Elon Musk Revives Lawsuit Against OpenAI
Elon Musk has reignited a legal battle against OpenAI, the developer of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, bringing back to life a feud that first emerged six years ago amid a struggle for control at the San Francisco-based startup. The new lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Northern California, echoes the original complaint, asserting that OpenAI, along with its founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, violated the foundational agreements of the company by prioritizing commercial interests over the welfare of the public.
Interestingly, Musk had previously withdrawn his original lawsuit just seven weeks ago, without providing any rationale, a day before a judge was scheduled to decide on a motion to dismiss the case. The ongoing legal conflict traces back to Musk’s initial involvement in the establishment of OpenAI in 2015, where he collaborated with Altman and Brockman with a shared vision to responsibly advance artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
The current lawsuit contends that Altman and Brockman have strayed from this noble mission by entering into a lucrative partnership with Microsoft, which is valued in the billions. According to the complaint, Musk feels profoundly betrayed by Altman and his associates, stating, “The perfidy and deceit is of Shakespearean proportions.”
As of now, OpenAI has not provided a comment in response to the renewed lawsuit. Previously, in a blog post addressing Musk’s initial legal action, Altman and other company representatives expressed their intention to seek the dismissal of Musk’s claims. They reiterated their commitment to serve the public good through the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a type of AI that possesses the capability to perform any intellectual task that a human can.
