Musk left OpenAI in 2018 due to disagreements over control and direction.
OpenAI has revealed Elon Musk’s past emails, illustrating conflicting views and strategies on funding, openness, and the future direction of the organization, including his push for a significant capital raise for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This came amidst his subsequent lawsuit alleging a breach of contract over prioritizing profits ahead of societal advancement in AI.
“We are now sharing what we’ve learned about achieving our mission, and some facts about our relationship with Elon,” OpenAI’s announcement reads.
According to the disclosed emails, Elon Musk, a key figure in the founding of OpenAI, insisted on a significant capital raise of $1 billion to bolster the organization’s pursuit of AGI.
OpenAI made this revelation as a response to Musk’s actions taken on Friday, where the multibillionaire lodged a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit claims they violated a contract by prioritizing profits and commercial interests over the advancement of AI for the benefit of humanity.
Musk’s emails show he understands the need for significant funds to compete with tech giants like Google in AI. In the context, Musk wrote in an email in December 2018 that OpenAI had a zero-percent chance of becoming a relevant competitor to Google’s DeepMind unless the startup made a ‘dramatic change in execution and resources’.
“My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise,” he wrote to fellow OpenAI co-founders Sutskever, Brockman and Altman.
Despite pushing for more funding, Musk left OpenAI due to disagreements over control and direction, including talks about merging with Tesla or shifting to a for-profit model.
Elon Musk’s doubts about open-source AI research, as stated in the emails, contrast with his previous support for openness, evident in his public endorsements and discussions lauding the benefits of open-sourcing AI technology.
OpenAI’s quick response to Musk’s lawsuit emphasizes their commitment to dismissing his claims while affirming their dedication to advancing AGI for humanity’s benefit. “We intend to move to dismiss all of Elon’s claims,” OpenAI said. Additionally, the organization asserts its initiatives to democratize AI tools across diverse fields such as healthcare and agriculture.
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OpenAI’s Official Post: Click Here
