A trial that could reshape the future of artificial intelligence opened in a California courtroom this week, with Elon Musk squaring off against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in a $150 billion lawsuit.
Musk took the witness stand for more than seven hours over three days, testifying in his lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, and others. He claims they betrayed him after he gave them $38 million in donations and personal help on the promise they would build a nonprofit that would prioritise safe development of AI.
Musk says OpenAI and Altman pivoted to create a for-profit entity to enrich themselves, and in testimony cast his lawsuit as a defence of charitable giving.
OpenAI has said that Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is driven by a compulsion to control OpenAI and is bitter about the company’s success after he left its board in 2018.
Musk said: “I don’t think you should turn a nonprofit into a for-profit,” adding, “There’s nothing wrong with having a for-profit organisation, you just can’t steal a charity.”
The word “charity” doesn’t appear once in the 2015 blog post announcing the formation of OpenAI. But Musk repeatedly described OpenAI as one.
He also said: “I was reassured by Sam Altman and others that OpenAI would continue as a nonprofit,” and that “I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all of the initial funding.”
That included recruiting Ilya Sutskever, a top Google researcher, and using his ties to the CEOs of Microsoft and Nvidia to get the computing power that AI demands.
William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, Altman, and others, pressed Musk on whether he had read a term sheet that Altman forwarded on OpenAI’s shift from a nonprofit to a for-profit overseen by a nonprofit.
“My testimony is I didn’t read the fine print, just the headline,” Musk said.
OpenAI has said it created a for-profit entity to allow it to accept private investments to help buy computing power and pay top scientists.
Savitt’s cross-examination of Musk was tense at times. Musk attacked the lawyer saying: “Your questions are not simple. They’re designed to trick me.”
On Wednesday, Savitt said their side was pleased with Musk’s testimony.
“It is true that it’s a challenge for a trial lawyer to get testimony from a reluctant witness, which is what I think we had. But I think plenty enough came through to make clear that the pieces of the evidentiary puzzle are as we have described them and not as how Mr. Musk has described them.”
Altman is expected to take the stand in his defence as Musk seeks $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its largest investors, with proceeds going to OpenAI’s charitable arm.
Musk also wants OpenAI to revert to being a nonprofit, with Altman removed from the board and the CEO job.
Sources: Reuters
