Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

courthousenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

701–710 of 1001 posts

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#701

Post by JamisonM »

nojvek wrote: post #323

This is going to be an interesting trial. Elon has a good case that OpenAI has long diverged from his founding principles. Sam and his friends can side with Microsoft to build a ClosedAI system like Google/Deepmind and Apple. There is a place for open research. StabilityAI and Mistral seem to be carrying that torch. I don’t think SamA is the right leader for OpenAI.

Why do you think he has a good case?

To me OpenAI's response is simply, "It is our honestly held belief that given our available resources private partnership was the only viable way to ensure that we are in control of the most advanced AGI when it is developed. And it is our honest belief opening up what we are developing without a lot of log term due diligence would not be in the best interests of humanity and the best interests of humanity is the metric by which we decide how quickly to open source our progress."

To me you can't win a lawsuit like this that is essentially about a small difference in opinions about strategy, but I am not a lawyer.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#702

Post by lukan »

akerl_ wrote: post #676
reso wrote: post #657

It's clear that OpenAI has become something that it wasn't intended to be at it's founding. Maybe that change happened for good reasons, but the fact that there was a change is not in doubt.

Generally speaking, changing what your company does is just “pivoting”. It’s not clear to me why Elon would having standing for this suit, or why a company changing their direction would be actionable. This would be like suing Google for removing “Don’t be evil” from their mission statement.

There is a great difference between a for profit company "pivoting" - and a nonprofit changing direction of mission goals. Because a non profit accepts donation - and they are bound to the original mission. Also their profits usually are. Google never was a nonprofit, so adding and later removing their "don't be evil" was basically just PR (even though I do believe, that originally it was supposed to mean something, but not in a legally binding way).

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#703

Post by sjm »

alickz wrote: post #251
baking wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you mean Exhibit 2, the email from Sam to Elon.

From: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We h…

What is with these "ti", "ni", "fi" typos? Weird.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#704

Post by freedomben »

patcon wrote: post #598
nicce wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest, and this is certainly the reason OpenAI have previously given. Not really. It slows down like security over obscurity. It needs to be open that we know the real risks and we have the best information to combat it. Otherwise, someone who does the same in closed matter, has better chances to get advantage when misusing i…

When I try to port your logic over into nuclear capacity it doesn't hold very well. Nuclear capacity is constrained, and those constraining it attempt to do so for reasons public good (energy, warfare, peace). You could argue about effectiveness, but our failure to self-annihilate seems positive testament to the strategy. Transparency does not serve us when mitigating certain forms of danger. I'm trying to remain hum…

The lack of nukes isn't because of restriction of information. That lasted about as long as it took to leak the info to Soviets. It's far more complicated than that.

The US (and other nations) is not too friendly toward countries developing nukes. There are significant threats against them.

Also perspective is an interesting thing. Non-nuclear countries like Iran and (in the past) North Korea that get pushed around by western governments probably wouldn't agree that restriction is for the best. They would probably explain how nukes and the threat of destruction/MAD make people a lot more understanding, respectful, and restrained. Consider how Russia has been handled the past few years, compared to say Iraq.

(To be clear I'm not saying we should YOLO with nukes and other weapon information/technology, I'm just saying I think it's a lot more complicated an issue than it at first seems, and in the end it kind of comes down to who has the power, and who does not have the power, and the people without the power probably won't like it).

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#705

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

andy_ppp wrote: post #694
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #580

Any competent lawyer is going to get Musk on the stand reiterating his opinions about the danger of AI. If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest, and this is certainly the reason OpenAI have previously given. Not saying I agree that being closed source is in the public good, although one could certainly argue that accelerating the efforts of bad actors to catch…

Are you a lawyer or have some sort of credentials to be able to make that statement? I’m not sure if Elon Musk being hypocrite about AI safety would be relevant to the disputed terms of a contract.

I don't think it's about him being a hypocrite - just him undermining his own argument. It's a tough sell saying AI is unsafe but it's still in the public's best interest to open source it (and hence OpenAI is reneging on it's charter).

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#706

Post by mdasen »

akerl_ wrote: post #676
reso wrote: post #657

It's clear that OpenAI has become something that it wasn't intended to be at it's founding. Maybe that change happened for good reasons, but the fact that there was a change is not in doubt.

Generally speaking, changing what your company does is just “pivoting”. It’s not clear to me why Elon would having standing for this suit, or why a company changing their direction would be actionable. This would be like suing Google for removing “Don’t be evil” from their mission statement.

I think non-profits change the argument here a bit. With a for-profit company, what your company is doing is trying to make money. If you change that, investors have a right to sue. With a non-profit, what the company is doing is some public service mission. Why does Musk have standing? Potentially because he donated millions to OpenAI to further their non-profit mission.

I'm not saying that Musk has a good case. I haven't read the complaint.

Still, with a non-profit, you're donating to a certain cause. If I create "Save the Climate" as a non-profit and then pivot to creating educational videos on the necessity of fossil fuels, I think it'd be reasonable to sue since we aren't performing our mission. There's certainly some latitude that management and the board should enjoy in pivoting the mission, but it isn't completely free to do whatever it wants.

Even with a for-profit company, if management or the board pivot in a way that investors think would be disastrous for the company, there could be reason to sue. Google removing "don't be evil" is a meaningless change - it changes nothing. Google deciding that it was going to shut down all of its technology properties in favor of becoming a package delivery company would be a massive change and investors could sue that it wasn't the right direction for the company and that Google was ignoring their duty to shareholders.

Companies can change direction, but they also have duties. For-profit companies are entrusted with your investment toward a goal of earning money. Non-profit companies are entrusted with your donations toward a goal of some public good. If they're breaching their duty, a lawsuit is reasonable. I'm not saying OpenAI is breaching their duty, just that they aren't free to do anything they want.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#707

Post by pests »

speedylight wrote: post #683
amou234 wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk: actual billionaire Sam Altman: fake billionaire (most equity is tied to openAI) this should be a one sided battle

I thought Sam has no equity in OpenAI?

Only indirectly via his equity in YC, but it's tiny, AFAICT.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#708

Post by esafak »

chasd00 wrote: post #663
archagon wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shudder at a world where only corporations had nukes.

nuclear weapons is a ridiculous comparison and only furthers the gas lighting of society. At the barest of bare minimums, AI might, possibly, theoretically, perhaps pose a threat to established power structures (like any disruptive technology does). However, a nuclear weapon definitely destroys physical objects within its effective range. Relating the two is ridiculous.

A disembodied intelligent agent could still trigger or manipulate a person into triggering a weapon.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#709

Post by serf »

tw04 wrote: post #606
nicce wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest, and this is certainly the reason OpenAI have previously given. Not really. It slows down like security over obscurity. It needs to be open that we know the real risks and we have the best information to combat it. Otherwise, someone who does the same in closed matter, has better chances to get advantage when misusing i…

Just like nuclear weapons? The whole “security through obscurity doesn’t work” is absolute nonsense. It absolutely works and there are countless real world examples. What doesn’t work is relying on that as your ONLY security.

Security through obscurity isn't what is at play with nuclear weapons. It's a fabrication and chemistry nightmare at every single level; the effort and materials is what prevents these kind of things from happening -- the knowledge and research needed has been essentially available since the 50s-60s like others have said.

It's more like 'security through scarcity and trade control.'

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#710

Post by Andrex »

jp_nc wrote: post #17
rickdeckard wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's described here: https://openai.com/our-structure Quote: Fifth, the board determines when we've attained AGI. Again, by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology. > "Musk claims Microsoft's hold on Altman and the OpenAI board will kee…

If he thinks GPT-4 is AGI, Elon should ask a team of GPT-4 bots to design, build and launch his rockets and see how it goes. If “economically valuable work” means creating terrible, wordy blog posts then yeah I guess it’s a risk.

Pre and post-AGI might be a line, but AGI at inception will necessarily be less capable than the same AGI tech later in its life.
Post reply on HN