The palace battle drama in the technology circle: the power game between Musk, Ultraman and OpenAI

Source: Heart of the Metaverse

The AI ​​companies led by Musk and Ultraman (referring to xAI and OpenAI) have been in fierce competition, and the two sides have recently directly publicly attacked each other. However, this is only part of the truth.

A few years ago, the two co-founded OpenAI. Today, Altman leads OpenAI, and Musk left OpenAI, which later gave birth to ChatGPT, in 2018, created his own artificial intelligence company xAI, and recently launched its artificial intelligence chat robot Grok.

And now, Musk is suing Altman and OpenAI, saying they have betrayed the company's founding principles, which is to open source artificial intelligence technology and strive to become "AGI that benefits mankind." Non-profit organizations".

In fact, the complicated relationship between Musk and Altman has been going on for many years.

In 2015, Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, with Peter Thiel, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston and other Silicon Valley figures.

According to a December 11, 2015 statement on the OpenAI website, the organization aims to create a non-profit organization focused on developing artificial intelligence “in a manner most likely to benefit all of humanity.” .

At that time, Musk said that artificial intelligence was mankind's "biggest existential threat."

Another statement announcing the establishment of OpenAI read: "It is difficult to imagine how much benefit human-level artificial intelligence will bring to society. It is also difficult to imagine how artificial intelligence will be used if it is not developed or used properly. How much harm will intelligence bring to society?"

01. Musk resigned from the OpenAI board of directors in 2018

OpenAI said in a blog post at the time said, "As Tesla continues to focus more on artificial intelligence. This will eliminate potential conflicts for Musk in the future, adding that Musk will continue to provide guidance and donations."

A relevant person revealed , with Musk's departure, he also gave up his commitment to provide additional funding to OpenAI.

Altman said in an interview: "It was very difficult. I had to readjust my life and time to make sure we had enough funds."

According to reports, In 2023, Altman and the other co-founders of OpenAI rejected Musk's 2018 proposal to manage the company.

Semafor reported that Musk wants to run the company alone in an attempt to defeat Google. However, when his proposal to run the company was rejected,Musk immediately withdrew his funds and left the OpenAI board of directors.

In 2019, Musk shared some insights into his decision to leave, saying that one of the reasons was that he "disagreed" with the direction OpenAI was taking.

Musk wrote on Twitter: "I have to focus on solving a lot of engineering and manufacturing problems at Tesla and SpaceX."

"In addition, Tesla is also Competing for some of the same talent as OpenAI, and I don’t agree with some of the things the OpenAI team wants to do. All of this combined, it’s better for us to part ways amicably.”

02. Musk’s departure He later criticized OpenAI many times

Two years after leaving his job, Musk said in response to an article in MIT Technology Review: "OpenAI should be more open ."

This article reports that although OpenAI often claims to be committed to transparency, there is actually a "culture of secrecy."

Musk also added: “Confidence in Dario’s security is not high,” referring to Dario Amodei, who was leading OpenAI’s strategy at the time.

2022 In December, days after OpenAI released ChatGPT, Musk said the company had previously accessed the database of Twitter (now owned by Musk) to train an artificial intelligence chatbot, and that Musk was putting that work on hold.

Musk believes that OpenAI will be launched as an open source and non-profit, and it is necessary to further understand the future governance structure and revenue plan, but apparently neither of these has been realized. Meanwhile, Musk is furious about ChatGPT’s success.

In November 2022, ChatGPT soared to the sky and won the favor of millions of users. It can do everything from writing essays to writing basic code.

In February 2023, Musk doubled down on his denial, saying that the currently existing OpenAI is “not at all my original intention”.

“OpenAI was created as an open source (that’s why I named it ‘open’ AI), non-profit company to compete with Google,but now it became a closed-source, profit-maximizing companythat was effectively controlled by Microsoft. That was completely inconsistent with my original intention."

A month later, Musk reiterated this statement.

“I still don’t understand how a nonprofit to which I donated about $100 million became a $30 billion for-profit. If it’s legal, why doesn’t everyone do it? ?"

03. Musk turned his complaints into a lawsuit

He sued OpenAI, Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, < strong>says the direction the company has taken in recent years violates its founding principles.

His lawyer said that OpenAI "has become a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the world's largest technology company" and "is perfecting a general artificial intelligence (AGI) to maximize profits for Microsoft." , rather than benefiting mankind.”

OpenAI has not responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

04. Altman resolved some of Musk’s dissatisfaction with OpenAI

Altman said last year: “Let’s talk about Musk’s advantages. , I think he does care about a better future for artificial intelligence."

"I mean, Musk is an asshole, no matter what else you want to say about him. His style is not what I want, but I think he really cares, and he's very nervous about the future of humanity."

Regarding Musk's claim that OpenAI has become "a closed-source, profit-maximizing company that is actually controlled by Microsoft ", Altman also explained: "Most of the claims are not true, and I think Elon knows that."

Although Musk said on Twitter" In an obvious attack on OpenAI, Ultraman still calls Musk one of his heroes.

On Lex Fridman’s podcast in March 2023, Altman said: “Elon is obviously attacking us from a few different angles on Twitter right now.”

Despite this, he still calls Musk One of the heroes, adding: "I believe that Musk is really stressed about AGI safety, which is understandable. I learned some 'super valuable' lessons from him."

< p> According to "Fortune" magazine, during a speech at University College London in May, Altman was asked what he had learned from different mentors. He talked about Musk in his answer.

"Certainly, learning from Musk what is possible and that you don't have to accept that, like, hard R&D and hard technology is not something you can ignore, Very valuable."

Musk signed an open letter signed by more than 1,000 people, which called for a six-month moratorium on training advanced artificial intelligence systems.

The letter was also signed by a number of artificial intelligence experts. The letter mentioned concerns about the potential risks of artificial intelligence to humans.

The letter stated: "We should develop a powerful artificial intelligence system only if we are confident that it will have a positive impact and that its risks are controllable."

However, As The New Yorker recently reported, while Musk is publicly calling for a pause, he is quietly building his own artificial intelligence competitor, xAI.

Afterwards, Musk briefly unfollowed Altman on Twitter and then followed him again. In addition, Altman later mocked Musk for calling himself a "free speech absolutist."

Twitter recently banned users from retweeting or replying to tweets containing such links for posts linking to rival Substack, and then did the opposite. In response to a tweet about the situation, Altman sarcastically wrote: "It's the ultimate in absolute freedom of speech."

Altman joked that he would watch the rumored cage fight between Musk and Zuckerberg.

He He said at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in June this year: "If he and Zach really did this, I would watch it." However, he also said that he did not think he would challenge Musk in a hand-to-hand combat.

Altman also repeated several of his previous statements about Musk’s stance on artificial intelligence.

“He really cares about the safety of artificial intelligence, and we disagree on some things, but we both care about this issue, and he wants to make sure that we have The best chance of getting a good outcome."

Also, Altman recently told The New Yorker that Musk has taken a his own approach to broader issues.

"Musk desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he is the one who saves the world."