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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]

#771

Post by fireflash38 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #501
emodendroket wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "for the good of the world", and in cases where it's not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide." It's hard not to be a bit cynical about such an arrangement.

They all genuinely believe themselves to be benign gods over the rest of us. They drink their own KoolAid. At a certain point, influence breaks your brain. Hairless monkeys with a Dunbar number of 150 can't cope with that amount of control over others, so the brain tells itself stories about how everything bad is not it's fault and everything good is. Here's a hint: If you ever think "I can't trust anyone else with t…

It's always funny how true the Silicon Valley show turns out to be. Over, and over again.

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

#772

Post by rrdharan »

vineyardmike wrote: post #669
qwertox wrote: post #658

Whatever his reason may be (like resentment for jumping off the ship too soon and missing out, or standing in for humanity), I like what I read in the sense that it contains all the stuff that needs to be spoken about publicly, and the court seems to be the optimal place for this. It feels like Microsoft is misusing the partnership only to block other companies from having access to the IP. They said they don't need…

> Not seeing Mistral Large as an open source model now has a bitter taste to it. A company needs a product to sell. If they give away everything, they have nothing to sell. This was surely always the plan. (1) They can give away the model but sell an API - but they can’t serve a model as cheap as Goog/Msft/Amzn who have better unit economics on their cloud and better pricing on GPUs (plus custom inference chips). (2)…

> Unlike open source code, there probably isn’t a market for support and similar “upsells” yet.

_Like_ most open source code, there isn’t a market for support and upsells..

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

#773

Post by PepperdineG »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #202
AlbertCory wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that qualifies as "standing", but IANAL.

He was also a founding donor, so there is that. If I have a non-profit legally chartered save puppies, you give me a million dollars, then I buy myself cars and houses, I would expect you have some standing.

Disputing the activities under a Delaware charter would seem to fall under the jurisdiction of the Delaware Chancery Court, not the California court Musk went to. Delaware is specifically known for it being easy for non-profits to easily tweak their charters over time:

For example, it can mean that a founder’s vision for a private foundation may be modified after his or her death or incapacity despite all intentions to the contrary. We have seen situations where, upon a founder’s death, the charitable purpose of a foundation was changed in ways that were technically legal, but not in keeping with its original intent and perhaps would not have been possible in a state with more restrictive governance and oversight, or given more foresight and awareness at the time of organization.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/bu...

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

#774

Post by light_triad »

neom wrote: post #496

While researching OpenAI use of unique corporate governance and structures, I found these interesting resources: OpenAI’s Hybrid Governance: Overcoming AI Corporate Challenges. - https://aminiconant.com/openais-hybrid-governance-overcoming... Nonprofit Law Prof Blog | The OpenAI Corporate Structure - https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2024/01/the-open... AI is Testing the Limits of Corporate Governance (rese…

Great resources - thanks for sharing!

You can also access their 990 form: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810...

The critical issues for OpenAI is that structurally the cost of collecting data and training models is huge and makes the previous wave of software + physical business models (i.e. Uber, Airbnb, etc) look cheap to operate in comparison. That makes OAI more reliant on cloud providers for compute. Also their moat & network effect is dependent on a more indirect supply of user generated content. Perhaps there's an advantage of using IP to train on as a non profit as some of the articles above argue.

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

#775

Post by troyvit »

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…

> 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.

Then what should we do about all the open models that are closing in on OpenAI's capabilities?

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

#776

Post by [deleted] »

vineyardmike wrote: post #669
qwertox wrote: post #658

Whatever his reason may be (like resentment for jumping off the ship too soon and missing out, or standing in for humanity), I like what I read in the sense that it contains all the stuff that needs to be spoken about publicly, and the court seems to be the optimal place for this. It feels like Microsoft is misusing the partnership only to block other companies from having access to the IP. They said they don't need…

> Not seeing Mistral Large as an open source model now has a bitter taste to it. A company needs a product to sell. If they give away everything, they have nothing to sell. This was surely always the plan. (1) They can give away the model but sell an API - but they can’t serve a model as cheap as Goog/Msft/Amzn who have better unit economics on their cloud and better pricing on GPUs (plus custom inference chips). (2)…

[deleted]

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

#777

Post by starbugs »

awb wrote: post #753
starbugs wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the tech really is dangerous then being more closed arguably is in the public's best interest If that was true, then they shouldn't have started off like that to begin with. You can't have it both ways. Either you are pursuing your goal to be open (as the name implies) or the way you set yourself up was ill-suited all along.

The document says they will open source “when applicable”. If open sourcing wouldn’t benefit the public, then they aren’t obligated to do it. That gives a lot of leeway for honest or dishonest intent.

> The document says they will open source “when applicable”. If open sourcing wouldn’t benefit the public, then they aren’t obligated to do it.

From their charter: “resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable. The corporation is not organized for the private gain of any person"

I just thought it might be important to provide more context. See the other comments for a discussion on "when applicable". I think this misses the point here.

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

#778

Post by dartos »

DANmode wrote: post #557
dartos wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to truly make a ton of wealth is to break rules that others follow.

True. But, sometimes those "rules" aren't laws; they're norms, expectations, or personal human "limitations" (doing uncomfortable things to raise funds, secure the best people, connect with your customer better, etc). Just wanting to underline that not all of this rule-breaking has to be immoral, or even illegal.

In principle, yes, but I’d bet that to make a fortune (100s of billions of usd) you’d need to break some laws.

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

#779

Post by krick »

Aloisius wrote: post #719
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Musk's tens of millions in donations were in reliance on the charter and on statements made by sama, Brockman, etc., there's probably a standing argument there. Musk is very different than you or I -- he's a co-founder of the company and was very involved in its early work. I wouldn't guess that standing would be the issue they'd have trouble with (though I haven't read the complaint).

I don't see how being a former co-founder or a donor gives one standing for this. He has no ownership stake. He isn't a director or member of the organization. The thing he claims is a contract he's party to, isn't.

I have no idea if he has any standing or not, but from your reasoning it doesn't follow that he doesn't. If I put a box with a sign on a street "Donate to such and such charity to save dolphins", and you give me money only to later find out that I have nothing to do with that charity and your money will be spent on my new car, I scammed you, plain and simple, and you can sue me. Was this sign a contract with you? No. Do I become a stakeholder when I donate my money to charity? Obviously not. But it's a scam nevertheless. In fact, you don't even have to be a victim start litigation, but you can claim compensation if you were.

So, once again, I have absolutely zero idea if OpanAI can be held accountable for not following their charter or not, but if they do, anyone can raise a complaint, and since Musk did give them money to save dolphins or whatever, he may actually be considered the victim.

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

#780

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

gregwebs wrote: post #472

This suit claims breach of the "Founding Agreement". However, there is no actualy Founding Agreement, there are email communications claimed to be part of a "Founding Agreement". IANAL, but I would suspect that these emails don't matter for much now that there are Ariticles of Incorporation. Those articles are mentioned, but the "Founding Agreement" implied by emails is mentioned more. The suit also seems alarmist by…

The whole suit reads like amateur hour - sounds like some teenager whining about how he's been wronged. It reminds me of Hans Niemann's chess suit.
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