OpenAI Asks Judge to Dismiss Elon Musk's Lawsuit
OpenAI has urged a California federal judge to dismiss the Musk v. Altman case, claiming that the lawsuit is part of Elon Musk's harassment campaign against OpenAI for his own competitive advantage since launching his own artificial intelligence startup....
Facts
- OpenAI has urged a California federal judge to dismiss the Musk v. Altman case, claiming that the lawsuit is part of Elon Musk's harassment campaign against OpenAI for his own competitive advantage since launching his own artificial intelligence startup.[1]
- The motion filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California argues that the complaint has neither sufficient factual nor legal basis. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12 in Oakland.[1][2]
- This comes as Musk in August revived a federal lawsuit — originally filed in March and dropped in June — accusing OpenAI and Altman, its chief executive officer, of reneging on its founding agreement to pursue a nonprofit venture.[3][4]
- OpenAI claims that its billionaire co-founder recognized in 2017 that the goal of creating artificial general intelligence would require OpenAI to become a 'for-profit entity,' adding that he had left the venture after his bid to dominate it failed.[3][5]
- OpenAI has transitioned from a nonprofit structure to a so-called 'capped-profit' model, which includes a for-profit branch created in 2019. Reports suggest that the company is planning to become a for-profit benefit corporation.[5][6]
- On Wednesday, The Information reported that data contained in OpenAI financial documents suggests that the company expects to turn a profit only in 2029, with a $100B revenue, after sustaining losses as high as $14B.[7]
Sources: [1]Law360, [2]Decrypt, [3]Forbes, [4]Wsj, [5]Business Insider, [6]Bloomberg and [7]The Information.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by ProMarket. Musk's criticism of OpenAI is 100% justified. The company has branded itself as a pioneer that will responsibly lead the world into the AI generation in the safest way possible, but it has become beholden to Microsoft. Altman has seemingly thrown his convictions away in order to benefit Microsoft financially, and Musk is holding him accountable.
- Narrative B, as provided by Futurism. This suit was never in good faith and Musk is wrong to criticize OpenAI for chasing profits at the same time he's creating his own for-profit AI venture. He's using this lawsuit as part of a dispute with former OpenAI co-founders, which suggests this legal action was never really about the future of AI technology.
- Nerd narrative, as provided by Guardian. There's a 50% chance that OpenAI will reach its profit cap for the first round of investors by 2035, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
