San Francisco: Elon Musk on Tuesday dropped a lawsuit against OpenAI and its founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for betraying the startup’s founding mission.
In the California lawsuit, Musk accuses the AI firm he founded in 2015 of breaching its commitment to create artificial intelligence that benefits society while being a non-profit company backed by Microsoft.
Lawyers representing Musk asked the court to dismiss the entire case without giving reasons.
Neither Musk nor OpenAI responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
The breeder who left OpenAI in 2018 stated in his original complaint that ChatGPT’s developers had always intended to be a non-profit organization.
But recent changes in the office mean OpenAI is now a subsidiary of software giant Microsoft, he said.
Musk has made similar allegations in the past, and OpenAI and Microsoft have denied them.
OpenAI captured the imagination of the public with the release of ChatGPT, a chatbot that can compose poems and essays and even ace exams in late 2022.
The company has also created image and video creation tools that are considered leaders in their field.
Microsoft, which has been a major investor in OpenAI since 2019, poured billions of dollars into the company last year.
When OpenAI’s board fired CEO Altman last November, the giant stepped in after hiring him and offering to accommodate employees disgruntled by his layoffs.
OpenAI’s board reinstated Altman and replaced several board members amid disunity within the company.
OpenAI began life as a non-profit dedicated to the development of “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), a vague term defined as a type of AI that will exceed human capabilities in all cognitive activities.
The idea was for OpenAI to ensure that such technology would be safe for humanity.
But Kasturi’s lawsuit says that the founding principle has “turned on its head.”
“To this day, the OpenAI Inc. website maintains that its charter promotes AGI for the ‘benefit of all mankind,'” he said.
Since withdrawing from OpenAI, Musk has joined the ranks of critics who warn that superintelligence could spell the end of humanity.
He also launched his own AI firm, xAI, last year and said he wants to raise $1 billion from investors.
Kasturi took umbrage at OpenAI on Monday, protesting its partnership with Apple.
“Apple has no idea what can actually happen after you submit your data to OpenAI.
