San Francisco, March 1 (Xinhua) - American entrepreneur Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against the American artificial intelligence company "OpenAI" and its CEO Sam Altman in the San Francisco Superior Court on February 29, alleging that they are developing artificial intelligence for profit rather than "human benefit" and demanding the company to share its technology.
According to the lawsuit, Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman contacted Musk in 2015 and agreed to establish a non-profit laboratory to develop general artificial intelligence for the "benefit of humanity." The laboratory would open its technology, meaning sharing its underlying software code.
The lawsuit alleges that the company established a for-profit business unit and restricted others' use of its technology. Under the leadership of the new board, the company is developing and refining general artificial intelligence to maximize Microsoft's profits, with its focus not being on the "benefit of humanity." OpenAI has effectively become a closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft.
Musk accuses OpenAI and Altman of breaching contracts and fiduciary duties, and engaging in unfair business practices. Brockman is also named as a defendant. Musk demands that OpenAI open its technology and that Altman and others repay the funds he provided.
According to the lawsuit, from 2016 to 2020, Musk contributed over $44 million to OpenAI and supported the company's initial office space leasing and talent recruitment efforts. Without his involvement and support, OpenAI "likely would have struggled to get off the ground."
Musk has repeatedly warned in public forums that the rapid development of artificial intelligence poses a huge existential threat to humanity and that the development of artificial intelligence needs to be slowed down, with the industry requiring stronger regulation. In July last year, Musk announced the establishment of the artificial intelligence startup xAI. In November of the same year, he announced the launch of xAI's first artificial intelligence model, Grok. (End)
