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Author |Zhidong Editorial Department
Musk and OpenAI are going to court?!
Zhidong said on March 2**, on Friday afternoon, Beijing time, Musk made another big deal! A complaint took OpenAI to court.
Musk filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco Superior Court against OpenAI's co-founder and CEO for breach of contractSam Altman, co-founder and president of OpenAIGreg BrockmanandOpenAI multiple entities。However, the list of defendants does not appear in the list of suspected to have left OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever.
The plaintiff and defendant of the litigation documents (Source: litigation documents).
Not long after handing over the indictment, Musk provoked again on the social platform X, and at the same time, @openai and Figure AI, a humanoid robot unicorn that had just been invested by OpenAI, openly declared war:
Let the horses come! ”
In 2015, Musk, Altman and others co-founded the non-profit organization OpenAI, and later Musk left in 2018 because of a conflict of interest with Tesla, which developed self-driving AI. Over the years, Musk has been deeply resentful of OpenAI's shift to commercial profitability and closed-source models, often expressing dissatisfaction on social platforms, and sneering at OpenAI's cooperation with Microsoft.
Musk's demands for this lawsuit have three points-Losing money, open source, reverting to non-profit1. I was cheated by OpenAI to cheat money and technology, and asked OpenAI to repay the money + compensate for my own losses; 2. Require OpenAI to restore open source; 3. Prevent OpenAI and Microsoft from profiting from AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) technology, and try to cut off OpenAI and Microsoft's "financial route".
In this sprinkling of 46 pages, 1In the 40,000-word lawsuit document, Musk denounced OpenAI for violating its original intentions, mentioned some unknown insider details of OpenAI, questioned Altman and others for "enriching their own pockets", and reported and exposed OpenAI's five major "crimes".
According to the lawsuit page, the trial process of the lawsuit is scheduled for July 31, 2024, and it seems that this drama will not end anytime soon.
Screenshot of the lawsuit documents (Source: San Francisco Superior Court).
Litigation Documents:
Why sue OpenAI? Musk enumeratedFive reasons why,To sum up,Actually, they are all talking about one thing——OpenAI violated the founding agreement and "defrauded" Musk's financial, energetic and technical strength.
He claimed that OpenAI "induced" him to make donations and resource inputs, including, using promises such as "will be a non-profit organization dedicated to developing AGI for the benefit of mankind" and "will keep the technology open source and will not be closed for commercial reasons".Tens of millions of dollars in fundingKey recommendations for research directionsandAssist in the recruitment of world-class talent
It is mentioned several times in the lawsuit documents that Musk will prove the amount of his losses at trial if necessary. The amount is currently unknown, but it certainly exceeds the court's jurisdiction minimum of $35,000.
The specific causes of action are as follows:
, breach of contract (breach of contract
Musk claims that from 2015 to September 2020, he not only contributed tens of millions of dollars in funding, provided key advice on research directions, but also played a key role in recruiting world-class talent, and these contributions were considered based on OpenAI's founding protocol.
These agreements include, but are not limited to: OpenAI will develop AGI as a non-profit organization for the benefit of humanity, will keep the technology open source and will not be closed for commercial reasons.
The OpenAI founding agreement provided in the attachment (Source: Litigation Documents).
In the attachment, Musk provided a screenshot of Altman's written correspondence with him in 2015. Altman writes, "[The organization's] mission will be to create the first AGI and use it for the ...... of personal empowerment," Altman wroteThe technology will be owned by ** and will'Good for the world'
Screenshot of Altman's email to Musk in 2015 (Source: lawsuit documents).
According to Musk's allegations, OpenAI violated the agreement in a number of ways, including licensing GPT-4 exclusively to Microsoft, failing to disclose GPT-4's architecture, hardware, training methods and other information to the public, setting up a "paywall" for the use of GPT-4, and allowing Microsoft a seat on OpenAI's board of directors.
, commitment to breach of contract (promissory estoppel
Musk believes that Altman "induced" him to make donations and resources by promising that OpenAI would develop AGI as a non-profit organization.
He said he invested based on those promises, but then OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission, the exact opposite of what was promised to him.
, breach of fiduciary duty (breach of fiduciary duty
Under California law, the defendant has a fiduciary duty to the plaintiff, including the use of the plaintiff's contributions for the agreed purpose. Musk accused OpenAI of using the funds for profit, violating the agreement with him and its promises to the public.
, unfair business practices (unfair business practices
Musk alleges that OpenAI engaged in unfair competition and other unfair business practices by falsely advertising the fundraiser, claiming that all funds would be used for the basic purposes set out in the founding agreement. If he had known this, he would never have donated to OpenAI.
, Accounting & Auditing (accounting
As mentioned above, Musk argues that OpenAI uses the funds received from him, as well as the intellectual property and derivative works funded by these funds, for "for-profit" purposes, which directly violates the letter and clear intent of the agreement between the parties. The lawsuit documents require an audit of OpenAI's financial information because it cannot determine his interests or the use and distribution of assets, which the latter holds.
So what does Musk ultimately want the court to say about OpenAI? He listed a total of 10 major and 11 sub-items.
Overall, Musk hopes that OpenAI can return to AI technology and open it to the public, that is, from today's closed source to open source. At the same time, he believes that the AI large model technology currently developed by OpenAI is actually AGI, and the scope of OpenAI's license to Microsoft does not include AGI.
In terms of interest compensation, his overall request is for OpenAI to return all the money earned during the breach of contract, and he also wants to conduct an inventory of OpenAI's use of donated funds, as it seems that Musk suspects that they are using the money to "enrich themselves".
Of course, Musk even calculates all kinds of interest and attorney fees clearly, which can be said to be a complete "liquidation" of OpenAI and Altman.
The following is a compilation of the original text of that part of Musk's lawsuit:
The plaintiff requested the following judgment against the defendant:
(1) Request the court to order the enforcement of contractual commitments breached by the defendant, including but not limited to:
1. The defendant is required to continue to follow OpenAI's long-term practiceThe AI research and technology developed by OpenAI will be made available to the public
Defendants are prohibited from using OpenAI or its assets to serve the financial interests of individual defendants, Microsoft, or any other specific person or entity
b) Ask the Justice Department to determine that GPT-4 has become de facto Artificial General Magic (AGI) and is therefore outside the scope of OpenAI's license to Microsoft.
3) Demand for justiceIdentify Q* and other OpenAI's next-generation large language models in developmentis AGI and is therefore outside the scope of OpenAI's license to Microsoft.
4) Injunctive relief consistent with (1) to (3) above;
v) in accordance with Article 17200 et seq. of the Commercial and Professional CodeDemand the return or forfeiture of all monies received by the defendant while engaging in the unfair and misconduct described herein, which also includes pre-judgment interest and penalties.
6) Accounting for the funds donated by the plaintiff and others to OpenAI, the intellectual property rights or derivative works funded thereby, and the use of donated funds by the defendant for personal benefit or for the benefit of any individual or third-party entity.
vii) General and punitive damages that are required to be proven at trial, each of which the plaintiff will donate to a non-profit organization or charity.
viii) pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1021Attorney's fees as set forth in Article 5.
9) Pre-judgment and post-judgment interest at the highest statutory interest rate.
x) other and further relief as the court deems just and appropriate.
The lawsuit documents state that OpenAI was founded with the goal of developing AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for the benefit of itself and the world's largest tech company.
According to page 3 27 of the lawsuit documents, the initial research conducted by OpenAI was open and free to access, causing a huge response throughout the community. When researchers discovered the great potential of Google's invented Transformer algorithm, the community quickly began to enhance and expand these models.
At first, there was no problem with the cooperation between openai and Microsoft. Altman became the CEO of OpenAI in 2019. In September 2020, the company reached an agreement with Microsoft to license it to use the GPT-3 language model. However, OpenAI released the details of GPT-3 and reserved the right for the non-profit board to decide what AGI reached, and Microsoft did not receive any rights to AGI.
How does OpenAI go against the mission of developing AGI for the benefit of humanity?
According to the lawsuit, in 2023, OpenAI's founding agreement is set. The founding agreement reflects the spirit of consensus reached by Altman, Musk, and Brockman: (a) as a non-profit organization focused on developing AGI for the benefit of humanity, rather than a for-profit corporation that seeks to maximize shareholder profits; and (b) adopt an open source model, balancing interests only with security in mind, and not enclosing or keeping its technology secret for proprietary commercial reasons.
However, Altman immediately took OpenAI completely away from its original mission. They introduced GPT-4, a powerful language model, and although GPT-4 was designed to benefit the public by retaining the contributions of plaintiffs and others, it is now effectively part of Microsoft, integrated into the Office software suite.
In terms of communication concept, GPT-4 is considered to be an AGI algorithm, which is beyond the scope of Microsoft's exclusive license with OpenAI in September 2020. Researchers at Microsoft have said that GPT-4 could be considered a version of an earlier AGI system, given its capabilities. OpenAI is currently working on a more powerful AGI model known as "Q*", which is also a challenge to Microsoft's exclusive licensing scope, according to the report.
OpenAI's coup has brought this contradiction to the fore. In November 2023, OpenAI's board of directors fired Altman, accusing him of lacking integrity in the board, but immediately reappointed him as CEO. Altman is believed to have been fired in part because of OpenAI's breakthrough in achieving AGI. According to news reports, OpenAI's board members and executives are divided over security issues and the potential threat that OpenAI's next-generation Q* could pose.
In the aftermath of the coup, the new board members were deemed to lack substantial AI expertise to independently judge whether OpenAI had reached AGI levels, and faced challenges in terms of technology and corporate governance.
Altman almost admitted it in disguiseThe company's technology can be completely transferred to Microsoft。In an interview shortly after his dismissal, Altman said, "We are very confident in our abilities," the lawsuit documents state. We own all the intellectual property rights and all the capabilities. If OpenAI disappears tomorrow, I really don't want any of our customers to worry because we have all the rights to continue innovating. It's not just about providing products, we can continue what we're doing in our collaboration. We have talent, we have computing power, we have data, we have everything.
The lawsuit states that the incidents are a clear violation of OpenAI's founding agreement and are essentially subverted. Although the company** still claims that its goal is to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity, in reality, OpenAI has become de factoClosed-source subsidiary of Microsoft
Under the new board of directors, OpenAI is not only developing AGI, but also refining the technology to maximize Microsoft's profits, not for the benefit of humanity. The company's technology, including GPT-4, is largely closed and primarily serves Microsoft's commercial interests.
Musk and OpenAI have a long history, almost as soon as OpenAI and Microsoft have a big move, Musk will sneer on social platforms, as soon as OpenAI's AI generation model Sora was released at the beginning of this year, Musk successively tweeted several times when OpenAI was first established, pointing out that OpenAI's non-profit nature has changed.
With the ChatGPT chatbot becoming famous, OpenAI has been on the cusp of the global technology industry, and its every move has attracted the attention of people from all walks of life, and the balance between AI security and the rapid development of technology has also become the focus of discussion.
It can also be seen from this lawsuit document that the reason for Musk's lawsuit is also concern about AI security, but whether there is a red eye behind OpenAI and Microsoft's gold-absorbing physique, we can't speculate.
Musk's lawsuit documents also mention some once-unknown details about OpenAI: Nu Skin's board members were hand-picked by Altman; Brockman was the first to propose a for-profit subsidiary, but Musk vetoed him; Helen Toner, a key OpenAI board member who was revealed to be Altaman's expulsion, was threatened with breach of fiduciary duty, even though the board had made it clear that there was no such risk.
However, Musk's lawsuit also mentions many mysteries that still haunt OpenAI, and this public lawsuit may force OpenAI to uncover the real answers behind the previous Altman power seizure drama and the mysterious Q project.
With the entanglement of "love and hate" between Musk and OpenAI, the dust may settle in the near future, looking forward to the follow-up development, moving a small bench and waiting to eat melons.