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

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

#891

Post by paulddraper »

JamisonM wrote: post #814
stubish wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the problem is with having a for-profit wing. The problem is that only the for-profit wing got to use the technology developed by the non-profit, when the non-profit was explicitly tasked with releasing the technology to the public, allowing competition.

I would say you are using the words "explicitly tasked" when the articles of incorporation use the words "seek to" and "when applicable". (And also the "allowing competition" part I don't think is actually in the mix, is there a citation for that?) ""The Founding Agreement was also memorialized, among other places, in OpenAI, Inc.’s December 8, 2015 Certificate of Incorporation, which affirmed that its “resulting tec…

What would make it applicable?

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

#892

Post by paulddraper »

wyantb wrote: post #148
breadwinner wrote: post #28

In what capacity is Musk suing OpenAI? Musk may have co-founded the company, but then he left (to avoid any potential future conflict of interest with his role as CEO of Tesla, as Tesla was increasingly becoming an AI-intensive company). Is he a shareholder, if not what gives him any say in the future of the company?

Breach of contract seems to be the major one - from https://www.scribd.com/document/709742948/Musk-vs-OpenAI page 34 has the prayers for relief. B and C seem insane to me, I don't see how a court could decide that. On the other hand, compelling specific performance based on continual reaffirmations of the founding agreement (page 15)...seems viable at a glance. Musk is presumably a party to several relevant contracts…

> B and C seem insane to me, I don't see how a court could decide that.

If it's part of a legal document, they're certainly the ones to decide that (relying on precedent, expert testimony, logical reasoning, etc.)

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

#893

Post by paulddraper »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #525

Microsoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019, which is when they changed their corporate structure. It's now 2024. If Musk had some ideological issue with OpenAI's new corporate structure then why didn't he sue right away?

Maybe he was busy

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

#894

Post by josephg »

gamblor956 wrote: post #873
ethbr1 wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "when applicable" is ambiguous, but IANAL. Does it become applicable to open source when "The resulting technology will benefit the public"? That seems the clearest read. If so, OpenAI would have to argue that open sourcing their models wouldn't benefit the public, which... seems difficult. They'd essentially have to argue that the public paying OpenAI to use an OpenAI-controlled model is more beneficial. Or does…

The "when applicable" is like the preamble to the Constitution. It may be useful for interpreting the rest of the Articles of Incorporation but does not itself have any legal value. After all, the AOI doesn't specify who determines "when applicable," or how "when applicable" is determined, or even when "when applicable" is determined. Without any of those, "when applicable" is a functionally meaningless phrase, inten…

Eh. Given their recent behaviour, they seem to be indistinguishable from a for-profit company with trade secret technology.

That doesn’t seem aligned with their articles of incorporation at all. If “when applicable” is wide enough to drive a profit-maximising bus through, they’re not a not-for-profit. And in that case, why bother with the AOI?

The articles of incorporation aren’t a contract. I don’t know enough law to be able to guess how it’ll be interpreted in court, but intuitively Elon seems to have a point. If you want to take the AOI seriously, Sam Altman’s OpenAI doesn’t pass the pub test.

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

#895

Post by TaylorAlexander »

paulddraper wrote: post #882
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intention is an interesting word. I wonder how many of the founders quietly hoped it would make them a lot of money. Though to be fair, I do believe that hope would have been tied to the expectation that they meet their stated goals of developing some form of AGI.

Well of course they'll make a lot of money. For some definition of "a lot."

Maybe. It's certainly possible to create great good and not become wealthy. But lets say it is a reasonable assumption. The question comes what they would do if they became impatient, or greedy.

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

#896

Post by xcv123 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #876
xcv123 wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you come to this idiotic conclusion after reading the article? Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI as a non-profit organization in 2015 and provided the majority of funding until 2020. It wouldn't exist without his funding. Sam Altman lied and now GPT-4 is closed source and is controlled by Microsoft. How does that benefit humanity? OpenAI was meant to be open, sharing their research with all of humanity. Sam Altman i…

Companies can change from the outset. if they didnt become closed source they couldn't have gotten funding to get the GPU hours needed for GPT-4 or the best talent. If Elon cared about humanity he would open source Grok and Optimus. in fact he only left OpenAI because he wanted to take over to integrate it into Tesla but failed.

It is a non-profit organization, not a company. No, legally they cannot just do that. Blatantly illegal. Hence the lawsuit.

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

#897

Post by [deleted] »

justanotherjoe wrote: post #883
xcv123 wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you come to this idiotic conclusion after reading the article? Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI as a non-profit organization in 2015 and provided the majority of funding until 2020. It wouldn't exist without his funding. Sam Altman lied and now GPT-4 is closed source and is controlled by Microsoft. How does that benefit humanity? OpenAI was meant to be open, sharing their research with all of humanity. Sam Altman i…

not an idiotic take but an obvious one. Musk is an ego driven individual and its clear he got his ego tangled up with sam if you see him talk about it lately. He makes points like 'im the reason openai exists' or 'openai is my biggest mistake'. Launching xai. This with his severe messiah complex.

[deleted]

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

#898

Post by rafram »

paulddraper wrote: post #889
anotherhue wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A powerful technology is a danger to society if only a few people possess it. By giving it to everyone, you even the playing field. Except nukes. Only allies can have nukes.

Russia has nukes, China has nukes, Pakistan has nukes.... And yet, no countries with nukes have ever gone to war with each other.

India and Pakistan fight skirmishes along their contested border all the time. (And re your first line, Pakistan is a US ally, at least in theory.)

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

#899

Post by bmitc »

richardw wrote: post #840
stubish wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of the discussion here is about being a non-profit, but per your quote I think the key is open source. Here we have people investing in an open source company, and the company never opened their source. Rather than open source technology everyone could profit from, they kept everything closed and sold exclusive access. I think it is going to be hard for OpenAI to defend their behavior, and a huge amount of da…

I might be too generous, but my interpretation is that the ground changed so fast that they needed to shift to continue the mission given the new reality. After ChatGPT, every for-profit and its dog is going hard. Talent can join the only Mother Teresa in the middle, or compete with them as they stupidly open all the source the second they discover anything. You can’t compete with the biggest labs in the world who ha…

All of this was intentional. The goal the whole time was to eventually pull the rug out from the non-profit. This should be considered fraud.

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

#900

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

swozey wrote: post #257
sensanaty wrote: post #244

I don't even particularly like Musk, but I definitely despise M$ and their comic-book tier villanous shenanigans even more. Here's to hoping M$ gets fucked in this.

The mental gymnastics that some tech bro has to go through to like Musk over Microsoft to the point that they still use the 2001 meme of "M$FT" is hilarious. I know just about everything I could ever need to know about both companies and I have tons, tons of friends who absolutely love and have been at "M$FT" for 5-20 years. I don't know a single person who likes working at Tesla or SpaceX and I used to live in Austi…

Is it okay with you if I dislike both Microsoft and Musk?

I don't care if MS employees are the happiest people on the planet. That has nothing to do with why I hate Microsoft. I also don't care too much about some slight 15 years ago. What I hate is the damage they've done and continue to do to software freedom and computing literacy, and the way they continually try to seek monopolies using underhanded tactics.

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