Elon Musk has got it all wrong in suing OpenAI for allegedly breaching its artificial intelligence founding agreement. That is the stance held by OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla, who insists the billionaire investor cannot find his way into revolutionary technology by suing the company. Musk is on record insisting that OpenAI has strayed from its initial goal of creating an open-source technology owing to its growing ties with Microsoft.
Microsoft Sues OpenAI
The remarks by the Tesla chief Executive Officer come amid growing concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence if left unregulated. In his lawsuit, Musk took issue with OpenAI, professing that its goal is to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, which has not been the case. He claims that OpenAI has become a closed source de facto subsidiary owing to massive investment from Microsoft.
In the court filing, Musk took issue with an attempt to restructure OpenAI’s leadership last year. During the tumultuous period, Altman was ousted from the CEO seat but later reinstated following Microsoft’s intervention.
In the lawsuit, Musk reiterates that Microsoft moved to reinstate Altman as one of the ways of ensuring OpenAI remains close-ended, therefore straying from the original mission of developing a technology that benefits humanity.
The lawsuit further alleges that Altman ended up picking a new board that lacks similar technical expertise as the previous board, thus ensuring it plays ball with Microsoft’s wants. Musk is concerned that the new board is only focused on generating profits and playing politics rather than working on AI ethics and governance.
Al Safeguard Calls
The outcomes of the lawsuit could have serious ramifications on the nascent artificial intelligence technology and OpenAI, which is planning to raise funds to a valuation of over $100 billion. The company has already raised over $13 billion from Microsoft over the past year.
Khosla has come to Altman’s defense, insisting there is nothing wrong with Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI. The investor further maintains that the competitive nature of artificial intelligence is one of the reasons it cannot be open-sourced. Likewise, he shares similar opinions with Musk, insisting the technology should be carefully developed.
According to Khosla, the US should maintain close control on artificial intelligence as it does on nuclear technology or other technologies of national security importance. Musk, who is one of the founding members of OpenAI, is among the industry leaders who are calling on developers to hit a pause button on the development of powerful AI models.
More than 1,000 people have already signed a petition calling for a break from the training of powerful AI systems. The push comes amid calls for developing shared safety protocols to curb the development of powerful systems that no one can reliably control, predict, or understand.
Musk and industry leaders have been calling on governments to intervene and govern the development of AI systems if major players don’t. The calls have fallen on deaf ears as more powerful AI-powered systems have become capable of performing various human tasks without supervision.
