in order to create supporters, voters, haters, etc. Probably this is the biggest threat to humanity currently, and this is what Elon Musk's X platform (and himself) supports. Free speech is very important and powerful, but truth (the real truth) is what matters the most. Free speech of lies and conspiracies is a very dangerous thing until most people gets good enough in critical thinking.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- slim 3y agoElon Musk will want to settle this in an MMA cage again
- perihelions 3y agoMost important question: why did he file this lawsuit? What does he intend to gain out of it? Is it a first step towards acquiring/merging OpenAI with one of his companies? He's offered it to buy once before, in 2018 [0]. (He's also tried to buy DeepMind—page 10 the OP filing). [0] https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk-failed-takeover-report-closed-open-source https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk... ("Elon Musk reportedly tried and failed to take over OpenAI in 2018")
- debacle 3y agoThe "source" for The Verge article is a sourceless hit piece. There's no actual source claiming he tried to take over OpenAI in 2018 anywhere, besides "people familiar with the matter."
- jmyeet 3y agoThis lawsuit makes me wonder how much Elon Musk had to do with Sam Altman's firing as CEO. The complaint specifically wants OpenAI to focus on its (allegedly promised) nonprofit activities, not the for-profit company. If Elon had been involved--which the lawsuit seems to imply--I imagine he had to have something to do with Altman's ouster.
- iExploder 3y ago[flagged]
- redbell 3y agoMaintaining the initial commitment becomes exceptionally challenging after attaining unforeseen success, a situation akin to a politician struggling to uphold pre-election promises once in office. EXACTLY, a year ago, an alarm echoed with urgency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34979981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34979981
- whimsicalism 3y agoTruly the only reason they failed at keeping their original mission is when they stopped paying employees in cash.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- natch 3y agoSo, does this mean he’s setting up a third run-in with that same Delaware judge?
- Tomte 3y ago> GPT-4 is an AGI algorithm That claim is audacious.
- jeron 3y agoWould be insane if the court case ended up hinging on whether AGI had been achieved internally or not
- Tomte 3y agoIt won‘t, that‘s pretty much a throwaway half-sentence, but it stood out to me. You throw a lot of things at the judge and see what sticks.
- iExploder 3y agoCould lead to juicy depositions and be subject to discovery. I wonder if Ilya makes an appearance.
- jdale27 3y agoOn p. 34 they specifically ask "For a judicial determination that GPT-4 constitutes Artificial General Intelligence and is thereby outside the scope of OpenAI’s license to Microsoft".
- Bjorkbat 3y agoI mean, I definitely disagree with the statement that GPT-4 is an AGI, but OpenAI themselves define an AGI in their charter as an AI that is better than the median human at most economically valuable work. Even when taking that into consideration I don't consider GPT-4 to be an AGI, but you can see how someone might make attempt to make a convincing argument. Personally though, I think this definition of AGI sets the bar too high. Let's say, hypothetically, GPT-5 comes out, and it exceeds everyone's expectations. It's practically flawless as a lawyer. It can diagnose medical issues and provide medical advice far better than any doctor can. It's coding skills are on par with that of the mythical 10x engineer. And, obviously, it can perform clerical and customer support tasks better than anyone else. As intelligent as it sounds, you could make the argument that according to OpenAI's charter it isn't actually an AGI until it takes an embodied form, since most US jobs are actually physical in nature. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 45% of jobs required medium strength back when the survey was taken in 2017 (https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/physically-strenuous-jobs-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/physically-strenuous-jobs-...) Hypothetically speaking, you could argue that we might wind up making superintelligence before we get to AGI simply because we haven't developed an intelligence capable of being inserted into a robot body and working in a warehouse with little in the way of human supervision. That's only if you take OpenAI's charter literally. Worth noting that Sam Altman himself hasn't actually used the same definition of AGI though. He just argues that an AGI is one that's simply smarter than most humans. In which case, the plaintiffs could simply point to GPT-4's score on the LSAT and various other tests and benchmarks, and the defendants would have to awkwardly explain to a judge that, contrary to the hype, GPT-4 doesn't really "think" at all. It's just performing next-token prediction based on its training data. Also, look at all the ridiculous ways in which it hallucinates. Personally, I think it would be hilarious if it came down to that. Who knows, maybe Elon is actually playing some kind of 5D chess and is burning all this money just to troll OpenAI into admitting in a courtroom that GPT-4 actually isn't smart at all.
- noncoml 3y agoNow we know who was behind all the past OpenAI drama. Mask Off (pun unindented)
- syngrog66 3y agograbs popcorn
- iExploder 3y agoIf I were you I would grab a GEP gun
- sensanaty 3y agoI don't even particularly like Musk, but I definitely despise M$ and their comic-book tier villanous shenanigans even more. Here's to hoping M$ gets fucked in this.
- swozey 3y agoThe mental gymnastics that some tech bro has to go through to like Musk over Microsoft to the point that they still use the 2001 meme of "M$FT" is hilarious. I know just about everything I could ever need to know about both companies and I have tons, tons of friends who absolutely love and have been at "M$FT" for 5-20 years. I don't know a single person who likes working at Tesla or SpaceX and I used to live in Austin. I'm also a literal linux kernel contributor so I don't have any bone in the game for Windows. Musk is literally spitting right-wing nazi, anti-trans trash all over twitter and using his new news medium as a right wing mind meld tool while unbanning known anti-semites and racists like Kanye and Trump. Cool guy. I guess you might not care about that when you're a middle-class straight white tech bro on hackernews and might think M$FT is the big bad guy because Bill Gates locked you into Internet Explorer and adware 15 years ago.
- sensanaty 3y agoWow the people employed by the evil gigacorporation like working for the entity shoveling mountains of money at them, what a completely unexpected stance for them to have. M$ is no different today than they were in the days of their EEE strategy, they've just fooled the techbros, as you put it, into believing they're still not the scum of the earth anymore.
- swozey 3y agoMicrosoft is by far the lowest paying FAANG there is right next to Amazon. You make $150k+ less working at MS than Google, Meta, Apple, Nvidia etc. Nobody reading HN who works at Microsoft is making killer money.
- shutupnerd0000 3y agoGlad you're not a figurative linux kernel contributor
- siliconc0w 3y agoThere is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.
- emodendroket 3y agoThey didn't "turn it into" a for-profit though, they created a separate for-profit arm. This one is unusually successful but that's not an unusual thing for even "regular" charities to do in order to engage in some activities that they wouldn't normally be able to.
- justinzollars 3y agoAnd transferred everything they did to that arm. I'm all for tax avoidance, but the rules should apply to everyone equally. Small ma and pa businesses don't have the money to hire armies of lawyers for these legal machinations
- emodendroket 3y agoI guess "mom-and-pop businesses" are probably not started as charities in the first place in most cases so I don't really get what you are trying to say.
- cj 3y agoHe’s making a (valid) point having to do with tax avoidance. Want to open a bakery in your small town? Start it as a 501(3)(c) and promise it’s a charitable endeavor for the local community. Then invest your $500k into the bakery maybe even from your local community (it’s a tax deductible donation!) to get the bakery up and running. Then once it’s turning a profit, ditch the original 501(3)c and replace it with a LLC, S-Corp or C-corp and start paying taxes. (And hope you don’t get sued or audited) His point is mom and pop bakeries aren’t typically sophisticated enough to pull of schemes like this, even if it would save tens of thousands on taxes.
- emodendroket 3y agoIt seems like the lawsuit revolves around a claim that GPT-4 is "AGI." Seems kind of dubious but, of course, when these questions get to courts who knows what will happen.
- iExploder 3y agoCould it lead to probing and discovery?...
- emodendroket 3y agoNot sure what you mean to imply might happen.
- iExploder 3y agoMusk claims the deal between OpenAI and MS is - MS gets access only to OpenAI pre-AGI tech. And he claims MS influences OpenAI board to not classify their AGI tech as AGI. Based on that it stands to reason Musk would make a case of determining whether openai achieved AGI internally via gpt4 or q* through discovery. Maybe he can get depositions from ousted openai members to support this? I'm not a lawyer, just trying to follow the breadcrumbs..
- dragonwriter 3y agoYes, unless it is dismissed at a very early stage, there will be discovery.
- kordlessagain 3y agoDiscovery is the play here for both GPT4 and Q. It's a win/win for Elon Musk as he will either get money or get the knowledge how it's done/going to be done. I hold an opinion that GPT4 is simply an ensemble of GPT-3's with a bunch of filtering, deployment (for calculating things), and feedback mechanisms with a shitty UI tacked onto it. Q is probably that ensemble plugged into Sora somehow, to help tweak the wisdom understanding of a certain class of problems. That's why they need the GPUs so badly. And, we just saw the paper on quantization of models come out, so it's good timing to bring this claim to bear. Elon Musk would do well to consider taking Tesla's ability to build hardware and apply it to building ASICs, because without the hardware, no amount of software discovery will net you AGI.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- photochemsyn 3y agoIn the rush to monetize their assets, OpenAI and Microsoft are turning to the government contracting spigot: https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/ https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-cha... Interestingly, this is also how IBM survived the Great Depression, it got a lucrative contract to manage Social Security payments. However, AI and AGI are considerably more dangerous and secretive military uses of the technology should be a giant red flag for anyone who is paying attention to the issue. I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to launch this lawsuit was motivated in part by this move by Microsoft/OpenAI.
- Eji1700 3y agoWell this will be an interesting circus for sure. Musk isn’t exactly batting 1000 vs other large tech companies in lawsuits but openAI sure as hell has done some sketchy bs
- temptemptemp111 3y ago[dead]
- sema4hacker 3y agoA NY Times article says "Though Mr. Musk has repeatedly criticized OpenAI for becoming a for-profit company, he hatched a plan in 2017 to wrest control of the A.I. lab from Mr. Altman and its other founders and transform into a commercial operation that would work alongside his other companies, including the electric carmaker Tesla, and make use of their increasingly powerful supercomputers, people familiar with his plan have said. When his attempt to take control failed, he left the OpenAI board, the people said." That would let OpenAI lawyers keep this suit tied up for a very long time.
- bevekspldnw 3y ago[flagged]
- moralestapia 3y agoCould he be the one behind the recent coup at OpenAI, as well?
- kmeisthax 3y agoNo. Elon Musk was not involved with the firing of Sam Altman as far as I'm aware. The real story behind that is... complicated. First, Sam Altman allegedly does stuff that looks to be setting up a coup against the board, so the board fires Sam, but they don't provide proper context[0] and confuse everyone. So Sam gets Microsoft and a bunch of OpenAI employees to revolt and pressure the board to bring him back. He then fires the board and instates a new one, basically the original coup plan but now very much open and in the public eye. [0] To be clear, most corporate communications try to say as little as possible about internal office politics. That can easily lead into defamation lawsuits.
- baruz 3y agoMy impression from all the stuff I’ve looked at was that one board member wrote a paper praising Anthropic’s approach with implied (or not so implied?) criticism of OpenAI’s approach. This got Altman furious. So he was going to each board member and subtly (or not so subtly?) presenting a case for her removal, using whatever reasoning, sometimes contradictory, he could tack on, maybe trying to intimidate some into compliance. This approach may have rubbed them the wrong way? Those board members communicated with each other and noted the contradictions, so they summarily fired him without consulting lawyers and without gathering a workable case file to present to stakeholders and the public. Without Altman’s relationships with the largest funders, employees got nervous and wanted information the board was rather embarrassed not to have, exacerbating the anxiety in the workforce. I’m sure that whatever the charter says about investments as donations, Microsoft had the lawyers to ensure they did not have to sink hundreds of millions into a sinking ship. No Musk required, the individuals at OpenAI did it to themselves.
- BoppreH 3y agoI find it interesting that there's no mention of private information after ~2020. No whistleblowers, private demos, chats with Altman, or anything not found in mainstream news. Is that required for filing a case, or is Musk operating from the same information as all of us?
- ricardobeat 3y agoI think he had left the organization by 2019?
- owenpalmer 3y agoI uploaded the pdf into GPT4, and this is the output: "Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, alleging breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition under California Business and Professional Code, and accounting. Musk claims that OpenAI deviated from its founding principles, which emphasized developing artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of humanity, open-sourcing their technology, and not pursuing profit maximization. The suit highlights concerns over OpenAI's shift towards proprietary practices, particularly with the development and handling of GPT-4, and alleges that these actions contradict the organization's original mission and agreements."
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago[flagged]
- nojvek 3y agoThis is going to be an interesting trial. Elon has a good case that OpenAI has long diverged from his founding principles. Sam and his friends can side with Microsoft to build a ClosedAI system like Google/Deepmind and Apple. There is a place for open research. StabilityAI and Mistral seem to be carrying that torch. I don’t think SamA is the right leader for OpenAI.
- iExploder 3y agoGoogle "Microsoft strikes deal with Mistral in push beyond OpenAI" bro...
- elvennn 3y agoRegarding Mistral recent announcements, I'm not so sure anymore.
- pelorat 3y agoThe large models can't be run by consumers, and why would a for profit company release a large model that can then be picked up by other startups?
- irusensei 3y agoWhere can I download the 70b mistral medium then? Other than the miqu leak.
- littlestymaar 3y agoThey could re-use the Llama license but with a lower threshold (say 50000 instead of 500M) and call it a day, but they decided not to.
- JamisonM 3y agoWhy do you think he has a good case? To me OpenAI's response is simply, "It is our honestly held belief that given our available resources private partnership was the only viable way to ensure that we are in control of the most advanced AGI when it is developed. And it is our honest belief opening up what we are developing without a lot of log term due diligence would not be in the best interests of humanity and the best interests of humanity is the metric by which we decide how quickly to open source our progress." To me you can't win a lawsuit like this that is essentially about a small difference in opinions about strategy, but I am not a lawyer.
- jcranmer 3y agoIANAL, but here's my takeaways from reading the complaint: * There is heavy emphasis on the "Founding Agreement" as the underlying contract. (This appears to be Exhibit 2, which is an email to which Musk replied "Agree on all"). Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm ignorant on the interpretation of a lot of contract law, and there may be finer points in case history that I'm missing, but... where's the consideration? The "Founding Agreement" in general reads to me not as contract but preliminary discussions before the actual contract is signed. * The actual certificate of incorporation seems more relevant. Also, it's a Delaware corporation, which makes me wonder if Delaware wouldn't be a more appropriate jurisdiction for the dispute than California. Granted, I know Musk now hates Delaware because it's ruled against him, but that's not a reason you get to file suit in the wrong venue! * I noticed that Musk's citation of the certificate of incorporation has an ellipsis on one of the articles in contention. The elided text is "In furtherance of its purposes, the corporation shall engage in any lawful act of activity for which nonprofit corporations may be organized under the General Corporation Law of Delaware." ... Again, I don't know enough to know the full ramifications of this statement in jurisprudence, but... that seems like a mighty big elastic clause that kind of defeats his case. * Musk admits to having continued to contribute to OpenAI after he expressed displeasure at some of its activities (paragraph 68). That substantially weakens his case on damages. * Much hay made of GPT being AGI and AGI being excluded from licenses. No citation of the license in question seems weak. Also, he pleads 'However, OpenAI’s Board “determines when we’ve attained AGI.”' * Paragraph 98 asserts that OpenAI fired Altman in part due to its breakthrough in realizing AGI. But the conclusion I've seen is that Altman was fired for basically lying to the board. * Paragraph 105: However, the OpenAI, Inc. Board has never had a fiduciary duty to investors. ... interesting theory, I'm not sure it's true. (Can some lawyers chime in here?) * There are essentially two underlying causes of action. The first (comprising the first two causes) is that the Founding Agreement is a binding contract between Altman and Musk that OpenAI breached. I'm skeptical that the Founding Agreement actually constitutes a contract, much less one that OpenAI is a party to. The second (comprising the last three causes) is that, as a donor, Musk is entitled to see that his money is used only in certain ways by OpenAI, and OpenAI failed to use that money appropriately. There's no pleading that I can see that Musk specifically attached any strings to his donations, which makes this claim weak, especially given the promissory estoppel implied by paragraph 68. * The prayers for relief include judicial determination that OpenAI attained AGI. Not sure that is something the court can do, especially given the causes of action presented. Overall, I don't think this case is all that strong.
- coliveira 3y agoTypical grift from E. Musk. I'm pretty sure when he left Open-AI he had to sign something saying that he didn't have rights to technologies developed after that point. He's just trying to sue back his way into the company.
- benopal64 3y ago[dead]
- yieldcrv 3y agoSaw the headlines, but emotions aside is there any merit to the case thats being argued in the court dockets? I’m in the non-profit space and there are certainly things about it that are ripe to change by Congress if people knew about them, and an insider also has the ability to snitch to the IRS if they think a tax exemption is being used improperly The IRS has a bounty program for tax events over like $10m
- lenerdenator 3y agoI'm not a lawyer, is it novel that someone's suing a corporate officer for breach of fiduciary duty as a result of trying to make the most money possible for shareholders? Obviously that's strange for a non-profit, but when you hear of a breach of fiduciary duty suit it's usually because someone didn't do something to make more money, not less. It almost feels more like an accusation of fraud than breach of duty.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoThis is not a for-profit company. The shareholders don't get any of the money that OpenAI makes by law, so its purpose is not to make a profit.
- lenerdenator 3y agoSo Musk's arguing that they had duty to protect his investment in OpenAI from being used for profiteering, and they didn't do that. How's that going to float in an industry whose philosophy is that profit is a very useful abstraction for social benefit?
- pclmulqdq 3y agoThat philosophy doesn't really exist in legal terms when you have a for-profit corporation. There are B-corporations (eg Anthropic) which try to balance those goals, but I'm not sure there's a ton of existing law around that.
- w10-1 3y agoMusk is posturing as a savior. For a promise to be enforceable in contract, it has to be definitive. There's nothing definitive here. For a representation to be fraudulent, it has to be false or misleading and relied upon as material. Courts don't treat a later change of heart as making earlier statement false, and since Altman arguably knew less than Musk at the time, it's unlikely to be material. More generally, investors lose all the time, and early minority investors know they can be re-structured out. These investments are effectively not enforced by law but by reputation: if you screw an investor, you'll lose access to other investors (unless your investor tribe is, well, tribal). The detail and delay that evolved in law for the sake of truth and legitimacy is now being deployed for the sake of capturing attention and establishing reputation. Musk's investment in twitter has been a catastrophe from an investment and business standpoint, but has amplified his icon status with king-maker aspects through control of attention in our attention-based economy and politics. If he can lead the charge against AI, he can capture a new fear and resentment franchise that will last for generations. Hence: posturing. We burrowing mammals can hope the dinosaurs fighting might make life quieter for us, but that's just hope.
- password54321 3y ago>If he can lead the charge against AI This doesn't make any sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAI_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAI_(company)
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago[flagged]
- holonsphere 3y agoMost of you realize private equity firms ran your ”non-profit" colleges right? Unethical experiments involving collective intelligence have been fought over for years at CMU/MIT et all. How can yall read this and really not just wonder.
- Beijinger 3y agoHi Holonsphere, would you be so kind to drop me an Email? I would like to ask you something about your previous projects (the dating site). holon.10.yr888@spamgourmet.com
- kepano 3y agoNow that Google, Meta, Mistral, etc, all have great open source models, it seems rather untenable for OpenAI to 1. keep "open" in the name 2. stay closed source 3. pretend to be a non-profit at least one of those things must go, right?
- micromacrofoot 3y agoI don't think there are any laws about how you name your company right? they could just say "open" as in "open for everyone to use" and that would end that discussion
- kepano 3y agoI didn't mean untenable legally, but from an public/internal perception.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- skrbjc 3y agoMaybe this is an elaborate ploy to make OpenAI truly private and clean up their corporate structure while making it seem like the fault of an evil billionaire/court system.
- troupe 3y agoIf OpenAI became a non-profit with this in its charter: “resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable. The corporation is not organized for the private gain of any person" I don't think it is going to be hard to show that they are doing something very different than what they said they were going to do.
- cpill 3y agoyeah, the lawyers will have the whole case on those two words: "where applicable"
- ant6n 3y agoRather „not organized for the private gain of any person“
- notnaut 3y agoCorporations aren’t people, my friend
- djbusby 3y agoThe persons are the core team of OpenAI maybe?
- theendisney4 3y agoUsually the person who paid for everything is entitled to some of the profit. Telling him it is a donation to a non profit seems legally hilarious?
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoMusk didn't pay for everything. He took his money and left, upset that OpenAI wouldn't let him run it. It was precisely because Musk stopped funding them that OpenAI were forced to seek outside investors and change their corporate structure to be able to offer them a return on the investment.
- ph_dre 3y agoI uploaded the PDF to ChatGPT4 with the original name and got "Unable to upload musk-v-altman-openai-complaint-sf.pdf" multiple times I changed it to "defnotalawsuit.pdf" and it worked...
- russdill 3y agoI had zero problems, worked on the first try without any re-naming.
- ph_dre 3y agoUpdate: it is working for me now under the original name. I had tried 4 times before (refreshing/new chat) and only was getting the error on the original file name.
- warunsl 3y agoSorry, I am a n00b in this regard. But is the intention to get ChatGPT to summarize the pdf for you?
- ph_dre 3y agoYup - to summarize and to help translate legalese. Was quite helpful and was able to ask it for precedents of other non-profits -> for-profits. Seems like Mozilla and Blue Cross Blue Shield are interesting cases to understand better where this happened.
- sohex 3y agoThe file uploading functionality of ChatGPT is just awful, it has nothing to do with the file name. You can test it yourself with any arbitrary file, the number of failures to upload you experience will be significantly higher than you would experience with, I'd hazard to guess, any other upload function around the internet. Now whether that's something with their processing pipeline or just their servers being perpetually overwhelmed I have no idea, but it's almost certainly a case of ineptitude, not malice.
- Timber-6539 3y agoAt best a court forces OpenAI to be more transparent and clear about its for-profit motives (they couldn't hide behind the open, for-the-good-of-mankind mask forever anyways). Maybe even rebrand to stop misusing the terms 'open' and 'non-profit'. At worst, court rules out the case and we see an OpenAI IPO and another evil company (very much like Google is born) founded on cutting every corner possible to solicit funds as a for-profit non-profit ?? all while stealing intellectual property and profiting their shareholders.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- elwell 3y agoAGI is a threat to humanity; so is existing tech: e.g., spending all day staring at various screens (phone, laptop, tv). You can also take the opposite view that AGI will save or expand humanity. It depends on how you define 'humanity'. Page's definition is understandably concerning to Elon, and probably most humans.
- ayakang31415 3y agoFinally something is being done about this that I have always wondered about: non-profit that operates like for-profit business
- geniium 3y agoTL;DR The document outlines a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against Samuel Altman, Gregory Brockman, and various OpenAI entities. The complaint includes allegations of breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, and demands for an accounting and a jury trial. Musk accuses Altman and others of deviating from OpenAI's founding principles, which were supposed to focus on developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. The suit details the founding of OpenAI, Musk's significant contributions and involvement, and accuses the defendants of transforming OpenAI into a profit-driven entity contrary to its original mission, thereby violating the foundational agreement.
- pknerd 3y ago[flagged]
- gregwebs 3y agoThis suit claims breach of the "Founding Agreement". However, there is no actualy Founding Agreement, there are email communications claimed to be part of a "Founding Agreement". IANAL, but I would suspect that these emails don't matter for much now that there are Ariticles of Incorporation. Those articles are mentioned, but the "Founding Agreement" implied by emails is mentioned more. The suit also seems alarmist by stating that GPT4 is AGI. It seems like Elon could win a suit to the extent that he could get all of his donations back based on the emails soliciting donation for a purpose that was then changed. But Elon's goal in this suit is clearly to bring back the "Open" in "OpenAI"- share more information about GPT4 and newer models and eliminate the Microsoft exclusive licensing. Whether this would happen based on a suit like this seems like it would come down to an interpretation of the Articles of Incorporation.
- waterheater 3y agoIt likely depends on what constitutes a valid contract in this jurisdiction. For example, some states recognize a "handshake agreement" as a legally-binding contract, and you can be taken to court for violating that agreement. I'm certain people have been found guilty in a legal context because they replied to a email one way but acted in the opposite manner. The Articles of Incorporation are going to be the key legal document. Still, the Founding Agreement is important to demonstrate the original intentions and motivations of the parties. That builds the foundation for the case that something definitively caused Altman to steer the company in a different direction. I don't believe it's unfair to say Altman is steering; it seems like the Altman firing was a strategy to draw out the anti-Microsoft board members, who, once identified, were easily removed once Altman was reinstated. If Altman wasn't steering, then there's no reason he would have been rehired after he was fired.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> For example, some states recognize a "handshake agreement" as a legally-binding contract Subject to limits on specific kinds of contracts that must be reduced to writing, all US jurisdictions (not just some states) recognize oral contracts provided that the basic requirements of a contract (offer, acceptance, consideration, etc.) are present.
- slipperybeluga 3y ago[dead]
- stainablesteel 3y agofrom what i've read about this drama, its not worth considering i think this is meant to divert resources away from developing GPT so that musk can get ahead in the AI game, hes basically in a position to do so
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- neom 3y agoWhile researching OpenAI use of unique corporate governance and structures, I found these interesting resources: OpenAI’s Hybrid Governance: Overcoming AI Corporate Challenges. - https://aminiconant.com/openais-hybrid-governance-overcoming-ai-corporate-challenges/ https://aminiconant.com/openais-hybrid-governance-overcoming... Nonprofit Law Prof Blog | The OpenAI Corporate Structure - https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2024/01/the-openai-corporate-structure.html https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2024/01/the-open... AI is Testing the Limits of Corporate Governance (research paper)- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4693045 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4693045 OpenAI and the Value of Governance - https://www.glasslewis.com/openai-and-the-value-of-governance/ https://www.glasslewis.com/openai-and-the-value-of-governanc...
- light_triad 3y agoGreat resources - thanks for sharing! You can also access their 990 form: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810861541 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810... The critical issues for OpenAI is that structurally the cost of collecting data and training models is huge and makes the previous wave of software + physical business models (i.e. Uber, Airbnb, etc) look cheap to operate in comparison. That makes OAI more reliant on cloud providers for compute. Also their moat & network effect is dependent on a more indirect supply of user generated content. Perhaps there's an advantage of using IP to train on as a non profit as some of the articles above argue.
- thththtthth 3y ago[flagged]
- steveBK123 3y agoMusk over the last few years seems to be trying to provide UBI to lawyers.
- mfiguiere 3y agoSam Altman emails Elon Musk (2015): https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1763633741807960498 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1763633741807960498
- cljacoby 3y agoSimilar to the firing-unfiring of Sam Altman, so much of this seems to be boil down to OpenAI's puzzle-box organizational structure. It seems like the whole "capped for-profit within a non-profit" is not going to to work long term.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JamisonM 3y agoA non-profit with a for-profit subsidiary is actually pretty common and it is probably one of the more "normal" things OpenAI has done. https://www.marcumllp.com/insights/creating-a-for-profit-subsidiary-heres-what-to-consider https://www.marcumllp.com/insights/creating-a-for-profit-sub... My personal opinion is that not creating a for-profit wing would have made a even bigger mess. (But then I also think this suit is very obviously without merit and the complaint is written in a way that it sounds like lawyers sucking up to Musk to take his money - but people seem to be taking it very seriously!)
- stubish 3y agoI don't think the problem is with having a for-profit wing. The problem is that only the for-profit wing got to use the technology developed by the non-profit, when the non-profit was explicitly tasked with releasing the technology to the public, allowing competition.
- JamisonM 3y agoI would say you are using the words "explicitly tasked" when the articles of incorporation use the words "seek to" and "when applicable". (And also the "allowing competition" part I don't think is actually in the mix, is there a citation for that?) ""The Founding Agreement was also memorialized, among other places, in OpenAI, Inc.’s December 8, 2015 Certificate of Incorporation, which affirmed that its “resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable. The corporation is not organized for the private gain of any person.”"" That said, I was only commenting on the idea that creating a for-profit wing was adding to the unusual corporate structure of OpenAI and saying that it really didn't.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoMicrosoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019, which is when they changed their corporate structure. It's now 2024. If Musk had some ideological issue with OpenAI's new corporate structure then why didn't he sue right away?
- ergocoder 3y ago"Not suing right away" isn't a good argument in many cases. There are myriad of reasons why people don't sue immediately. I don't think the question is worth asking.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoI'm not saying it has any legal implications to have waited so long (maybe it does - I've no idea), but if this is really about ideology then the timing seems very weird.
- beAbU 3y agoHe was busy destryoing twitter?
- codexb 3y agoMicrosoft contributes to the python foundation, Linux, and lots of other non-profits with valuable IP. I’m sure if any of those nonprofits stopped releasing source code and began giving it only to Microsoft, there would be a lawsuit as well. OpenAI was still effectively sharing their research until last year.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoAs I recall OpenAI started becoming more closed at least around the time of GPT-3 (2020). Remember them initially saying the large model was too dangerous to release?
- chucke1992 3y agoMusk is just salty that he could not get OpenAI stocks and his Grok is going nowhere. After all he was trying to restrict OpenAI development for 6 months or something (to try to give some time to Grok).
- blurbleblurble 3y agoThe grifting can only be fueled by more grifting, it's a momentum game
- huslage 3y agoBillionaires fighting over trends is peak capitalism.
- ChuckMcM 3y agoAs usual, I find Matt Levine's take on this quite fun and informative, unfortunately HN won't let me include it (comment to long) but it begins thusly; Elon vs. OpenAI I wrote yesterday about reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission might be looking into whether OpenAI or its founder and chief executive officer, Sam Altman, might have misled its investors. Late last year, OpenAI’s board briefly fired Altman for not being “consistently candid,” and then reversed course and fired itself instead. So there is some reason to believe that somebody wasn’t candid about something. I had my doubts that it would rise to the level of securities fraud, though. For one thing, OpenAI is a nonprofit organization, and even its for-profit subsidiary, OpenAI Global LLC, which has raised money from investors, isn’t all that for-profit. I wrote: At the top of OpenAI’s operating agreement, it warns investors: “It would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI Global, LLC in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-[artificial general intelligence] world.” I still don’t know what Altman was supposedly not candid about, but whatever it was, how material can it possibly have been to investors, given what they signed up for? “Ooh he said it cost $50 million to train this model but it was really $53 million” or whatever, come on, the investors were donating money, they’re not sweating the details. But that wasn’t quite right, was it? Nonprofits can defraud their donors. Generally that sort of fraud is not about financial results; it is about the nonprofit’s mission, and whether it is using the donors’ money to advance that mission. If I ask you to donate to save the whales, and you give me $100,000 earmarked to save the whales, and I spend it all on luxury vacations for myself, I probably will get in trouble. I suppose if Altman was not candid about OpenAI’s mission, or its pursuit of that mission, that really could have been a kind of fraud on OpenAI’s donors. I mean investors. It could have been donation/securities fraud on the donors/investors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- uptownfunk 3y agoCome on, we all know he’s just angry they got his comp in Delaware.
- uptownfunk 3y agoI have huge respect for both of these individuals. Sad to see them going at each other. Humanity has immense potential to benefit from their innovation.
- teamonkey 3y agoIs this a wise move for Musk? What if Altman unveils a true AGI that ultimately takes control of the world’s systems and exacts revenge on anyone who has tried to stop its existence?
- 7thaccount 3y agoI think we'll be fine from GPT taking over. These technologies seem far from AGI IMO even though they're all very impressive.
- schaefer 3y ago[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
- peter_d_sherman 3y ago>"B. The Founding Agreement Of OpenAI, Inc. 23. Mr. Altman purported to share Mr. Musk’s concerns over the threat posed by AGI. In 2015, Mr. Altman wrote that the “[d]evelopment of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity. There are other threats that I think are more certain to happen . . . but are unlikely to destroy every human in the universe in the way that SMI could.” Later that same year, Mr. Altman approached Mr. Musk with a proposal: that they join forces to form a non-profit AI lab that would try to catch up to Google in the race for AGI, but it would be the opposite of Google. 24. Together with Mr. Brockman, the three agreed that this new lab: (a) would be a nonprofit developing AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for a for-profit company seeking to maximize shareholder profits; and (b) would be open-source, balancing only countervailing safety considerations, and would not keep its technology closed and secret for proprietary commercial reasons (The “Founding Agreement”). Reflecting the Founding Agreement, Mr. Musk named this new AI lab “OpenAI,” which would compete with, and serve as a vital counterbalance to, Google/DeepMind in the race for AGI, but would do so to benefit humanity, not the shareholders of a private, for-profit company (much less one of the largest technology companies in the world). [...] >"C. The 2023 Breach Of The Founding Agreement 29. In 2023, Defendants Mr. Altman, Mr. Brockman, and OpenAI set the Founding Agreement aflame. 30. In March 2023, OpenAI released its most powerful language model yet, GPT-4. GPT-4 is not just capable of reasoning. It is better at reasoning than average humans. It scored in the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam for lawyers. It scored in the 99th percentile on the GRE Verbal Assessment. It even scored a 77% on the Advanced Sommelier examination. At this time, Mr. Altman caused OpenAI to radically depart from its original mission and historical practice of making its technology and knowledge available to the public. GPT-4’s internal design was kept and remains a complete secret except to OpenAI—and, on information and belief, Microsoft. There are no scientific publications describing the design of GPT-4. Instead, there are just press releases bragging about performance. On information and belief, this secrecy is primarily driven by commercial considerations, not safety." What an interesting case! We'll see how it turns out... (Note that I don't think that Elon Musk or Sam Altman or Greg Brockman are "bad people" and/or "unethical actors" -- quite the opposite! Each is a luminary in their own light; in their own domains -- in their own areas of influence! I feel that men of such high and rare intelligence as all three of them are -- should be making peace amongst themselves!) Anyway, it'll be an interesting case! Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- rossdavidh 3y agoSo, first thing that comes to mind is that this will confuse and perhaps thus hinder Sam Altman's fundraising efforts. Perhaps that is the whole point? But who knows; not me.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoAny competent lawyer is going to get Musk on the stand reiterating his opinions about the danger of AI. If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest, and this is certainly the reason OpenAI have previously given. Not saying I agree that being closed source is in the public good, although one could certainly argue that accelerating the efforts of bad actors to catch up would not be a positive.
- nicce 3y ago> If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest, and this is certainly the reason OpenAI have previously given. Not really. It slows down like security over obscurity. It needs to be open that we know the real risks and we have the best information to combat it. Otherwise, someone who does the same in closed matter, has better chances to get advantage when misusing it.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoThis only holds if defense outscales attack. It seems very likely that attack outscales defense to me with LLMs.
- nicce 3y agoWell then, isn’t the whole case about just denying the inevitable? If OpenAI can do it, I would not say that that is very unlikely for someone else to do the same. Open or not. The best chance is still that we prepare with the best available information.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoYep, it absolutely is about denying the inevitable, or rather, "playing for time." The longer we manage to delay, the more likely somebody comes up with some clever approach for actually controlling the things. Also humanity stays alive in the meantime, which is no small thing in itself.
- thomastraum 3y ago[flagged]
- arctac 3y ago[flagged]
- jrflowers 3y agoThis is a good case. If openAI gives mr musk access to the gpt 4 weights he can tune it to solve the twitter bot problem
- aleksandrh 3y ago> Indeed, as the November 2023 drama was unfolding, Microsoft’s CEO boasted that it would not matter “[i]f OpenAI disappeared tomorrow.” He explained that “[w]e have all the IP rights and all the capability.” “We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything.” “We are below them, above them, around them.” Yikes. This technology definitely needs to be open source, especially if we get to the point of AGI. Otherwise Microsoft and OpenAI are going to exploit it for as long as they can get away with it for profit, while open source lags behind. Reminds me of the moral principles that guided Zimmermann when he made PGP free for everyone: A powerful technology is a danger to society if only a few people possess it. By giving it to everyone, you even the playing field.
- josh2600 3y agoJust going to note that it is widely suspected that Hal Finney did much of the programming on PGP with Zimmermann taking the heat for him.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoI don't trust OpenAI or Microsoft, but I don't have much faith in democratization either. We wouldn't do that with nukes, after all.
- EasyMark 3y agoDon't usually support Elon Musk at all, but this seems like a great thing to do, even if it is self serving for Elon. AI needs to be open and it's methods available for public scrutiny as it has great potential to stratify society even more so than it currently is between the haves and the have-nots.
- amplex1337 3y agoSorry to say it, but nonprofits operate for profit businesses all the time a few different ways. Educational institutions, hospitals, charities, science, public safety, etc all can apply for 501c3. See healthcare orgs like Kaiser Permanente for example, they are 100% for profit 'medical groups'/partnerships, funded by the HQ, which operates under nonprofit status for tax purposes, by following all the laws re: 501c3. The private child operations are not considered part of the 501c3. The profit from the nonprofit parent is reinvested into the company 100%, but the private org 'partnerships' that are not hospitals are definitely for profit. OpenAI.org did the exact same thing. If you have a lot of money in the US, you don't have to pay tax thru creative accounting, which is non-competitive.
- theGnuMe 3y agoIkea is this way as well.
- sidcool 3y agoGPT 4 is not AGI. Else OpenAI would have used it to fix their UI.
- dctoedt 3y agoFWIW, Musk's named lead counsel Morgan Chu is an extremely high-powered lawyer, one of the best-regarded IP trial lawyers around. (Decades ago we had a client in common.) One of his brothers is Dr. Steven Chu, Nobel laureate in physics and former Secretary of Energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Chu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Chu
- sirmike_ 3y agoMan that is thick. - Elon Musk founded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) that would benefit humanity, not for-profit interests? - OpenAI was established as a non-profit with the goal of open-sourcing its technology when possible? - In 2020, OpenAI licensed its GPT-3 language model exclusively to Microsoft, going against its mission? - By 2023, Microsoft researchers said GPT-4 demonstrated early signs of AGI capabilities. However, OpenAI did not make it openly available? - In 2023, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei took actions that led to a change in OpenAI's board and direction towards profiting Microsoft over public benefit? - The plaintiff alleges this violated the original agreement between Musk, Altman and Amodei to develop AGI for humanity's benefit as a non-profit? - The plaintiff is seeking damages and to compel OpenAI to return to its original non-profit mission of developing safe and openly available AGI? - Key concerns are that for-profit interests now influence whether OpenAI technology is deemed an AGI and how it is used? - The change in direction away from the non-profit public interest mission damaged public trust in OpenAI? - The suit alleges OpenAI's actions constitute unfair business practices under California law? I guess we will see if these are answered. Personally, I do not trust Musk nor Altman. Approach them from a corner is what I am saying. OpenAI while their idiot savant in chatGPT is interesting. It is hardly worth paying for with such vast gulfs between good and useable answers and the usual terrible or lazy ones you get normally. While it is important to have a basic ruleset for AI, not when it comes to making it pre-k playground rules. No innovation can be truly had with such onerous and too polite rules today. Narrow AI indeed.
- Cheezmeister 3y agoThis is all fascinating, I'm sure, but frankly, I'm getting weary of tech drama viz. reality TV masquerading as reality. Rocket Man and Orange Man have more in common than I _ever_ would have imagined if you'd asked me five years ago. Have fun y'all. I'm resisting the clickbait and going back to building things and trying to get a stable paycheck.
- nojvek 3y agoIs SamA now Orange Man, or are you referring to Trump?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago> 113. OpenAI’s conduct could have seismic implications for Silicon Valley and, if allowed to stand, could represent a paradigm shift for technology start-ups. It is important to reflect on what has transpired here: a non-profit startup has collected tens of millions of dollars in contributions for the express purpose of developing AGI technology for public benefit, and shortly before achieving the very milestone that the company was created to achieve, the company has become a closed, forprofit partner of the world’s largest corporation, thereby personally enriching the Defendants. If this business model were valid, it would radically redefine how venture capitalism is practiced in California and beyond. Rather than start out as a for-profit entity from the outset, “smart” investors would establish non-profits, use pre-tax donations to fund research and development, and then once their technology had been developed and proven, would slide the resulting IP assets into a new forprofit venture to enrich themselves and their profit-maximizing corporate partners. That is not supposed to be how the law works in California or anywhere else in this country, and this should not be the first Court to hold otherwise. > 114. To further understand why this is important, if OpenAI’s new business model is valid, for every dollar that an investor “invests” by contributing to a non-profit, that investor gets approximately 50 cents back from the state and federal governments in the form of reduced income taxes, so the net cost to them of each $1 of investment is only 50 cents. However, with OpenAI’s new business model, they get the same “for profit” upside as those who invest the conventional way in for-profit corporations and thus do not get an immediate tax write off, financed by the government and, ultimately, the public. From an investment perspective, competing against an entity employing the new OpenAI business model would be like playing a game of basketball where the other team’s baskets are worth twice as many points. If this Court validates OpenAI’s conduct here, any start-up seeking to remain competitive in Silicon Valley would essentially be required to follow this OpenAI playbook, which would become standard operating procedure for start-ups to the detriment of legitimate non-profits, the government’s tax coffers, and ultimately the people of California and beyond. Notably, OpenAI’s for-profit arm was recently valued at nearly $80 billion. I've always wondered about this. I briefly worked at a non-profit that turned over into a for profit once it found traction, and to my knowledge, the donors didn't get anything back. I learned a lesson too, taking a pay cut to work somewhere mission focused and not beholden to profit maximization. Not going to make that mistake again.
- reso 3y agoIt's clear that OpenAI has become something that it wasn't intended to be at it's founding. Maybe that change happened for good reasons, but the fact that there was a change is not in doubt.
- akerl_ 3y agoGenerally speaking, changing what your company does is just “pivoting”. It’s not clear to me why Elon would having standing for this suit, or why a company changing their direction would be actionable. This would be like suing Google for removing “Don’t be evil” from their mission statement.
- lukan 3y agoThere is a great difference between a for profit company "pivoting" - and a nonprofit changing direction of mission goals. Because a non profit accepts donation - and they are bound to the original mission. Also their profits usually are. Google never was a nonprofit, so adding and later removing their "don't be evil" was basically just PR (even though I do believe, that originally it was supposed to mean something, but not in a legally binding way).
- mdasen 3y agoI think non-profits change the argument here a bit. With a for-profit company, what your company is doing is trying to make money. If you change that, investors have a right to sue. With a non-profit, what the company is doing is some public service mission. Why does Musk have standing? Potentially because he donated millions to OpenAI to further their non-profit mission. I'm not saying that Musk has a good case. I haven't read the complaint. Still, with a non-profit, you're donating to a certain cause. If I create "Save the Climate" as a non-profit and then pivot to creating educational videos on the necessity of fossil fuels, I think it'd be reasonable to sue since we aren't performing our mission. There's certainly some latitude that management and the board should enjoy in pivoting the mission, but it isn't completely free to do whatever it wants. Even with a for-profit company, if management or the board pivot in a way that investors think would be disastrous for the company, there could be reason to sue. Google removing "don't be evil" is a meaningless change - it changes nothing. Google deciding that it was going to shut down all of its technology properties in favor of becoming a package delivery company would be a massive change and investors could sue that it wasn't the right direction for the company and that Google was ignoring their duty to shareholders. Companies can change direction, but they also have duties. For-profit companies are entrusted with your investment toward a goal of earning money. Non-profit companies are entrusted with your donations toward a goal of some public good. If they're breaching their duty, a lawsuit is reasonable. I'm not saying OpenAI is breaching their duty, just that they aren't free to do anything they want.
- qwertox 3y agoWhatever his reason may be (like resentment for jumping off the ship too soon and missing out, or standing in for humanity), I like what I read in the sense that it contains all the stuff that needs to be spoken about publicly, and the court seems to be the optimal place for this. It feels like Microsoft is misusing the partnership only to block other companies from having access to the IP. They said they don't need the partnership, that they have got all what they need, so there would be no need to have the partnership. If this is the way Microsoft misuses partnerships, I don't feel good about Mistral's new partnership, even if it means unlimited computing resources for them and still have the freedom to open source their models. Not seeing Mistral Large as an open source model now has a bitter taste to it. I also wonder if this lawsuit was the reason for him checking out Windows 11.
- boringg 3y agoI don't think he has any resentment about jumping off "too soon" as you say. He specifically abandoned ship because he didn't align with the organization anymore. I suspect this has been a long time coming given his public commentary on AI. He's goal on OpenAI investments were to keep close watch on the development of AI. If you believe the public comments or not is an entirely different matter though I do feel like there is sincerity in Elons AI comments.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI’d offer that Musk hasnt shown any consistent principle motivating his behavior other than gathering power, in the face of stated motivations. So while he may genuinely believe what he is saying, the inherent philosophical conflicts in his consistent narcissistic actions, have poisoned any other possible position to such an extent that he has lost all moral credibility Revealed preferences never lie
- tim333 3y agoHe seems to broadly pursue projects he considers helpful to humanity like sustainable energy, the multiplanetary thing and setting up OpenAI. You can interpret people's motivations in different ways but it doesn't look like just power gathering to me. I mean if he was that power hungry you'd expect him to try to monopolize AI for himself rather than make it open.
- nova22033 3y agoFinally!! Sam Altman has been promising robotaxis for over 6 years now and has failed to deliver. It's time someone sued him for misleading investors.
- demondemidi 3y agoConspiracy hot take: Grok is awful and Musk doesn't want to pay Altman to license a better AI.
- jmarbert 3y agoCould this be a play to get OpenAI to release more information so Grok / xAI can benefit?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ajdude 3y agoThis is a lot of OpenAIs: ELON MUSK, an individual, Plaintiff, vs. SAMUEL ALTMAN, an individual, GREGORY BROCKMAN, an individual, OPENAI, INC., a corporation, OPENAI, L.P., a limited partnership, OPENAI, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI GP, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI OPCO, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI GLOBAL, LLC, a limited liability company, OAI CORPORATION, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI HOLDINGS, LLC, a limited liability company, and DOES 1 through 100, inclusive
- dorkwood 3y agoI don't know how to feel about this. These are my two favorite people, and likely the two greatest minds the world has ever seen. Every hour they spend in court is an hour they deprive humanity of the value they bring. This is the saddest day of the year so far for me.
- krick 3y agoReading this thread I've got kinda abstract question, so I might as well just ask it here: Do you think the "market" of openly available models (LLMs, text-to-image, speach recognition, etc) would be significantly different today, if not for OpenAI? Obviously, it's not like OpenAI is the only place on earth where people work on these, and it's the overall success of deep learning what started OpenAI, not vice-verse. But as for someone not really in the loop, it feels like every other state-of-the-art open source model available right now was inspired, if not developed (whisper), by OpenAI. Stable Diffusion, LLaMA, Mistral, etc. Would these exist if not for DALLE, GPT and OpenAI in general?
- todd3834 3y agoKind of ironically I uploaded this to chatGPT to help me understand the details.
- swat535 3y agoWe all know that Musk's intentions for this are not noble (who would be so naive to think otherwise anyway?) so I'll leave that aside for now but he has a good point by bringing on this lawsuit. What I love is the fact that people here are trying to justify Sam's action by amusing mental gymnastics such as "AI Safety! Think of Humanity!".. seriously guys? At least we should be honest and call a spade a spade, "open" in "Open AI" is nothing more than Sam's attempt at scamming people with marketing gimmick and dodging taxes. The truth is that Altman knows other AI models are catching up quickly and he is trying seal the deal with regulatory capture as soon as possible. OpenAI has already lost any credibility they had after the recent implosion with half the team threatening to leave as soon as they realized that their bank accounts might shrink by a few cents if Altman is not sitting at the helm. The best part is that Sam delivered by making them all supremely rich [0] This company is a joke and it's all about the money. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-17/openai-deal-lets-employees-sell-shares-at-86-billion-valuation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-17/openai-de...
- asciii 3y agoDoes the argument that other startups can copy OpenAI's funding playbook--start as a non-profit with investor contributions valued at 50 cents per dollar and then reap profits on the for-profit venture side--hold any water?
- Uptrenda 3y agoDo I need to get into YC to learn to be a two-faced bullshitter or will Sam teach that skill to anyone?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"In March 2023, OpenAI released its most powerful language model yet, GPT-4. GPT-4 is not just capable of reasoning. It is better at reasoning than average humans. It scored in the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam for lawyers. It scored in the 99th percentile on the GRE Verbal Assessment. It even scored a 77% on the Advanced Sommelier examination." One could argue a common characteristic of the above exams is that they each test memory, and, as such, one could argue that GPT-4's above-average performance is not necessarily evidence of "reasoning". That is, GPT-4 has no "understanding" but it has formidable reading speed and retention (memory). While preparation for the above exams depends heavily on memorisation, other exams may focus more on reasoning and understanding. Surely GPT-4 would fail some exams. But when it comes to GPT-4's exam performance, only the positive results are reported. https://freeman.vc/notes/reasoning-vs-memorization-in-llms https://freeman.vc/notes/reasoning-vs-memorization-in-llms
- romwell 3y ago>Surely GPT-4 would fail some exams Some? It does hilariously badly on basic math. With confidence, though.
- ethbr1 3y ago> hilariously badly on basic math. With confidence, though How does it do on the GMAT? Sounds like a good candidate for an MBA program.
- tim333 3y agoScored 680 / 800 in this try in March 23 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/today-i-put-chatgpt-4-test-having-take-gmat-heres-result-ivan-tur/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/today-i-put-chatgpt-4-test-ha... Update GTP-4 turbo is now up to about 770 beating most humans https://twitter.com/airesearchtools/status/1756973169632588053 https://twitter.com/airesearchtools/status/17569731696325880...
- MacsHeadroom 3y agoGPT-4 with code interpreter is better at math than elite Math undergrads.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoSour grapes. This is a power move. Elon wants to be the sole savior of humanity who just so happens to have more power than anyone in history. No coincidence this came out soon after OpenAI announced its partnership with Figure, making them a direct competitor to Tesla Optimus + Xai.
- the_optimist 3y agoThis is sorta a boring fanfic take. Please show us how you read the materials to establish your conclusion.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoBy materials you mean the filing? the wording of the filing fits the plaintiffs narrative. its the most biased possible source.
- the_optimist 3y agoCan you illuminate how you think about this? The purpose of the filing is to introduce specific fact statements and allegations based on those facts. Bias is implicit. The facts and arguments are open for you to dispute.
- xcv123 3y agoHow did you come to this idiotic conclusion after reading the article? Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI as a non-profit organization in 2015 and provided the majority of funding until 2020. It wouldn't exist without his funding. Sam Altman lied and now GPT-4 is closed source and is controlled by Microsoft. How does that benefit humanity? OpenAI was meant to be open, sharing their research with all of humanity. Sam Altman is a fucking sociopath, a ruthless scammer. The lawsuit demands that OpenAI releases all of their research and technology to the public. Right now GPT-4 is only enriching Microsoft, the largest tech company on the planet.
- atleastoptimal 3y ago
- rain_iwakura 3y ago"Heartwarming: The Worst People You Know Are All Fighting" https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2535073-worst-person-you-know-made-a-great-point https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2535073-worst-person-you-kno...
- theptip 3y agoAn interesting nugget, Musk is here claiming that GPT-4 is already AGI, and therefore not covered by the MS licensing deal.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoBold claim
- dorkwood 3y agoWe're going to need a new acronym once AGI is taken to mean "a really good LLM", and not, you know, AGI.
- theptip 3y agoI think the DeepMind taxonomy is good; recognize that AGI is too broad a term, so add levels to make it specific. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.02462 https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.02462 “Competent AGI” (or a little earlier) would be my guess for where OpenAI would not hand it over to MS. Honestly if they displaced 10% of workers I think they might call that the threshold.
- pknerd 3y agoSome Elon's Musk blind fanboy flagged my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564947
- advael 3y agoI find myself in the weird position of still thinking Musk is upset about this for pettier reasons than he alleges but still being super glad he's bringing this suit. OpenAI has clearly sold out in a big way to one of the most dangerous and irresponsible companies on the planet and someone with pockets this deep needed to bring this suit for there to be any chance of any accountability even being possible given the scale of the organization
- boysabr3 3y ago[flagged]
- atoav 3y agoAnybody can be a useful idiot, why not Elon Musk? Although I share your evaluation that he is likely in it for petty reasons.
- advael 3y agoNever hurts to be useful, right?
- consumer451 3y ago> Never hurts to be useful, right? No. Depends on the purpose. For example, would it "hurt" to be useful to the supposed incoming AGI overlords by preparing humans with digital read/write implants in their brains?
- advael 3y agoIt's a total tangent but I find people's willingness to both put computers in their bodies (even non-neural medical implants) and their bodies in computers (e.g. cars or home security systems) incredibly shocking given how user-hostile and secretive companies are with their computers. I personally won't accept either unless the thing's open-source and I've got root on it. But no matter how baffling I find this the overwhelming majority of people seem to range from indifferent to excited about these developments
- Exendroinient23 3y agoElon was never serious about ai safety and benefiting humanity through it. Grog is proprietary. He is just butthurt of not being at the top.
- SMAPP_AI 3y agoThe solution to this trial could be very simple… „Nomen est omen“… „Open“AI was intentionally founded and funded to be „Open“source.
- chaseadam17 3y agoUsually when you convert from a non-profit to a for-profit, the non-profit has a third party value its assets then sells them to the new for-profit. Because you are acquiring assets from yourself, there are some protections, like you can’t have the same people run the non-profit and the new for-profit and the attorney general has to sign off on the transaction, which I believe happened with OpenAI. Also, the non-profit has to use the funds it received in the acquisition to continue to further its original mission. My gut is the lawsuit will come down to whether the for-profit paid a fair price, which in retrospect could look suspect given how much OpenAI is valued at now, but the government and a third party likely already approved the transaction long ago. It may also come down to whether the non-profit used / is using the funds it received in exchange for the assets to continue to serve the public interest per OpenAIs original mission and not the interests of the new for-profit or any associated individuals. This will be a good test for the legal strategies to convert non-profits to for-profits.
- space_oddity 3y agoSome says that he's doing it coz he had seperated from them in 2019...
- tdhz77 3y agoThe owners of a company typically control and that includes the right to change the founding document. If they did it right the suit will fail.
- EchoReflection 3y ago"non-profit" and "not-for-profit" are super misleading terms. I worked for a "non-profit" for about a year, they made boatloads of money that just went into the hands of the staff and the head of the company, not sure about the board if directors... https://www.nonprofitcollegesonline.com/non-profits/ https://www.nonprofitcollegesonline.com/non-profits/
- oglop 3y agoElon Musk is a fool and any argument derived from him is for fools. He just wants money. It’s not about any grand idea, that’s just a tool to manipulate an army of dorks.