AI Pioneer Offers Backing to Elon Musk's Legal Battle Against OpenAI
A growing assortment of entities are banding together to challenge OpenAI's objective of transitioning into a completely profit-driven corporation.
In the beginning of the week, Encode, a progressive activist group focusing on youth issues in numerous nations, submitted an amicus brief in support of Elon Musk's ongoing lawsuit to halt OpenAI's corporate transformation. The filing gained the endorsement of Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned figure in the field, having received both the Nobel and Turing prizes, frequently referred to as AI's "godfather."
Hinton commented in a statement issued by Encode, alongside their brief, that "OpenAI was established as explicitly safety-focused non-profit, making various assurances regarding safety in its charter. It benefited from numerous tax advantages and other privileges due to its non-profit status. Allowing it to abandon these commitments whenever it's convenient sets a dreadful example for other entities in the field."
Hinton recently told the BBC that there's a "10 to 20 percent" likelihood that AI might lead to human extinction within the coming 3 decades. Previously, Hinton's estimation was at 10 percent.
OpenAI operates as a profit-driven company overseen by a non-profit board, which imposes certain constraints on its goals and capacity to secure investments and reward investors. The company announced its intent to convert into a more traditional profit-driven corporation last week, although the transition was widely anticipated and Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, submitted his federal lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to halt it in November.
Encode maintains that OpenAI's proposed shift from a non-profit to a Delaware public benefit corporation would undermine specific safety-related commitments made by the non-profit to the public. Most notably, the brief challenges whether a for-profit entity could fulfill OpenAI's pledge to "cease competing with and commence aiding" any value-aligned organization that seems close to building general artificial intelligence before it does.
"Today, a few companies are racing to develop and release transformative AI, monopolizing the profits while passing down the costs to all of humanity," Sneha Revanur, the president and founder of Encode, stated in a press release. "The courts must intervene to ensure that AI development serves the public interest."
For their part, OpenAI has asked the court to reject Musk's lawsuit, asserting he lacks standing and is aiming to gain an unjustified competitive advantage for his AI startup, xAI. OpenAI likewise unveiled a cache of emails and other messages from Musk, including several that the company claimed demonstrated Musk called for transforming the organization into a profit-driven entity as early as 2017.
The tech industry is witnessing a wave of entities questioning the shift towards profit-driven corporations, with artificial intelligence at the forefront. Geoffrey Hinton, a prominent figure in AI, expressed concern about OpenAI abandoning its safety-focused commitments, highlighting the potential dangers of artificial intelligence in shaping the future.
