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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]

#171
post #122

This is good news. OpenAI's recent decision to dive into the secretive military contracting world makes a mockery of all its PR about alignment and safety. Using AI to develop targeted assassination lists based on ML algorithms (as was and is being done in Gaza) is obviously 'unsafe and unethical' use of the technology: https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20231212-un...

Note that the France24 story on Gaza is about an unrelated technology, there's no claim that OpenAI was involved.

If you have any links detailing the internal structure of the Israeli 'Gospel' AI system or information about how it was trained, that would be interesting reading. There doesn't seem to be much available on who built it for them, other than it was first used in 2021:

> "Israel has also been at the forefront of AI used in war—although the technology has also been blamed by some for contributing to the rising death toll in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, Israel used Hasbora (“The Gospel”), an AI program to identify targets, in Gaza for the first time. But there is a growing sense that the country is now using AI technology to excuse the killing of a large number of noncombatants while in pursuit of even low-ranking Hamas operatives."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/19/israels-military-techno...

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

#172

The defendant list is a bit bewildering. How usual is a corporate structure like this? Which, if any of these, is the nonprofit? OPENAI, INC., a corporation, OPENAI, L.P., a limited partnership, OPENAI, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI GP, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI OPCO, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI GLOBAL, LLC, a limited liability company, OAI CORPORATION, LLC, a limited liab…

The organization consists of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. (From Wikipedia)

A non-profit can have a for-profit subsidiary?

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

#173
This lawsuit makes me wonder how much Elon Musk had to do with Sam Altman's firing as CEO. The complaint specifically wants OpenAI to focus on its (allegedly promised) nonprofit activities, not the for-profit company.

If Elon had been involved--which the lawsuit seems to imply--I imagine he had to have something to do with Altman's ouster.

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

#174

Allowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important

Public trust non-profit should rightfully get damaged. A lot of non profits like hospitals, churches or many “charities” are totally profit oriented. The only difference is that they pay the profits to their executives and their business friends instead of shareholders.

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

#175

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?

He's a donor to the OpenAi non-profit organization.

Which is funny.

If you are shareholder of the non-profit, do you not get to share any of the fat gains by the profit side?

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Openai isn't even close to too big to fail. Bank of America fails the entire banking system collapses and the entire real economy grinds to a halt. If GM fails hundreds of thousands lose their jobs and entire supply chains collapse. If power utilities fail then people start actually dying within hours or days. If OpenAI fails nothing actually important happens.

you cannot erase that much value and say "nothing important happens", market cap is largely a rough proxy for the amount of disruption if something went under

"whose" money matters here. It's VC money, mostly. Well-capitalized sophisticated investors, not voters and pension funds.

If Microsoft loses 30 billion dollars, it ain't great, but they have more than that sitting in the bank. If Sequoia or Ycombinator goes bankrupt, it's not great for lots of startups, but they can probably find other investors if they have a worthwhile business. If Elon loses a billion dollars, nobody cares.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The organization consists of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. (From Wikipedia)

A non-profit can have a for-profit subsidiary?

Yes

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

#178

Wouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?

You can sue for many reasons. For example, when a party breaks a contract, the other party can sue to compel the contract to be performed as agreed.

Well Elon was forced to buy Twitter that way

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

#179
post #44

Allowing startups to begin as non-profits for tax benefits, only to 'flip' into profit-seeking ventures is a moral hazard, IMO. It risks damaging public trust in the non-profit sector as a whole. This lawsuit is important

I completely agree. AGI is an existential threat, but the real meat of this lawsuit is ensuring that you can't let founders have their cake and eat it like this. what's the point of a non-profit if they can simply pivot to making profit the second they have something of value? the answer is that there is none, besides dishonesty. it's quite sad that the American regulatory system is in such disrepair that we could ev…

Most people simply don't understand what non profit means. It doesn't and never meant the entity can't make money. It just means that it can't make money for the donors.

Even with open AI, there is a pretty strong argument that donors are not profiting. For example, Elon, one of the founders and main donors won't see a penny from OpenAI work with Microsoft.

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

#180

Wouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?

The statement of claims is full of damages. It claims that Musk donated 44 million dollars on the basis of specific claims made by the plaintiffs as well as the leasing of office space and some other contributions Musk made.
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