Is Musk v. OpenAI really beneficial to mankind?

Source: Metaverse Daily Explosion

Elon Musk has criticized OpenAI not once or twice, but this time he made a big deal and sued OpenAI to the San Francisco Superior Court in the United States.

On March 1, news showed that Musk accused OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of violating the agreement signed at the time of its establishment, which was to develop technology for the benefit of mankind rather than profit. The appeal is to ask the court to issue an injunction to prohibit OpenAI and Microsoft from profiting from the company's artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology.

Musk once again tore openAI’s “argument” into the risks of artificial intelligence, and once again threw “consideration of human welfare” into public opinion.

Would the leader of a business company consider the interests of mankind so much? When the public was confused, OpenAI updated its blog and stated that "we intend to take action to reject all of Elon's accusations." It also released emails between Musk and the founding members of OpenAI, proving that he had wanted to merge it with Tesla, or Holdings in OpenAI. There were differences between the two sides, and Elon Musk left OpenAI.

"Iron Man" sued the AI ​​giant and brought out the old "Game of Thrones" almanac, and behind the entanglement between the two parties is the future of AI competition.

01 Musk raises the banner of "human welfare" to sue OpenAI

"Microsoft" and "closed source" are key words in Musk's complaint , also became evidence for his accusation that OpenAI violated the original intention of "developing artificial intelligence technology for the welfare of all mankind rather than profit."

Musk claimed in the lawsuit that OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft in recent years has seriously deviated from the organization’s original intention of developing public open source AGI (general artificial intelligence), and OpenAI has transformed into the world’s largest technology company. A de facto closed source subsidiary of Microsoft.

Musk also cited evidence that compared with previous versions, GPT-4, released in March 2023, is still a closed-source model, but the purpose of closure is business considerations rather than human interests.

Whether GPT-4 has reached the threshold of AGI will be the key to this lawsuit. In addition to GPT-4, Musk also wrote in the complaint, "It is reported that OpenAI is currently developing a model called Q*, which is more likely to be AGI."

"Q*" was first mentioned in the "ousting" incident of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November last year.

On November 23, Reuters quoted sources as saying that four days before Altman was kicked out of the company, several researchers wrote to the board of directors warning about the existence of a powerful artificial intelligence system within OpenAI. An intelligent discovery that could threaten humanity. Subsequently, people familiar with the matter said that OpenAI admitted in an internal letter to employees that it has a project called Q*, which some people believe may be a breakthrough for the company to explore general artificial intelligence (AGI).

In this regard, Q* has been circulated in the industry as an "OpenAI secret project", and the outside world also regards it as the AGI technology being developed by OpenAI.

What’s more coincidental is that after Musk sued OpenAI, a 53-page PDF document about OpenAI’s “AGI to be implemented in 2027” was widely circulated on the Internet. This document also mentioned the mysterious Q*, saying that its next phase "was originally GPT-6 but has been renamed GPT-7" and that it was "originally planned to be released in 2026."

However, netizens discovered that this PDF, which exposed the technology giant at the right time, came from an X account registered in July 2023. The identity of the publisher @vancouver1717 is unknown. He has only posted twice tweets. Therefore, netizens who support OpenAI have doubts about the authenticity of this PDF.

The closed-source GPT-4, the mysterious Q*, and Microsoft, the largest investment profiteer, together constitute Musk’s evidence in court for accusing OpenAI of not considering human welfare.

Altman tweeted after Musk sued

After Musk sued, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted on "I am completely calm inside," which seems to reveal his calm attitude in dealing with this prosecution.

Perhaps, Sam and OpenAI are already used to Musk’s criticism.

Since the end of 2022, when OpenAI’s ChatGPT set off a storm of large natural language models around the world, Musk, a former founding member, has appeared extremely impatient. Not only has he repeatedly accused OpenAI of not being Open in public ( Open source) and ChatGPT are “unsafe”, and they also point the finger at Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor.

In April last year, Musk accused Microsoft of illegally using Twitter data for artificial intelligence training and said "now is the time to sue." After acquiring Twitter and renaming the social platform X, Musk made a series of adjustments to X's API to prevent other AI companies from calling the data. Smart Campaigns, a social media advertising management service owned by Microsoft, announced that it will no longer support X.

The feud between Musk and OpenAI started in 2015 and broke out after OpenAI became completely prosperous. Judging from the cause of action, this lawsuit is also a new settlement of old scores. But this time, OpenAI seems not to be silent.

02 OpenAI posted an email exposing Musk’s “selfishness”

On March 5, OpenAI updated its relationship with Elon Musk The official blog, in addition to reaffirming its mission to "ensure that AGI benefits all mankind," made it clear that "we intend to take action to reject all of Elon's accusations."

What’s even more incredible is that while describing the entanglements between Musk and OpenAI over the years, the blog also released emails between the two parties to prove Musk’s previous “calculation” for OpenAI – to merge with Tesla, otherwise Holdings in OpenAI.

In the external version of the founding of OpenAI, Musk, as the founder, planned to donate US$1 billion to OpenAI in 2015 to support the organization's development of artificial intelligence as a non-profit entity. After having donated US$100 million, There were "ideal differences" and Musk left. OpenAI later turned into a profit-making structure for some entities, and only then did Microsoft invest.

The blog updated by OpenAI on March 5 shows more details, which is different from the external version.

The blog post revealed that when it was a non-profit organization, OpenAI actually raised less than $45 million from Musk and more than $90 million from other donors. Moreover, at the end of 2015, when Greg and Sam founded OpenAI, the original plan to raise funds was only $100 million, but Musk proposed that "it needed a much larger number than $100 million." "I think we should say that we It will start with a $1 billion funding commitment...I will pay for what no one else is providing."

In early 2017, as the team discovered that building AGI would require a lot of computing power, OpenAI realized that it would take several One billion dollars in funding, far beyond what a non-profit organization can raise, has forced OpenAI startups including Musk to begin discussing a for-profit structure.

In the process, "Elon wanted us to merge with Tesla, otherwise he wanted to take full control of us." OpenAI said in a blog that in 2017, when it decided to create a for-profit entity, "Elon Long wanted to acquire a majority stake, initial control of the board of directors, and serve as CEO. During these discussions, he withheld funding." After that, the two sides were unable to agree on for-profit terms "because we felt that no one individual had absolute control over OpenAI. All rights violate the company's mission."

Musk once suggested that OpenAI rely on Tesla to obtain funds

After that, Musk suggested that OpenAI be merged into Tesla. "In early February 2018, Elon forwarded us an email suggesting that OpenAI should 'think of Tesla as its cash cow,' commenting, 'Exactly right... Tesla is the only path that has any hope of competing with A path to rival Google. 'Even so, the possibility of competing with Google is very small, but at least it is not zero."

But then, Musk chose to leave OpenAI, believing that its success rate was 0, He planned to build a company within Tesla to compete with AGI, and said when he left in late February 2018 that he would support the team in finding its own path to raising billions of dollars. But in December 2018, Musk sent an email saying, "Even raising hundreds of millions of dollars is not enough. This requires billions of dollars every year, otherwise forget it." The cooperation between the two parties completely failed.

As for the "closed source" issue that Musk alleged in the lawsuit, OpenAI stated in its blog that Musk knew that AGI was not in a hurry to open source. The blog released an email between OpenAI scientists Ilya and Musk, "As we get closer to building artificial intelligence, it makes sense to start being less open. Open artificial intelligence means that everyone should benefit from the results of artificial intelligence. , but it’s perfectly okay not to share science… Elon responded: ‘Yes.’”

OpenAI expressed regret at the end of the blog post, “This happened to someone we deeply admire — — He inspired us to pursue higher goals, then told us we would fail, created a competitor, and then sued us when we began making meaningful progress toward OpenAI’s mission without him."< /p>

03 Musk’s failure in artificial intelligence‍‍‍‍‍

< /strong>OpenAI’s blog post with an email screenshot explains Musk’s past “ambitions” for OpenAI, and also makes the “closed source” issue he accused untenable.

This "power game" that happened in the early days of OpenAI may be one of the reasons why Musk is so resentful of this artificial intelligence giant. When the time comes for the explosion of natural language models, Musk, who is determined to build Tesla into an intelligent robot company, must also face competition in the field of artificial intelligence after missing out on OpenAI.

After signing a joint letter last year to stop training higher-level GPT, Musk stated that he would develop a safe and human-friendly generative dialogue product, TruthGPT.

In November last year, Musk’s company xAI launched the chatbot product Grok, which directly competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Although Musk personally "advertises" Grok on social platforms, Grok's popularity has not been at the same level as ChatGPT in the past few years.

Comparison of Google search index between Grok and ChatGPT

Now, in the market of large artificial intelligence models, there are not only Google and OpenAI, but also Anthropic, the creator of Claude3. xAI needs to face The competition pressure is even greater.

Musk also intends to combine xAI with his existing business. On the xAI official website, the company clearly states that it will cooperate closely with X and Tesla. It should be noted that xAI, a company controlled by Musk, has no equity relationship with X or Tesla.

Tesla shareholders do not seem to be ready for the company’s positioning towards intelligent robots. Shareholders say Musk has no power to develop the automaker into a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics unless he owns at least 25% of Tesla's voting rights.

Musk’s road to pursuing artificial intelligence was not smooth sailing, and the “bullet” of anxiety was finally shot at himself in 2015.

According to CNBC, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon sent a memo to its current employees in response to Musk’s lawsuit, “We believe that the reason behind the lawsuit may be that Elon regrets not continuing. Be part of the company. It's extremely disappointing to see Elon take such action against a company he helped found, especially considering he has worked so closely with those of you who are still fighting for this mission."

However, Musk’s prosecution may have other effects. Regarding whether GPT-4 and its subsequent versions are open source or not, and more disclosures about Q*, well-known AI blogger Rowan Cheung believes that this lawsuit may help solve these mysteries.