A Partnership Turned Sour: The Lawsuit Between Elon Musk & Sam Atlman
Who is Elon?
Elon Musk is considered to be one of the richest men in the world at the moment. He is best known for his work with Tesla and SpaceX. After earning his two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Physics and Economics, Musk eventually co-founded his first company Zip2, which offered city navigation services. It was eventually bought out by Compaq for $307 Million, where Musk used the money he earned from his shares to create X.com. This company was meant to be an online payment service, which merged with Confinity to eventually become Paypal. Musk went on to create SpaceX, which is now able to launch reusable rockets and has projects for human space travel to Mars. Later Musk started investing his money in Tesla, a brand-new Electric vehicle company. After facing stress from scandals, to the 2008 economic crisis, to infighting, Tesla was on the brink of collapse before Elon Musk took control as CEO to revamp the company to serve at the forefront of the electric car industry.
It is safe to say that Elon Musk is very knowledgeable about the tech industry, going on to break new companies like the Boring Company, or is brand new company: Neuralink. He is considered a prominent voice in the industry, and he is very vocal about the concerns of AI as new algorithms continue to make such technologies smarter. It is this concern that has resulted in a feud between him and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
Who Is Sam Altman?
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. The company recently gained prominence with the release of ChatGPT, which has caused a paradigm shift in education. The algorithm is good in that it is able to score a 5 on AP exams, pass the bar exam, and provide an over-powered advantage for students to cheat.
After growing up in Missouri, and dropping out of Stanford University, Sam became involved with YCombinator, a company focused on accelerating startups to new heights. He was named President and later would be the co-founder of OpenAI along with Elon Musk, which had a rocky period in 2023.
November of last year, OpenAI’s board members felt they were left in the dark with Sam Altman not being forthcoming to the members. As a result, Altman was forced to resign. Immediately, there was an outcry with many employees petitioning to leave if Sam Altman was not immediately reinstated, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered Sam a position to lead Microsoft’s own AI research team before the board reinstated Sam.
The Partnership
Sam Altman was initially inspired by Elon Musk, appreciating his conviction to turn Musk’s visions into reality. They both happened to share equal concern over the threat of AI. The two would engage in frequent discussions via email as they expressed their concerns. These principles shaped the initial purpose of OpenAI, which Elon agreed to invest in as long as its goal was to “remain a nonprofit irrevocably dedicated to creating safe, open-source [Artificial Intelligence] for the public.” However, it seems to Elon that the company has shifted from its original purpose, and hence the reason for the lawsuit.
The Lawsuit
After being partners, Elon and Sam started to drift in their partnership, with each side wanting to pursue different directions for the company. After Elon left the company in 2018, the feud has only gotten worse, until one-day, things snapped.
February 29, 2024:
Elon Musk files a lawsuit against Sam Altman’s OpenAI. He expresses that the company has gone too far, engaging in for-profit activities at the expense of proper oversight of AI technology. He worries that OpenAI’s products have reached “human cognitive capability,” called Artificial General Intelligence. Musk further expresses his complaints about the company choosing to restrict public access to OpenAI’s source code. He feels the company breached its “founding agreement” by engaging in these activities.
The company has fired back by releasing emails between OpenAI members and Elon that seem to show that Musk was rather okay with Open AI’s for-profit activities. He did not seem to mind when the company chose to restrict access to the company’s methodologies.
In terms of the legalities, many experts do not think Musk has a case. For starters, the “founding agreement” for OpenAI does not seem to be mentioned in the lawsuit filing. AI experts also feel that OpenAI has not reached the singularity point, where AI has reached the human level of cognition.
Conclusion:
Does Elon’s lawsuit have a case bearing? Legally speaking, it does not seem like it. If there exists no founding document for the company’s purpose for its existence, then Sam can do whatever he wants with the company. Along with the email released by OpenAI, it is definitely not a good look for AI.
Yet, Elon’s concern over AI should be taken seriously. ChatGPT completely shifted the way education is conducted at schools. Now dozens of sites, like Turnitin.com, are offering their own models for detecting ChatGPT curated responses. It was a big concern that led to the SAG-AFRTA strike. Actors were horrified at Bob Iger’s idea of having a 3D version of themselves scanned and then used by AI to create new movies. Recently, the models have gotten a lot better where actors can now have their voices reconstructed by AI to speak languages, languages that the actors may have never spoken in their lives! AI is beginning to integrate itself into everyday human life, and people are just realizing its power.
Me personally, I see a big concern with using AI in quantum computers. Quantum computers, because of superposition, are able to perform multiple calculations at once, using qubits, expanding their computing power. It has already begun sparking concerns over the possibility of having current encryption algorithms cracked by quantum computing, so much concern that it prompted Congress to pass the first regulations for quantum computing oversight.
AI, as I have mentioned before, is already powerful without qubits. Yes, while it is changing school education and performing arts, it is still sort of in its infancy. I do agree somewhat with the AI experts, but I feel combining the power of AI and the power of quantum computing could unlock new power that could be dangerous if fallen into the wrongs. In fact researchers are already experimenting with relying AI on qubits, creating the first quantum neural networks.
While Elon Musk may not have a proper legal standing against OpenAI, his concerns should spark debates around the world as to what to do with AI as it continues to expand its way into human life. Like it or not, AI is here, AI is advancing, whether you realize it or not, humanity is sleep-walking into Elon’s deepest fears over AI.
